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16 image version: May 9 2011

Studying the application of the metaphor the primary objective of thisseminar is to enhance AIA member’s practical day-to-day work to themore ideal aspects of architecture and architectural design. Thisseminar will provide members the opportunity to discuss architecturalideas and their meanings.

“Architecture: the making of metaphors” have four learning objectives:

1. Review the background and applicability of metaphors andbuilding design

2. Review the interactive process of the common metaphor to thesovereign and non-publically interactive metaphor

3. Understand how the architectural metaphor works in buildingdesign and use.

4. Learn how metaphor of planes, scale, form, and buildingcomponents improves design, reading, using and enjoyingarchitectural design.

Barie Fez-Barringten is both an architectural practitioner,theorist,researcher, environmentalist, urbanist, artist, educator, inventor; authorpracticed archttecture in the USA, Saudi Arabia; Qatar; Puerto Rico; andBelize. As Associate Professor he has taught at Texas A&M University,King Faisal and Global Universities, University of Petroleum and Minerals,University of Houston, and Pratt Institute “An architectural history ofmetaphors” has recently been published by Springer.

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“Architecture: the making of metaphors”Barie Fez-BarringtenSeminar outlineIt is well known that role playing, game theory, pretending, creativeperception, invention and discovery are ways to not only solve problems butby thinking outside of the box and expanding limits one can better onesdesign skills. But how can we apply this to our work. To simply claim thatarchitecture is an art because it too makes metaphors is not enough it musttranslate into application.1.) Background:

How did this all start?1.1 During the series of lectures on art at Yale University,

Irving Kriesberg had spoken about the characteristics ofpainting as a metaphor. Because I had already been interested inmetaphors and so many claimed that architecture was an art itseemed at once that this observation was applicable toarchitecture and to the design of occupiable forms.Vincente Scully introduced me to the metaphysical philosopherPaul Weiss who suggested that we turn to English language andliterature in order to develop a comprehensive, specific, andtherefore usable definition of metaphor.

1.2 The first lectures "Architecture: the Making of Metaphors" wereorganized and conducted near the Art and Architecture

building at the Museum of Fine Arts Yale University inNovember and December of 1967. The guest speakers were:Paul Weiss, William J. Gordon (Synectics; The metaphoricalWay of knowing)) , Christopher Tunnard, Vincent Scully,Turan Onat, Kent Bloomer, Peter Millard, Robert Venturi(learning from Las Vegas previewed) , Charles Moore, ForrestWilson, and John Cage. Since then my forty four years ofresearch has been published in many national and internationallearned journals. In addition to applying it to my architecturalpractice I have also applied the results of my research in theclassroom at Pratt, Texas A&M, King Faisal University, OhioUniversity, University of Houston, University of Petroleum andMinerals and Global University.

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Metagram: 1971 NYC2.0 So what is a metaphor?

2.1 Metaphor is a literary term which means "carrying-over"and synonym is the word “transfer”.2.2 It associates meanings, emotions, things, times and places

which otherwise would not have been related.2.3 It is a two-way process where the metaphor points beyond each

of its members to the reality they diversely express, articulating acharacteristic common to both, telling us that they both have anintrinsic nature: such as “Richard the Lion-hearted”

2.4 The metaphor points beyond each of its members to the realitythen diversity express, articulating a power common to both,telling us that they both have an intrinsic nature.

2.5 If there is not initial separation between the two elements, there isno metaphor. The metaphor involves the intrusion not ofneighbors but of aliens. It brings together what seems to beradically different in nature. This is the heart and secret of greatart, and of great architecture.

2.6 It is an organic whole, wherein each element with the workexplains the existence and meaning of the others.

2.7 Metaphor is a catalyst which fuses memories, experiences

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and other modes of existence; it embodies within its owndistinctiveness certain universal symbols and concepts common tomankind.

2.8 Metaphorically things, times and places known to have apreferential, specific or localized use in one context areexplicitly employed in another. One familiar and one strangeterm are usually composed into a single form where one termnormally used in one context is brought over into another withthe object of illuminating; making more evident something inthe second domain which otherwise remains obscure.

Mertaphor diagram from “Gibe”Questions/comments?

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Piaza San Marco, Venice

3.0 Let us continue with some examples.3.1 In the case of certain building types the original prototype or

model may illuminate the proposed and the proposed theoriginal model. For any one work we can seek the work’ssimilarities and differences and find the characteristics commonto both. Each work talks about one thing in terms of anotherwith parts that are both opposite and equal.

Turkish fort in Tarout Island in Arabain Gulf3.2 What may be true at one level may not be true at another; yet there

may be similarities at one level to an element at another level.Levels may interact. In other words, apparent differences andapparent similarities may in- fact transfer but on differentlevels.

