School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Papers Copyright (c) 2013 Roger Williams University All rights reserved. http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp Recent documents in School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Papers en-us Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:59:28 PST 3600 Intellect and the Structuring of Reality in Plotinus and Averroes http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/29 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/29 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:52:33 PST Though Averroes is not generally considered to be sympathetic to Neoplatonic thinking, there are definite parallels between the philosophies of intellect of Averroes and Plotinus. Both can be considered to be “Idealists” in that intelligible form precedes sensible form in perception, and that the material intellect of Averroes or Reason Principle of Plotinus, nous hylikos or pathetikos, depends in its functioning on the agent intellect of Averroes or Intellectual Principle of Plotinus, nous poietikos. The formation of the image in the oculus mentis is coincident with the formation of a thought, and the sensible form is a transient residue of the permanent intelligible form, as if it is reflected in a mirror and projected on a surface. For both philosophers, material intellect and intellect not connected to sense perception are mediated by a kind of intellectus in habitu, a practicing intellect which leads the individual to higher forms of understanding. The development of phantasmata or imprints of forms in the oculus mentis in the imagination or phantasia is the product of a dialectical relation between the mechanisms of sense perception in material intellect and an a priori understanding of forms in the intelligible, prior to the sensible. In order to be perceived, forms must be constructed, in a structuring of reality.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Topological Theory in Bioconstructivism http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/28 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/28 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:42:23 PST In the essay “Landscapes of Change: Boccioni’s Stati d’animo as a General Theory of Models,” in Assemblage 19, 1992, Sanford Kwinter proposed a number of theoretical models which could be applied to computer-generated forms in Bioconstructivism. These included topological theory, epigenesis, the epigenetic landscape, morphogenesis, catastrophe and catastrophe theory. Topological theory entails transformational events or deformations in nature which introduce discontinuities into the evolution of a system. Epigenesis entails the generation of smooth landscapes, in waves or the surface of the earth, for example, formed by complex underlying topological interactions. The epigenetic landscape is the smooth forms of relief which are the products of the underlying complex networks of interactions. Morphogenesis describes the structural changes occurring during the development of an organism, wherein forms are seen as discontinuities in a system, as moments of structural instability rather than stability. A catastrophe is a morphogenesis, a jump in a system resulting in a discontinuity. Catastrophe theory is a topological theory describing the discontinuities in the evolution of a system in nature. A project which applies these models, and which helps to establish a theoretical basis for Bioconstructivism by applying topological models, is a design for a theater by Amy Lewis in a Graduate Architecture Design Studio directed by Associate Professor Andrew Thurlow at Roger Williams University, in Spring 2011. In the project, moments of structural stability are juxtaposed with moments of structural instability, to represent the contradiction inherent in self-generation or immanence. The singularity of the surfaces of the forms in the epigenetic landscape contradicts the complex network of interactions of topological forces from which they result. Actions in the environment on unstable, unstructured forms, and undifferentiated structures, result in stable, structured forms, and differentiated structures.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Celestial Vaults in English Gothic Architecture http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/27 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/27 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 11:33:41 PST Many of the vaults in English Gothic cathedrals and churches are catechisms of cosmologies and celestial vaults. The tierceron and lierne ribs at Lincoln Cathedral, for example, and later lierne and net vaults at Bristol Cathedral and St. Mary Redcliffe, for example, display the geometries that can be found in medieval cosmologies such as the De Luce and De Lineis, Angulis et Figuris of Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth century. The vaults can be read as intelligible structures of matter and the heavenly bodies. The vaulting of the nave of Lincoln Cathedral between 1235 and 1245, during the bishopric of Grosseteste, introduces basic vocabulary elements continued in later vaulting, and can be seen as a catechism of Grosseteste’s cosmologies. The lierne vault of the choir of Bristol Cathedral, built between 1300 and 1330, has a structural organic quality. The nave vault, completed to its medieval design in the nineteenth century, is a Lincoln-style tierceron vault. The transept vaulting, from between 1460 and 1480, presents an intelligible geometrical structure intended as a cosmology. The vault of the North Porch of St. Mary Redcliffe, from 1325, has a crystalline organic form. The Curvilinear vaulting in the transepts, from the early fourteenth century, presents a cosmology of Euclidean geometries. The nave vault, from between 1337 and 1342, suggests organic topographical lines and vectors of forces in nature and heavenly bodies, simulating the celestial vault. The choir vault, from around 1450, revives the Euclidean geometries of classical cosmologies, in particular the Timaeus of Plato.