Aesthetics of Architecture

The ecological movements of the seventies gave environmental questions the role of key issues in the artistic, architectural and philosophical debate. However, these questions have been mainly dealt with an ecological and scientific approach. It was seldom noticed that both natural and built spaces can be above all conceived of as felt spaces and, furthermore, that their aesthetic qualities are as important as toxicological factors. Although it focussed on the environmental protection and on the harmonious integration of built-up and natural areas, the architectural reflection considers beauty a subordinate factor rather than a prime concern. Although during the recent years it has come back to the themes of environment and landscape, even the philosophical culture is remained bound to a scientific stance that subordinates the beauty to physiological factors. This paper attempts to suggest an alternative to this view, by investigating the “theory of the atmospheres” of Gernot Böhme. The German philosopher develops an ecological aesthetics of nature that takes into account also the aesthetic qualities of the spaces in which we live. The notion of the atmosphere and the importance Böhme attributes to the body, to the way of perceiving the space and of perceiving the self in space constitutes a key by which aesthetics can interact with such disciplines as ecology and architecture, thus offering unusual points of view.

L’attuale dibattito nel campo dell’architettura e del design ha riportato in auge la relazione tra forma e funzione. Per comprendere il significato di questi concetti può essere utile una rilettura storica dei grandi Maestri del Movimento moderno, a partire da Louis H. Sullivan, considerato “il padre” del funzionalismo. Ma al contempo emerge la necessità di interpretare i concetti di “forma” e “funzione” secondo la prospettiva della storia delle idee. Questa chiave di lettura, rivelando la stratificazione semantica che ha determinato nei secoli la complessità delle nozioni di “forma” e “funzione”, dimostra l’erroneità di certe interpretazioni “razionalistiche” e mette in luce la stretta relazione che lega i due concetti a quello di ornamento. Alla luce di queste riflessioni, oggi la nota formula “Form follows Function”, adattata a differenti contesti, mostra ancora tutta la sua forza significativa e la sua attualità.

Der gegenwärtige Diskurs in Architektur und Design hat das Nachdenken über die Beziehung von Form und Funktion wieder belebt. Um die Bedeutung dieser Beziehung und der einzelnen Konzepte nachvollziehen zu können, kann es vor diesem Hintergrund hilfreich sein, die Meister der Architekturmoderne – besonders Louis H. Sullivan, den Vater des Funktionalismus - erneut zu lesen. Zudem scheint es notwendig zu sein, die Konzepte von Form und Funktion in eine neue ideengeschichtliche Perspektive zu stellen, vor allem auch, um die semantischen Überlagerungen zu enthüllen, die in den Jahrhunderten zu der Komplexität der Begriffe Form und Funktion beigetragen haben.
Die Idee, dass sich die Form der Funktion anpassen soll, wird Louis Henry Sullivan (1856-1924) zugesprochen. Er gilt als Vater des modernen Funktionalismus. Eine Analyse seiner Texte (s. u.) und des historisch-kulturellen Kontextes, in denen die Aussage Form follows Function formuliert wurde, machten jedoch anschaulich , dass bei späteren Interpretationen der Gehalt des Satzes missgedeutet wurde, um mit ihm einen Kampf gegen das Ornament zu führen.
In der Analyse der Texte und des Kontextes werde ich ideengeschichtlich vorgehen, also zuerst die kulturelle Tradition untersuchen, welche die Idee von Angemessenheit des Zwecks erarbeitet hat, um damit die historischen Voraussetzungen des modernen Konzepts von Funktionalität herauszuarbeiten. Im Anschluss daran werde ich die romantische und transzendentale Philosophie betrachten, in der die organizistische Ästhetik von Sullivan wurzelt, um den zentralen Gedanken der lebenden Form und die wahre Bedeutung des Konzeptes von Funktion in seiner architektonischen Theorie nachzuweisen.

