Concrete Thoughts

Architects must be really free, considering how much time they seem to devote to reading widely. Consider this debate (after the lecture). Perhaps it is the relic of a liberal arts education, or else built on that foundation. Possibly a soi-disant autodidactic Renaissance man could accumulate a comparable amount of knowledge, though shaped by individual preference which may prove inadequate in some areas during public discourse. Or do such intellectuals only seem unfathomably erudite because of our paucity of knowledge in those areas? After all, a study showed that participants who asked questions of their own specialty to outsiders were later appraised as being more knowledgeable by those outsiders.

On a side note, this reminds me how much I want to visit MAXXI. I'm still sceptical about parametricism as the future of architecture though; as interpreted thus far, its aesthetics are not natural nor immediate enough, at least to the untrained eye of the present public.

If aesthetics change via catastrophes or revolutions, as Schumacher contends, what precipitates these? Are these all tipping point events? In the case of architecture, the buildings themselves broadcast memes, which are picked up at a rate dependent on visibility and status. Innovators among architects may spread this by adopting those aesthetics in the design, and innovators among the public may improve visibility by shunting human traffic towards these constructed spaces. Buildings warp both physical and social space in a way that is also dependent on its aesthetic appeal, so a runaway chain reaction changes our aesthetics up to a certain point. However, aesthetic rejection by the public is minimal; you would go to work in a building even if you find it ugly.

Are such intellectuals rare, or are all who rise to the top of their respective diverse fields necessarily intelligent, erudite, polymathic and creative? What are their incipient forms like? Do I already know such youths, who have not yet had the requisite time to learn so much, or are their numbers too few, rendering any encounters unlikely? Do they hang out among the cocktail party philosophers, or do they only gravitate towards one another? And do they actually speak academese in daily life?

The life of an academic is truly seductive. But I cannot be the kind of academic I desire to be – I am a man a century before my time, when the maturation of the science of mind and brain allows its extension to every field of art and life and hence dictates the praxis of human life. As Alexander Pope wrote, the proper study of Mankind is Man. I identify with Aristotle when he argues for phronesis. The purpose of sophia should be to inform and facilitate phronesis, though sophia is one heck of a guilty pleasure, as milennia of Greeks, Germans and Frenchmen can attest. However, phronesis is ideally intuitive and founded on experience, with no recourse to sophia. How do we reconcile this with the seeming importance of sophia?

Of course, phronesis in and of itself cannot change the world, since it is impractical for people to gain certain types of experience. He who commits himself to the pursuit of sophia can aim at something higher – not just changing himself, but remaking the world. After all, if you have the ability to do so, then phronesis (as well as noblesse oblige) dictates that you should. And for the Übermensch armed with both? Orbis non sufficit.