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Philosophy of Intellect in the Long Commentary on the De anima of Averroes http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/26 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/26 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:36:04 PST In the Long Commentary on the De anima, Averroes posits three separate intelligences in the anima rationalis or the rational soul: agent intellect or intellectus agens, material or passible intellect, intellectus possibilis or intellectus passibilis, and speculative intellect, intellectus speculativus, or actualized or acquired intellect, intellectus adeptus. In the De anima 3.1.5, “there are three parts of the intellect in the soul; the first is the receptive intellect, the second, the active intellect, and the third is actual intellection…,” that is, speculative or actualized, agent, and material. While material intellect is “partly generable and corruptible, partly eternal,” corporeal and incorporeal, the speculative and agent intellects are purely eternal and incorporeal. In the De anima 3.1.5, the existence of intelligibles or first principles in intellect, as they are understood in actualized intellect, “does not simply result from the reception of the object,” the sensible form in sense perception in material intellect, “but consists in attention to, or perception of, the represented forms…,” the cognition of the forms in actualized intellect wherein they can be understood as intelligibles, which requires both the participation of active intellect and the motivation of the individual for intellectual development. The goal of intellectual development is to achieve union with active intellect, the final entelechy, and through this union the highest bliss in life can be achieved. Such bliss can only be achieved “in the eve of life.” All individual material intellects are capable of some ability to form concepts and abstract ideas at a basic level, but beyond that intellectual development varies among individuals according to the level of volition. Complete knowledge of the material world results in complete unity between the material intellect and the active intellect.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Alberti and Ficino http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/25 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/25 Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:26:51 PST Leon Battista Alberti and Marsilio Ficino, though separated by twenty-nine years in age, had a close relationship as mentor and pupil. Concepts which can be found in Alberti’s De pictura (1435) and De re aedificatoria (1450) are infused in Ficino’s De amore (1469). The concepts include Alberti’s theories of armonia, lineamenti, concinnitas, ornamento, and the pyramid of light in the theory of vision. In both Alberti and Ficino, harmonies shared by the body and music are manifestations of the harmonies of the soul. Beauty in body and matter is determined by beauty in mind (mens), that part of mind directed toward intellectus divinus, and beauty is made manifest in mind by the lineamenti, the lines in the mind which are distinguished from matter. Beauty is the internal perfection of the intellectus divinus, which is the good, which is a perfect harmony called concinnitas. Ornament is not beauty, but rather a physical complement to beauty.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Characterization of the Mortars of El Castillo De San Cristóbal http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/24 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/24 Wed, 21 Mar 2012 06:30:56 PDT This study characterizes the formulation of mortars used in the construction of Fort San Cristóbal Located in the city of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Renders, horizontal surface mortars, and bedding mortars representing a period of time from the late 17th to the early 20th century were sampled from a variety of outworks on the site. Results of examination using optical microscopy/polarized light microscopy and x-ray diffraction show that mortar formulations were closely tied to their uses as well as their time periods. Evidence is presented that the Spanish were using hydraulic brick dust mortars during the second phase of construction at the fort in the late 18th century, in reaction to earlier failure of weak clay/lime mortars.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells History of Structural Hollow Clay Tile in the United States http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/23 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/23 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:46:30 PDT For thousands of years, clays have been used in building construction. A notable example of an ancient clay-based building material is brick, which has enjoyed widespread appeal as a basic construction unit. A much more recent clay building material is the hollow clay tile. Made of terra cotta, these structural units were a high-technology invention in the mid-nineteenth century and continued to be widely utilized until the 1950s in the United States. Since the 1950s, hollow tile has nearly vanished from the construction arena—a victim of the widespread and cheap appeal of concrete technology.