The notion of “familiar” has recently become crucial in the debate generated by Everyday Aesthetics. In this essay I will explore this concept following Arto Haapala and Yuriko Saito’s theories, then I will investigate the notion of familiar – and some antonym notions (i.e. strange, uncanny, alien) – while embracing a phenomenological approach. Referring to German phenomenologist Gernot Böhme's theory of atmospheres, my paper shall compare a notion of a glass house, theorized by Modernism, and a notion of a shell house, seen from different perspectives by Walter Benjamin, Gaston Bachelard and Juhani Pallasmaa. I will finally draw attention to the notion of strange as possibly degenerating into the idea of uncanny or alien, for instance when the transparency of glass is used as a tool for control or when it is embodied in the digital screens of hyper-technological homes.

A John Dewey és Richard Shusterman átlal kijelölt pragmatista/szomaesztétikai nyomvonalon haladó esszé ahhoz az ezredforduló óta kibontakozó diskurzushoz kapcsolódik, amelyik az esztétika újrafogalmazásának feladatát tűzte maga elé. Ebben a munkában elhanyagolhatatlan a modern művészetek örökölt ágazati rendszerének revíziója is, mert az örökségül kapott szisztémának szembe kell néznie egyfelől a kibővülés fokozódó dinamikájával (az esztétikai értékűnek tekintett jelenségek emancipációjával), másfelől a rendszer fogantatása óta látensen hordott anomáliák, aránytalanságok felszínre törésével – különös tekintettel az irodalom modellje alapján elgondolt művészetek performatív, szomatikus deficitjeire. Tézisem az, hogy az építészet tapasztalati dimenzióinak értelmezése (ideértve az építészet érzékelésének multiszenzorialitását is) kulcsszerepet játszhat az öt fő művészeti ág és a hozzájuk kapcsolódó újabb művészeti gyakorlatok örökségének, valamint a művészet címszava alá be nem sorolt esztétikai tapasztalatoknak az egymásra vonatkoztatásában és kiegyensúlyozott elhelyezésében. Mindez anélkül tehető meg, hogy a művészetekről való gondolkodásnak le kellene mondania a rendszerszerűségről. Javaslatom abban áll, hogy az irodalom modelljét követő esztétikai gondolkodást kísérletképpen cseréljük fel az építészetből kiinduló esztétikával, és hogy az esztétikai tapasztalatban döntő szerepet játszó szomatikus dimenzió szempontjából ismerjük el az építészet mintaadó voltát. Mindezzel a hegeli örökség releváns alternatíváját fogalmazhatjuk meg.

Nel corso del Novecento le tematiche della vita e dell’ambiente hanno trovato nuova centralità nel dibattito architettonico e filosofico. La biologia è divenuta il modello teorico di riferimento e può costituire un interessante punto di intersezione tra filosofia  e architettura,  consentendo di guardare sotto una nuova luce, nel quadro di un rinnovato concetto di mimesis, le nozioni di forma e di funzione e di trovare nuove soluzioni in grado di costruire edifici più consoni all’ambiente. In questa prospettiva può risultare utile ripensare, secondo la prospettiva della storia delle idee, l’estetica dell’organismo elaborata, seppure in modi e tempi diversi, da Leon Battista Alberti e Louis H. Sullivan. Questo tema, centrale nei due grandi maestri del passato, può fornire spunti di riflessione a un’architettura che oggi antepone spesso le ragioni del profitto a quelle etiche, culturali o persino della vita, restituendole il suo ruolo di costruzione materiale e simbolica dello spazio vitale dell’uomo

My essay focuses on the notion of artification, recently emerged in the philosophical and artistic debate. Some case studies show that “public wall paintings” work as an artifying strategy of public space both at a superficial and at a deep level. As regard to the first, a mere decorative effect is produced; while the second, by launching projects which require the coordination of several professional skills and social actors, produces a more radical transformation. The latter notion of artification is more significant than the former because it better expresses the educational value of art and its ability to produce improvement not only of urban areas – made aesthetically more enjoyable – but also of the quality of life of their inhabitants.

Course description: Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the beautiful. This course explores the aesthetics of the natural and built environments, including landscapes, places, and buildings. A major emphasis is contrasting philosophical approaches, including semiotic, Marxist-structural, post-structural, feminist, and phenomenological perspectives. The course is conducted as a seminar and includes group discussion on readings. Students read from photocopied articles and chapters available as PDFs at K-State Canvas On-Line. In relation to national architectural accreditation standards, the seminar involves the following objectives and performance criteria.

