Architectural Colossi and the Human Body

Buildings and Metaphors

Charalampos Politakis

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367207922
• eBook ISBN: 9781315512914
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The human body has been used as both a model and metaphor in architecture since antiquity. This book explores how it has been an inspiration for the exterior form of architectural colossi through the years. It considers the body as a source of architectural and artistic representation and in doing so explores the results of such practices in colossal sculptures and architectural praxis within a philosophical discourse of space, time and media.

Architectural Colossi and the Human Body discusses the role of Platonic and Cartesian philosophy and how philosophers such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and theoreticians such as Frascari and Pallasmaa, have seen, described and analysed the human body and the role of architecture and perception. Drawing upon three key case studies and by employing theoretical ideas of Venturi and others, this book will provide an understanding of the role of anthromorphism and the relation and use of the human body with reference to selected architects and artists.

p.1

1 Towards a first syllogism

The chapter’s aim is to provide an overview of the background on the relation of the human body and architectural structures as it was approached in western architecture; especially how the human body has been the inspiration for the exterior shape of buildings and how it was used as a building itself. Another important aim of this overview is to approach and problematise on the relation of the human body and architectural structures and the constant appearance/persistence of this relation, through different philosophies, theories, practices and thinking, that frame the hypothesis of this book, the human body as a building. The author will refer to historical examples by architects that embedded in their work the human body as a whole or parts of the human body; the review also consists of philosophical and architectural theories based on anthropomorphism, mimesis, metaphors and phenomenological approaches in architecture. The objective of this overview is to identify the historical continuum-precedents on the relation of the human body and architecture that led the author to construct a first syllogism regarding anthropomorphism in architecture. The review starts with a discussion on imitation and architecture in regards to philosophy; in this section the work of a number of philosophers and theorists will be discussed beginning with Plato and the philosophy of Descartes followed by examples of phenomenological thinking. The following subchapter discusses the problem of anthropomorphism and the literature related to anthropomorphism and anthropomorphism in architecture with an approach on metaphors and architectural practice.

p.2

Human bodies everywhere in the human world

In the book of Timaeus, Plato describes the human body in a cartographical approach with an extended use of metaphors as a result of the observation of nature, a metaphysical approach in order to be given an explanation of the cosmos. Plato’s description of the human body locates features such as the head, the senses, the liver, the bones etc.; an important feature in his doctrine is the description of the human head. Plato describes it as the most important feature of the human body, the divine part of us, which imitates the spherical shape of the universe and has a back and a front side. This partly metaphysical explanation and description of the human body gives also the basic philosophical hypothesis of Plato that the body is the medium of the soul; the body therefore is created in such a way in order to satisfy the prospects of the soul (Broadie, 2001:305). An interesting element in Timaeus, is, for example, the description of the peptic system and the inspiration and expiration process; his descriptions are always given with a metaphoric paradigm based on the observation of the functions of nature. Specifically, as far as the inspiration and expiration process, Plato mentions that,

To this process he who appointed names gave, we say, the titles of inspiration and expiration: and from this condition, both active and passive, it has come about that our body, deriving moisture and coolness, has its sustenance and life. For when, as the respiration passes in and out, the interwoven fire within follows it and entering the belly swings up and down and meets the food and drink, it dissolves them, and reducing them to small particles, drives them along the channels through which it flows, pumping them into conduits, and it makes the current of the veins flow through the body as through an aqueduct.

(Plato and Archer-Hind, 1888:XXXV, 79A, 295)

Plato’s metaphoric descriptions of functions as observed in nature or manmade structures, as seen in Timaeus, reveal a mechanical sense of the human body. According to Stuart Elliot Guthrie (1993) as he mentions on the persistence of anthropomorphism in philosophy and science,

The philosophers also criticize their own images and distinguish categories, such as animate and inanimate, society and nature. But they do not stop anthropomorphizing. Two types, which may be called immediate anthropomorphism and artificialism, stand out. The former images the cosmos as a humanlike being, usually containing other humanlike beings, who usually constitute a society. The latter images the cosmos as an artifact of a humanlike being.

(Guthrie, 1993:153)

p.3

In contrast to Plato, Descartes observed ‘I am really distinct from my body, and I can exist without it’ (Descartes and Moriarty, 2008:55). This hypothetical assumption by Descartes mentioned in his 6th Meditation, as part of his Meditations on First Philosophy, explores how he perceives the soul. The dualistic dichotomy between the corporeal materiality of the human body and the incorporeal soul/mind suggests and separates their presence and ‘being’ in space/dimension; if there is such separation, then the mind exists or could exist in separate spaces/dimensions; so on one hand there is a common locative presence for body and mind and on the other hand there is also another presence of mind in a different level/location. The body then is just the corporeal carrier ‘the thing’ of mind and soul; therefore it is a medium, an extension of mind in a materialistic level. Descartes, considering the question of ‘what I was’, proposes his thoughts with the description of the body as a mechanical whole (Descartes and Moriarty, 2008:19). A further fact that could be mentioned concerning the dualism in the existence of ‘ego’ is based on the observation by Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy and his distinction on the difference between the divisible body and the indivisible mind. Descartes clearly defines the mechanistic and materialistic form of human bodies (and animals) by considering also,