A high percentage of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings employed hollow clay tile in their construction. Unlike many architectural materials, hollow clay tile was often not meant to be seen—much like the studs in a frame construction. This lack of visible prominence coupled with a dearth of modern treatises on the subject has led to a general unawareness of the origins and properties of hollow clay tile as well as of its historical manufacture and use. These subjects will be addressed in detail in this article, followed by a discussion on current trends and future directions of structural hollow clay tile in construction.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells Valuing Historic Places: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/22 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/22 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:09:36 PDT Decisions about which older buildings, structures, and places should be conserved are fundamental to the practice of architectural conservation. Conservation professionals use the interrelated concepts of integrity, authenticity, and historical value to determine which historic places are worthy of importance. Traditionally, these concepts are predicated on preserving the object rather than conserving the meaning and values associated with the object. In other works, the goal is to benefit the object and not the people who value the object. This method, which has roots in antiquated nineteenth-century Western scientific traditions, deprecates the importance of people, processes, and meanings in how places are valued and conserved. Thus, conservation professionals produce “objective” meanings for other conservators, but not for everyday people. The net result is a failure to understand how local populations actually value their historic places.

A recent movement in architectural conservation is to emphasize the role of contemporary social, cultural, and personal meanings in valuing historic places and the processes in which places develop these values overtime. This pluralistic perspective recognizes that different populations and cultures will have diverse ways of valuing historic places. Ultimately, for places such as Iraq, we have very little, if any, data to support conservation decisions that understand and respect local cultures and tradition. The danger is in applying traditional, Western, concepts that still dominate the conservation profession to non-Western contexts. There is a tremendous learning opportunity to engage in the cross-pollination of ideas from the perspectives of the Western and Eastern traditions and to learn how the citizens of Iraq value their cultural heritage. This information, once gathered, can then inform how to best approach the conservation of Iraqi urban centers.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells Using Sequential Mixed Social Science Methods to Define and Measure Heritage Conservation Performance http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/21 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/21 Tue, 20 Mar 2012 06:46:09 PDT There is no agreed-upon definition for heritage conservation performance, but it is possible to borrow ideas from the natural resource conservation field to inform this concept. Dimensions of performance can include economic, technical, and sociocultural and experiential indices. Because heritage conservation ostensibly benefits people as its primary goal, however, the values of most stakeholders ought to play a role in defining performance. Most of these values are subjective and represent sociocultural and personal meanings and tend to differ dramatically from the positivistic, fabric-centered value system of conservation experts. Measurement implies quantification, yet many sociocultural values are based on qualitative meanings that defy direct attempts at quantification. One solution for this predicament is to employ a sequential mixed-method approach where qualitative meanings are gathered from stakeholders and then these meanings are used to inform the development of a quantitative method, such as a survey instrument. In this way, while the qualitative meanings are not being directly “measured” as such, aspects of the phenomenon behind these meanings can be measured, quantified, and subjected to statistical techniques. A brief representative case study is presented as an example of how social science methodologies can help define and measure performance.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells Methods for the Preservation of French Colonial Poteaux en Terre (Posts-in-Ground) Houses http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/20 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/20 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:45:21 PST A range of intervention methods are considered for the five known examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century posts-in ground construction that remain in the United States.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells The Plurality of Truth in Culture, Context, and Heritage: A (Mostly) Post-Structuralist Analysis of Urban Conservation Charters http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/19 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/19 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 11:21:55 PST This paper analyzes international heritage conservation charters through the post-structuralist lens of relative and perspective-driven “truths,” fragmentation, and dramatic settings. The “SPAB Manifesto,” the Athens Charter, the Venice Charter, the Burra Charter, and the Nara Document on Authenticity are evaluated within the framework of discursive theories established by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, and Gilles Deleuze in regard to cultural meanings and absolute and relative truths. Preservation doctrine through the Venice Charter engages in a positivist truth based on the substantiation of material fetishes. These early doctrines imbue the materiality of the object with truth as an absolute rather than relative truths existing in the realm of cultural meanings and values. In other words, the object communicates the one, single reality in which it should exist. Beginning with the Burra Charter in 1979, there was an unselfconscious shift toward post-modern relativism. The Nara Document built on the ideas of cultural relativism, expressing a strong desire to respect diversity as embodied in the discursive act of semiotic communication. It eschewed judging the authenticity of heritage as a fixed concept and instead encouraged an evaluative process within the context of individual cultures. The question of future interpretive acts within the dramatic scene of cultural heritage must reconcile the positivist past of pre-Burra Charter documents with the relativism of later documents. At some point the material fetish of the Venice Charter must give way to the pluralism of truth rooted in cultural and not material contexts.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells Our History is not False: Perspectives from the Revitalisation Culture http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/18 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/18 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 07:50:23 PST Two dominant themes in architectural conservation doctrine are to (1) avoid the fabrication of ‘false’ histories through the clear differentiation of ‘new’ from ‘old’ building fabric; and (2) the deprecation of subjective ways in which the perception of building fabric engenders sense of place. This study explores the cultural values of a group of citizens engaged in revitalising their historic downtown through the ‘Main Street’ program in Anderson, South Carolina, United States. This ‘revitalisation culture’ values and promotes treatments to its historic environment that emphasise the conjectural fabrication of ‘historic’ elements to existing buildings and the use of historicised design for new, infill construction. Whilst these values go against the grain of conservation doctrine, the revitalisation culture is preserving a kind of authenticity that stems from socially and culturally constructed values in an effort to maintain the ability of the historic environment to engender ‘spontaneous fantasies’, which serve to emotionally attach the revitalisation culture with its historic downtown. Ultimately, the revitalisation culture is engaging in ‘unethical’ behaviour from the perspective of conservation professionals, which begs the question of whose values deserve attention and if the field of heritage conservation is able and willing to accept pluralistic concepts of how the authenticity of historic places can and should be conserved.

