It’s time for another installment
from the late Bill Kleinsasser’s self-published textbook SYNTHESIS. In the
selection below he tackles the challenge of defining what constitutes poetry in
architecture, that which elevates mere building to art by heightening the
awareness of, and laying open and vulnerable the mind of the observer. For Bill,
the realization of poetic impact in architecture must arise naturally, if it
comes at all, as it cannot be imposed.
Architects risk living in an
aesthetic bubble of irrelevancy. Poetic impact is not a matter of taste, nor should
it be the sole province of an initiated elite. Bill believed the poetic
potential of architecture derives from a process of studying, developing, and
responding to a broad range of very real concerns, only revealing itself after
great effort as a synthesis of many factors.
Bill seldom shied from
invoking the words of others to reinforce his own points, in this instance
quoting Le Corbusier
and Harold Taylor directly. Bill’s eclectic and broad list of those who inspired and
influenced him comprised a highbrow who’s who. The words of intellects as
disparate as Jacob Bronowski, Jerome Bruner, Jean Cocteau,
Carl Jung, William Faulkner, John Keats, Jackson Pollock, Wallace Stevens, Aldo Van Eyck, Eudora Welty, and William Strunk and E.B. White served as frequent touchstones. I may write a post
someday that compiles many of the quotes Bill drew upon to illustrate the
principles he espoused.
Poetic Impact
The
ultimate goal of all forms of art is poetic impact, that sudden realization of
the extraordinary and the transcendent—the awareness of a profound and noble
achievement. Le Corbusier expressed
this well when he wrote:
“You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and
with these materials you build houses and palaces; that is construction.
Ingenuity is at work. But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am
happy and I say: This is beautiful. That is architecture. Art enters in. My
house is practical. I thank you, as I might thank railway engineers or the telephone
service. You have not touched my heart. But suppose the walls rise toward
heaven in such a way that I am moved. I perceived your intentions. Your mood
has been gentle, brutal, charming or noble. The stones you have erected tell me
so. You fix me to the place and my eyes regard it. They behold something that
expresses a thought. A thought which reveals itself without word or sound, but
solely by means of shapes which stand in a certain relation to one another.
These shapes are such that they are clearly revealed in light. The relationships
between them are not necessarily any reference to what is practical or descriptive.
They are a mathematical creation of your mind. They are the language of
architecture. By the use of inert materials and starting from conditions more
or less utilitarian, you have established certain relationships which have
aroused my emotions. This is architecture.”
Poetic
impact, however, is a perplexing subject. Experience in today’s world tells us
that it has many more definitions that the one stated above—so many, in fact,
that it seems often to lose all meaning. It seems to exist sometimes when we
don’t expect it. It seems not to exist for others sometimes when it does for
ourselves. Some people seem to be greatly affected by it while others are not.
We sometimes hear people say, “this is beautiful,” but when we inspect the
object of their enthusiasm we feel that they must have been referring to
something else, or to something other than the intrinsic qualities of the
object.
Indeed,
people seem to have an easy time liking something—a place for example—for
reasons that come not from its inner strengths but from causes that are
external, even superficial. The place may conform to tenets of their preferred
lifestyle. It may fit a momentary mood. It may be comfortably conventional (or
fashionable). It may appeal because of the fact they made it (or part of it)
themselves. Any or all of these causes seem able to induce the label “poetic,”
and this is perplexing because it suggests poetic impact is ephemeral and just
a personal matter, that it is achievable by accident as by great effort and
serious intent.
The definition
of poetic impact stated earlier, however, instructs and ordains that this is
not so. If poetic impact is truly about the realization of the extraordinary, the
transcendent, the noble, the profound, then it involves experiences that are
more than merely momentary and personal. It involves experience that is both
real and allegorical, concrete and spiritual.
Dr. Harold Taylor (in Art and the Intellect): “ . . . the experience of art is one that quickens
the human consciousness to a greater sensitivity of feeling and a higher level
of discrimination among ideas and emotions. The experience of art is a way of
enriching the quality of the human experience and reaching a precision in the
choice of values. It is not an experience that takes an artist out of the
context of his society, but an experience which moves through contemporary
reality into new levels of awareness of what human society is. It draws
attention to other values in the world than those of material, social, and
political power. The experience of art leads each of us into discussions of
ultimates, into questions of truth, into serious philosophy, since the responses
evoked in each of us becomes part of our way of looking at the world and part
of our stated and unstated vocabulary of response.”
And with
specific insight regarding the elusiveness of poetic impact, Dr. Taylor goes on
to say:
“. . . the experience of art is a
particular kind of experience which requires for its fulfillment a discipline freely
undertaken, a knowledge firmly grasped, a heightened consciousness and an
intensity of interest in the creative and imaginative aspects of human life.”
In
other words, the transcending experience of art, the “touching of the heart” as
Le Corbusier put it, is dependent upon an awareness in the observer that is
established by experience, curiosity, sensitivity, preparation. Poetic impact
is then, at least by the definition set forth here, much more than simply a
personal matter, and it requires for its full realization that the observer be
able to come part way.
(WK/1983)
1 comment:
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