...the body of a human being as a kind of machine made up of bones, nerves, muscles, veins, blood, and skin so fitted together that, even if there were no mind within it, it would still have all the movements it currently has that do not result from the command of the will (and hence the mind)…there is a great difference between the mind and the body, in this respect, that the body of its nature is endlessly divisible, but the mind completely indivisible... On the other hand, however, no bodily or extended thing can be thought by me that I cannot mentally divide into parts, without any difficulty; and I therefore understand it is divisible. This point alone would suffice to show me that the mind is altogether distinct from the body, if I did not yet sufficiently know [scirem] this for other reasons.

p.4

(Descartes and Moriarty, 2008:60–61)

Descartes here outlines clearly the characteristics of the corporeal body explaining that, if any part of the body for example a leg, arm etc. cut off this fact would not have an effect on the mind but only on the shape of the body; so because there is no effect on the mind, this argument separates the corporeal body from the incorporeal mind. As Sarah Broadie (2001) observes on the Cartesian machine-body,

So what Descartes is left with...is a mind whose business is to think and imagine, but not to animate any corporeal system…Hence he can conclude that mind, and perhaps soul in the theological sense, is separable from body, which is the basis for proving the mind or soul immortal.

(Broadie, 2001:296–297)

But the problem of the separation of the mind and body is that dualism has a common ground: the relation of body and mind consist of a synergy,¹ an action of these two ‘natures’ for the achievement of creation; the relation of these ‘natures’ is not separable rather it works cooperatively.

Following the metaphoric description of the human body in relation to the functions and the cosmological observation of nature by Plato and the mechanised description of the human body by Descartes, it came as a result to consider and to embody these two philosophical theories in regards to buildings and architectural theory. How are these two philosophical approaches connected to contemporary architecture? When a building has an anthropomorphic shape and mechanisms have been added in its structure that create movement and not a sense of movement, what metaphors can be generated from that practice?² The duality with regards to anthropomorphism in architecture is not the separation of the mind and the body; rather it is the dual existence of the human body and its manmade disembodied fragmented representation(s) (visible and non visible) in the architectural structures. At this stage Le Corbusier’s architectural theory could contribute into the exploration of this book’s hypothesis the human body as a building. Le Corbusier (1924) mentioned that, ‘A house is a machine for living in’ (Le Corbusier, Cohen and Goodman, 2007:151). Taking Le Corbusier’s quote and combining it with Plato’s and Descartes’s philosophical theories it can be said that: if a house/building is a machine, then a house/building equals to corpus; thus a house/building = body; as a result then from philosophical perspective, because a building = body then the examination of the hypothesis, the human body as a building, has a philosophical background that it has to be taken further into account. If the building = body = machine then the anthropomorphic shape of buildings could be analysed from a philosophical perspective in architectural theory and could be formed schematically as a syllogistic equation:

p.5

IF → a House/Building = Machine → Then a House/Building = Corpus

Thus

A House/Building = Body

As a result then from philosophical perspective:

Because: a Building = Body → Then the examination of the hypothesis, the human body as a building, has a philosophical background that has to be taken further into account.

IF → the Building = Body = Machine → Then the anthropomorphic shape of buildings could be analysed from a philosophical perspective in architectural theory.

In their essay The Mechanical vs. Divine Body: The Rise of Modern Design Theory in Europe Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre examined through paradigms the ‘. . . conceptual systems of architecture in France between 1650 and 1800’ (Tzonis and Lefaivre, 1975). Tzonis and Lefaivre refer to several metaphorical observations and statements, that were made regarding the connection of the human body and architecture and the use of buildings as instruments; as they mention, ‘The first buildings conceived as machines were those which were compared to enlarged instruments’ (Tzonis and Lefaivre, 1975).³ In defence of the propositions by Tzonis and Lefaivre on the machine-like buildings, Marco Frascari points out that,

p.6

The analogy, machine-edifice, is a long-standing one, and has always been used to judge architecture. Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre (1985) have clearly shown that buildings have been praised as well as condemned for being machinelike. This long tradition began with Vitruvius, who saw the devising of machinery as one of the three branches of architecture, vis aedificatio (the devising of edifices), gnomonica (the devising of the proportions dictated by natural light), machinatio (the devising of machinery) (Vitruvius 1584, 1: ii, 1). Technology is the doctrine dealing with the dual nature of machine and edifice; it is the theory as well as the practice of architectural production. Architecture exemplifies and suggests rather than determines or imposes, and technology becomes the expression of pleasure – Alberti’s voluptas. Technology becomes a reality acting between sensory experiences and physical expressions, being the union of the homo faber with the homo ludens.

(Frascari, 1991:115)

In a contemporary analysis on the role of computers, Kostas Terzidis (2012) explores the new perspective and approach on design process and digital tools. The paradox on the results from the u...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Architectural Colossi and the Human Body
• Routledge Research in Architecture
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• 1 Towards a First Syllogism
• 2 Towards a Second Syllogism
• 3 Fashionable Illusions
• 4 The Object as Subject: These are not Binoculars
• 5 Skeletal Apotheosis of the Human Body
• 6 Complexities and Developments
• Index