]]> Jeremy C. Wells Neoplatonism in the Liber Naturalis and Shifā: De anima or Metaphysica of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/17 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/17 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:07:13 PDT Avicenna or Ibn Sīnā was born circa 980 in Afshna, near Bukhara, in Persia. He worked briefly for the Samanid administration, but left Bukhara, and lived in the area of Tehran and Isfahan, where he completed the Shifā (Healing [from error]) under the patronage of the Daylamite ruler, ‘Ala’-al Dawla, and wrote his most important Persian work, the Dānish-nāma, which contains works on logic, metaphysics, physics, and mathematics.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Philosophy of Intellect and Vision in the De anima of Themistius http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/16 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/16 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 07:34:41 PDT Themistius (317–c. 387) was born into an aristocratic family and ran a paripatetic school of philosophy in Constantinople in the mid-fourth century, between 345 and 355. He made use of Alexander’s De anima in his commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, which is considered to be the earliest surviving commentary on Aristotle’s work, as Alexander’s commentary itself did not survive. Themistius may also have been influenced by Plotinus, and Porphyry (232–309), whom he criticizes. Themistius refers often to works of Plato, especially the Timaeus, and attempts a synthesis of Aristotle and Plato, a synthesis which was continued in the Neoplatonic tradition. As it has been seen in Alexander that thought and perception are intimately connected, almost identical, Themistius goes to much greater length to differentiate the two. Sense perception must be distinguished from reasoning, because all animals are capable of sense perception, while only humans are capable of reasoning; while there are only five kinds of sense perception, there are many varieties of the capacity for reasoning; and the functions of sense perception and reasoning can be differentiated.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Philosophy of Intellect and Vision in the De anima and De intellectu of Alexander of Aphrodisias http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/15 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/15 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:59:57 PDT Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. 198–209) was born somewhere around 150, in Aphrodisia on the Aegean Sea. He began his career in Alexandria during the reign of Septimius Severus, was appointed to the peripatetic chair at the Lyceum in Athens in 198, a post established by Marcus Aurelius, wrote a commentary on the De anima of Aristotle, and died in 211. According to Porphyry, Alexander was an authority read in the seminars of Plotinus in Rome. He is the earliest philosopher who saw the active intellect implied in Book III of the De anima of Aristotle as transcendent in relation to the material intellect. He connected the active intellect with the incorporeal and eternal cause of the universe described by Aristotle in Book XII of the Metaphysics. Plotinus would make a similar connection, between the One as First Cause and the Intellectual in which it participates.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Palimpsest http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/14 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/14 Thu, 14 Jul 2011 08:04:31 PDT (Borromini) The sketchbook continues to be important for the parti in the design process in architecture. The computer is an important tool in the development and execution of the design, and can also be important in the parti, for example when forms are generated from number sequences, but certain functions of the sketchbook cannot be replaced by the computer. The sketch can more completely represent the relation between the human mind, thought and psyche, and the architectural design. The best example of this is the quality of palimpsest in the sketchbook, where layers of forms and ideas overlay layers, and traces of partially erased layers rise to the surface and become part of the form. The quality of palimpsest can be found in drawings by Francesco Borromini in the seventeenth century, and Carlo Scarpa and Peter Eisenman in the twentieth century. The quality of palimpsest can be found in urban landscapes, Rome being the best example, where buildings or streets are composed of traces of past buildings or streets. Most importantly, the quality of palimpsest can be found in the human mind, where layers of consciousness are composed of traces, memory fragments of visual and aural forms, of previous layers. Through palimpsest the sketch can emulate the human mind, and be a tool in urban design and architectural composition which connects the built environment to the human mind. The sketch should thus continue to be a mechanism to produce increasingly creative, insightful, and meaningful design.