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3.3 It always has commonplace where elements havenon-apparent commonality.

Beleize House drainage culvert forms3.4 There are choices and selections of materials, systems and

structures that can be fitted together. Each is apparentlyunrelated, dissonant and incompatible until each is adapted toharmonies, fit and contribute.

3.5 An architectural work is an organic unity in which each part is notmerely in juxtaposition, grouped with other parts, but in whichall parts closely affect one another.

3.6 Strictly speaking, a metaphor involves the carrying over ofmaterial ordinarily employed in a rather well-defined context

into a wholly different situation.

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Simpson Street Elevated train station Bronx3.7 The metaphor is a bridge and bridges.

Sludge to metphane gas for power on Ruhr3.8 Architecture combines technologies with one another and with

common sense, while accommodating the peculiarities of itsusers, and because the thought which organically scales thefacility can make clear, through the resulting work, theoperations, goals, and ideal characteristics of the user’s system.

3.9 The architectural work is a synthesis of space and the descriptionof that space; the work organically sustains itself as a whole as

well as in it parts.

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3.10 It connects the present with the past and the future; it achievesinteraction between interior and environmental space in ways

that yield new meaning and experience.3.11 It mediates change of occupancy, use and outside pressures; it

brings together components which heretofore havecharacterized other uses, operations and goals; it expresses thephysical, social, intellectual and spiritual requirements ofhuman beings.

Questions/comments?

4.0 There are cultural, social,political and soverign metaphors What dothey all have in common?

4.1 Consider a process which is to the mutual benefit of both creator anduser. Music is a good place to start.

Dammam concert

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4.1.1 Musicians and an audience to a performance share commonoperations. They participate in a kind of reproduction

(mimesis) which reveals the original composition.4.1.2 Both the strange and the familiar can be read. Users, musicians

and audiences do not imitate the composer's specific action butrather his creative process. Architectural works which usespace, planes, materials to elicit users feelings, direct andprovide resources. As the musicians written composition thedesign for a work of architecture may be fixed in time but isonly part of the conception.

5.0 To clarify how this works let us ask how the same metaphor isdifferently experienced by both designer and user.

5.1 It is the user who will ultimately perceive and experience thepersonalized ideas of the designer. Habitable, structural, volumetric,

useable metaphors, like music are composed, assembled, andconjured. Metaphors are reified and created by technique fromexperiences with the elements of the metaphor. The designer hasexperienced the metamorphosis of the elements.

5.2 The designer has "seen" the commonalities, the differences and theessence common to both. In any case the building is a variable in the

experience of the metaphor and depending on the designer’s choices,decisions, confidence, discipline, conditioning, skill, commitment andlanguage skills will the designer participate. But the designer is part ofthe metaphor.

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Sheba Land a faled city on the Euphrates

6.0 What role does the context play?6.1 While actual works is always in a context a study may or may not

include that context. Contexts may be at several levels in scope associal, cultural, location, immediate, neighborhood, landscape, lot,etc. Excluding the context (later we will look at the SovereignMetaphor) may allow the warrant to look deeper into the innerworkings of the metaphor’s intrinsic commonalities and differencesand the way they transfer into a form.

7.0 Potentially how many different metaphors are there in any givenwork of architecture?

7.1 Architecture is not only the making of metaphors and is a metaphorbut architecture is a symphony of dominant, subdominant and tertiarymetaphors. Each differently conceived and perceived by differentplayers, creators, users, buyers, owners, etc. There is the overallbuilding, its different systems and subsystems and its variouselements.

Questions/Comments?

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8.0 What are the unseen sovereign and non-publically interactivemetaphors?

8.1 The sovereign metaphor is distinct from its creator, programs, processand exists as something in its own right. It is composed of supportive,

subordinate, unseen elements, not perceived and often unknown tousers. Yet, the essence of the creative process and its product is that itencapsulates not only its own inherent qualities but those which havetheir origins elsewhere (other uses, lives, contexts, metaphors,symbolism plus distant and near-source contexts).

8.2 Often the metaphor of the sovereign metaphor deals withcommonplaces pertinent to its social, historical and cultural context

but is not the qualities of the sovereign metaphor. The sovereignmetaphor exists on another level of designed and integrated elements.

9.0 So how does the sovereign metaphor work?9.1 Since each constructed element has a metaphor between it and its

referent (object), this particular metaphor ignores this relationshipand is only concerned with how selected elements work with otherswhere such orphans or isolates are in the mix of the extant (existing)metaphor.

