The Multiple Whole

 

Campbell Memorial Courtyard, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (my photo)

The breadth of knowledge architects must command seemingly grows exponentially with each passing year. Regrettably, the overwhelming magnitude prompts a Faustian bargain: In exchange for a commanding grasp of, say, green building principles, what does the earnest architect sacrifice? If that architect is at all like me, something must give. Certainly, an aspect of architecture I am not willing to surrender is the discipline’s soul: its fundamental duty to help realize places that are generously accommodating, lastingly useful, gracious, stimulating, connected, and if we’re fortunate, poetic. Architecture at its most compelling is a comprehensive pursuit, rather than a narrowly focused one.   

This is a reason why I frequently find myself returning to Bill Kleinsasser’s self-published textbook SYNTHESIS. For me, SYNTHESIS serves as a touchstone by which to measure my commitment to the principles that first attracted me to a life in architecture. Through its various iterations, Bill consistently addressed the broad set of essential considerations that make architecture, architecture. In the following, succinct passage, he discusses the “multiple whole,” a concept I consider central to our perception of a purposeful, multivalent, and eloquent design.       

The Multiple Whole

It is possible and desirable to make systems of spatial organization that allow and evoke multi-use (and multi-meaning) both at any moment and over time. 

Generally supportive places are those which, because they must support many users over their many years of existence, must provide many opportunities for use, for change, and for involvement for those users. This depends upon not only the richness and diversity of their parts, but also their overall organization. 

A “generally supportive” place must give the people who come to it the immediate and lasting impression of goodness and suitability of fit. This depends upon the arrangement of parts as well as the development of parts. The parts must obviously exist and be developed well, but they must also be integrated into a whole. 

But the idea of the whole carries the implication of precision. It does not mean any grouping or bunching of parts. It means the development of minimally dependent, clearly interrelated parts and the development of an organization of parts that can be read many ways. 

The multiple whole depends upon:

• Variety of developed sub-parts and sub-spaces.
• The possibility of understanding (and continuing to understand) the whole, which may depend upon some or all of the following:
• The way parts are joined.
• Having a dominant space (or clear hierarchy).
• Seeing the whole space.
• Pervasive response to place.
• Metaphoric (image) control.
• Traditional shapes and symbols.
• Geometry.
• System of construction.
• Pervasive materials, textures, colors.
• Point of view.

 WK/1981