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Neoplatonism in the Risala (De intellectu) of Alfarabi http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/13 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/13 Mon, 11 Jul 2011 08:10:02 PDT The Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus played an important role in the development of the Aristotelian concepts of intellect and perception in the Arabic commentators on Aristotle. Plotinus was not known to Arab scholars by name, but books Four to Six of the Enneads from the third century, as compiled by Porphyry, were paraphrased in the text called the Theology of Aristotle, which was translated between 833 and 842 by the circle of al-Kindi in Baghdad. The translation combined Aristole, Plotinus, and Christian and Islamic doctrines, and had a significant effect on early Islamic philosophy. The al-Kindi circle also translated the Elements of Theology of Proclus in the ninth century. An Arabic work derived from the Elements of Theology, called Kitab al-khayr al-mahd, was believed to have been written in an early school of Neoplatonism in the eighth or ninth century in the Near East. It was translated into Latin as the Liber de Causis or Liber Aristotelis de Expositione Bonitatis Purae, by Gerard of Cremona in 1180.

]]> John Shannon Hendrix Ethnographic Methods in Support of Architectural Practice http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/12 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/12 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:54:03 PDT The ultimate goal of teaching social and cultural architecture courses is to improve the design of buildings for inhabitants. To achieve this goal, the authors combine what anthropologists called the etic (outsider) and emic (insider) points of view in assigning an ethnographic field research project to learn from inhabitants’ experiences of buildings. Literally, ethnography means describing (graphing) the people (ethno), and in practice this means describing the behavioral and material expressions of culture, including architecture. Combining the etic and emic perspectives is accomplished through photo-elicitation, an ethnographic interview technique that relies on photographs to elicit inhabitants’ points of view.

Students provide this information to administrators responsible for managing a building and to the architects who designed it. Giving feedback to architects makes them more aware of inhabitant experiences in designing future buildings, while helping facility managers make appropriate adjustments. This field project has consequences for architectural education, professional practice, and social science research. Research becomes useful beyond the confines of the classroom by providing data from the field and literature reviews to the research sponsor who uses and evaluates it, thereby demonstrating to students the value of social and cultural research in practice.

Architect sponsors facilitate student research by providing scale drawings and insights into initial design considerations, commenting on program changes after the building went into operation, and helping gain access to administrators who run the building. The architects’ involvement also helps motivate students to do their best work. In return, student work helps motivate busy architects to find time to meet with students.

]]> Eleftherios Pavlides et al. Three Theoretical Assumptions Needed to Create Useful Applied Social Science Research for Architecture http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/11 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/11 Thu, 07 Jul 2011 07:20:16 PDT Social science research has had minimal impact on architectural practice despite efforts since the 1960’s by organizations such as EDR(Environmental Design Research Association) and IAPS (International Association of People-environment Studies) and others. This paper questions three fundamental assumptions of environmental design research that may account for the underwhelming application of this research in architecture: 1) Social science methods are suitable for evaluation of buildings. To the contrary, social science methods may not be suitable for the more global, actionoriented evaluation of buildings. More accurately and more modestly, social science methods can assess specific users’ experiences of specific qualities or features of buildings. 2) Hypothesis science is the ideal for environmental design research. To the contrary, hypothesis science in environmental design research is not as productive as discovery science. 3) Architectural methods of documentation are not relevant to social science investigations of the built environment. To the contrary, accessing social information in the physical environment requires detailed documentation and evaluation of the built environment using architectural methods, similar to archeology.

]]> Eleftherios Pavlides et al. Psychoanalysis and Identity in Architecture http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/10 http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/10 Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:36:03 PST John Shannon Hendrix