10. 0 What are these elements?10.1They are narcissistic and introverted because they center on an

internal unspoken, but seemingly telepathic dialogue - in the processof which - its parts undergo a sort of physical and biological osmosis.These relationships, which are read in physics, mathematics andscience, underpin the properties and strength of materials plus theengineering and aesthetics of any given project.

10.2 These relationships inform the manner in which the parts support,attach, migrate, bond, flex and bend to accommodate one another. Soin essence they form a synthesis, which begins with the practicalitiesand the aesthetics of proportion, scale, color, texture - and culminatein the end product – the building.

10.3 After assembly, creation and manufacture, the whole or parts of abuilding may never be perceived, seen, or understood by a third party.It can be, but even without being perceived it is still a metaphor.That is why it is sovereign

Questions/comments?

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11.0 How does the sovereign metaphor work?11.1 A train ticket takes you on a journey. The process of travel is not

merely a physical thing. It involves both the idea of the actitself, the process of the act and the act itself. It also involvesleaving one mode for another, both in a physical andmetaphorical sense. The process is one of being transferred butnot transformed. In a similar way, one can say that thearchitectural metaphor does not transform its elements butplaces them in a system of relationships where they carry overtheir own unique qualities, properties, characteristics andfunctions.

Soverign detail SUNY in Albany12.0 How does the transfer work?

12.1 Direct transfer is also the way weight is conveyed from oneobject to another by gravity, force and juxtaposition. Transferworks in the metaphor by acting on other referents passing aproperty such as power from one to the other. The quality isconveyed without necessarily losing the originators or composure.An attribute is conveyed from one to another, yet that sameattribute still remains part of the original despite being shared. It’sa matter of positioning. Side by side the weight of one will notexert on the other until it is attached or placed above the other.As in a literary metaphor, the positioning of words and phrasesmatters in that their transferability and importance are dependenton one or another referent. Now both weigh, illuminate, radiate,etc. The element may not be structural but an accommodation ofan operation or performance of a goal, where the commonplacedraws the referents into affecting one another.

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13.0 What are examples of transfers?13.1 Manufacturing and construction all rely on the ability of unlike,

disparate and different elements to transfer and work together.In a habitable metaphor transfers are encouraged, discouragedand prevented; prevented as in the case of moisture protectionand the application of paint, stucco, masonry, etc. Metaphorsmay, of course, be positive or negative. Similarly, transfers maybe desirable or harmful, but they are always present in theelements of a work.

13.2 The horizontal flange of the WF (wide flange) beam and thehorizontal surface of the slab, transfer their loads so that theslab bears on the flange while the beam supports the slab.Richard is the first referent and the lion the second. In thestructure, the slab is the first and the beam is second.

13.3 There is osmosis as the literary metaphor Richard theLionhearted, Richard and the lion still remain “lionhearted”

although by sharing the same context, they interact. They arepresumed to have a commonplace and this presumption is thevery inertia that defines their commonality.

14.0 What is the purpose of commonality in a building metaphor?14.1 Commonplace or commonality is the characteristic property

shared by elements. These characteristics are usually unseen butknown in either of the elements but not in both and whenjuxtaposed the elements highlight the commonality.

Questions/Comments?

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15.0 What are the dominant elements of the three dimensionalmetaphor?

Planes in Space: Falling Waters:FLW

15.1 They are planes, volumes, forms, space and scale15.1.1 When constructed planes, volumes, forms, space and scale

have peculiar relationships. Planes limit and bound space.The metaphor of the plane is that were a plane habitable itwould be a space and were space limiting it would a plane.By their juxtaposition they manifest characteristics they bothhave in common and some that are different. Each maintainsits own property of plane and space just as Richard (Richardthe lion-hearted) maintains his humanity and the lion itsnature. Each points to a property beyond its own inherentcharacteristics. They are both the properties that make avolume; a volume in any scale or proportion.

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15.1.2 The property that is common to all the planes is the space orsub-spaces which the planes themselves limit. The planesdefine, float and/or define space. The space is the realityall planes have in common. The volume of the spacesvaries by the way the planes are arranged. Planes thatlimit and planes within the space modulate and formrelationships. Similarly, the facades or colonnades thatsurround a square, plaza or atrium define the void andmake it what it is – ergo, part of the whole.

15.2 The planes that define the construction may differ from oneanother as each must be the commonality or differencebetween its adjacent space, sub-space and context. It mayalso be affected by the inhabitant’s use of volume andspace and itself be the characteristic common to both. Assuch, its faces may be differently colored, constructed orsupported thus forming a bridge for its referents(inhabitants and volumes). As this element becomes asub-metaphor, so it is with each other plane, volume,space and sub-space. Each links to an adjacent or relatedelement and in so doing makes a metaphor. It’s like thedo-se-do movement in square dancing in which twodancers approach each other and circle back to back, thenreturn to their original positions where one partner isexchanged for another. There is a domino effect amongthe circle of dancers and likewise in construction, whereeach element bridges and affects the other.

15.3 The commonplace of planes in space is their tensionalasymmetrical or symmetrical relationships which give themequipoise; equipoise that could fix them in space was it notfor gravity or the laws of physics. Hence they need somestructure in the form of tensional wires, or skeletal gravitysupports such as columns, beams and slabs. Yet equipoise isthe commonplace beyond their own sizes, weights andcomposition, which composes their form and allows themto transfer their properties.

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15.4 A corridor enclosed by walls implies adjacent rooms, abeginning and end to the corridor - and in the case of a multistory building - connecting stairs and elevators serve asambulatories (transfers and connections). The space limited byhorizontal and vertical planes in the context of a school carriesover into adjacent spaces. Bound and limited spacescharacterized by a matrix of connected spaces of varying orequal volumes collectively form a beehive-like metaphor orinterrelated and connected “cells”.Multiple horizontal planes forming building floors whenstacked become a “high-rise” whereas adjacent vertical planesseparated by volumes can become a shopping center.

15.5 Scale is the proportion of the planes, space and volume of onesub-space to the whole construction. The planes, spaces, sub-

space(s), volume and scale have commonalities and differencesbetween them. They all point to a reality beyond theirindividual and common nature to their external context andpotential occupant(s); occupants whose culture and behaviormay vary. The relationship between occupants and context isexplored in the properties afforded by scale, volume and plane.The scale and elements of St. Peters, Rome, drafts its structureand decorative elements to a scale beyond any single inhabitantand always suggests accommodating much larger sizedinhabitants or crowds. Scale, volume and size are thecommonplace demanding references to something beyond anysingle space or detail.

Questions/Comments

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Shapes and forms

16.0 How do designers collaborate to form metaphors?16.1 No construction is devoid of the human decision-making process.

Both art and architecture Peculiarize personalize andauthenticate for their metaphor to live. This way the usermetaphorizes the using process and the user and workempathize. In this is the art of making metaphors for thearchitect of public works. His metaphor must “read” thecultural, social and rightness of the metaphor’s proposedcontext. An excellent example of this the Paul Rudolph’s Art &Architecture building at Yale University, though initially anarchitectonic of planes and shapes, it soon becomes conditionedby building codes, operations, ideals and complex goals. Theasymmetric tensional relationships of planes and solids areshifted from their primary positions to allow for clearances andaccess.

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Tent in the desertCan you think of others?

17.0 How are metaphors conditioned?17.1 Planes, spaces, volumes and scale carry-over, transfer and refer

to preceding conditions, operations, ideals and goals.Architecture is not made in a void and is impacted by history. AHabitable metaphor is conditioned by building codes, zoningordinances, site and local statutes, FEMA regulations, structuralsystems, utilities, heating ventilation and cooling systems, siteand site conditions, contexts, and building materials.Metaphor is conditioned also by operations such as identifiedfunctions, areas, sizes, human and vehicular access, traffic,circulation, and adjacencies.

17.2 Metaphor is also symbolized by standards, class, quality level,relationship to context and like uses and final metaphor is

established by its goal to accommodate what purpose, for howmany people in what context and what period of time.Disregarding conditions of regulation, structure, circulation,numbers of people and quality class will transfer and seek acommonality; usually of building type in or outside of itscontext.

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Architectonic geometry scale illusion

18.0 So what is the purpose of the architectural metaphor?18.1 Both art and architecture metaphor-building clarify our place,

status and value. As metaphor is the main mechanism throughwhich we comprehend abstract concepts and perform abstractreasoning; so works of architecture inform our social,psychological and political condition

18.2 What is built is first thought and conceived separately frombuilding, as thinking and conceiving are separate from outwardexpression. (As we think before we speak, we design before webuild.)

18.3 Architectural metaphor - like its linguistic/cognitive associate –is a process and what we see is the issue of that process and notthe manifest metaphor. For example, when we hear asymphony, poem; watch a dance or see a painting we perceivethe whole – the synthesis of the creative process. What wedon’t see quite so readily is the component parts, the structure,the context, the aesthetics and the story etc.

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Doha under construction

19.0 Conclusion: As users and designers we should strive to enjoy themetaphor.

19.1 Metaphor is a very practical and pragmatic matter. Habitabletransfer mechanisms are in our midst, everywhere and

demanding our attention. Look at them knowing they too have alife of their own - it is incumbent on us to find a way to relate,understand and enjoy their presence.

Questions/Comments