At beginning of twentieth century, new techniques allow to replace the wall built with opaque materials with glass walls, abolishing the visual barriers between inside and outside. After explaining the aesthetics of the transparency advocated by the Modern Movement, this essay focused on two ways of living, and it described the modernist glass house oriented towards visual aesthetics and the nineteenth-century house, which on the contrary expresses-with its heavy velvets-the idea of warmth and tactility. Finally, it focused on the dialectics between opacity/transparency in the technological home of the Third Millennium.

SUMARIO

Artículos

Pablo Enrique Abraham Zunino, "Bergson y el concepto de imagen en los estudios sobre cine de Deleuze" (7-46)
Martín Prestía, "Filosofía, poesía y política en Carlos Astrada:
notas para una lectura de El mito gaucho (1948)" (47-71)

Nota

Valeria Castelló-Joubert, "Arte y naturaleza en la arquitectura de cristal:
las críticas de Ruskin y Semper" (73-88)

Comentarios bibliográficos

Robert Caner‐Liese, El primer Romanticisme alemany: Friedrich Schlegel i Novalis (2018), por Miguel Alberti (91-97)
Mario de Andrade, Evolución social de la música en Brasil y otros ensayos escogidos (2018), por Pía Paganelli (97-102)

The title: “Architecture: The Making of Metaphors”
is the exact title, including the colon, of the 1967 Yale lecture series
Benefit of “Architecture: The Making of Metaphors” is that after learning the contents of “Architecture: The Making of Metaphors” readers should be able to mange the design process and better enjoy the built environment.
Phenomenology:
For any one individual “Architecture: The Making of Metaphors” is predicated by a personal encounter of both sense and mind. Kant’s phenomenon philosophy and [34] Berleant’s approach to aesthetics-view object as it is perceived by the senses. So after having derived and developed the ideas of architecture as the making of metaphors it still behooves readers to realize the phenomenon and epiphany to enjoying both the process and read of design and the environment. Architecture:the making of metaphors is more than an idea but phenomena and as such is the immediate object of awareness in experience. In earlier monographs I quoted [6] Husserl and others noting the Dasein of the metaphor and the epiphany of the revelation that architecture:the making of metaphors. However, without the combination of life experience of perception and design that transforms; where neither time, space nor substance matters except the sanctified and set apart aesthetic experience of creation. It is that special awareness during design and inhabiting buildings where the phenomenon of the architecture and metaphors lives. When you get it you know that you know, when there is an eclipse of the process with a product that achieves program.


Acknowledgements and scope
To better understand metaphor as a key to the built environment we explore what shapes and forms the built environment and why one building seems better than the next. As a key to the built-environment (technology and context) metaphor is the answer which not only shapes the built environment but is the means by which we read what is formed. With metaphor as the gestalt, design embraces the whole. Current design practices are enhanced by considering metaphors in both the programming and design process. To some this monograph will be a confirmation of current practice while to others a check- list. Many will discover how other scientific disciplines can be brought into the design conversation. For me it was my wife, Christina Fez-Barringten (philosopher, theologian, writer, and artist) who introduced me to metaphors, their meanings and applications which in-turn prepared me to be receptive to [1] Irving Kriesberg’s announcement that [2]art was the making of metaphors from which I inferred from years of being initiated that architecture was an art. It was a metaphor, I saw a relationship and knew I had to connect them so I visited my mentor [3] Dr. Paul Weiss to find the commonality. Coincidently, at the time in 1967, I was one of the editors of Yale’s Architectural Journal; “Perspecta”. I then needed to know exactly what was a metaphor .
Dr. Weiss suggested that I first had to visit the world’s leading linguistic scholars who all just happened to be at Yale.
He made the arrangements, but after so many interviews I came up empty. He and I were both astounded. Still, needing the information we decided to bring together scholars and design professionals to form a symposium which could then be transcribed and published by Perspecta. “Architecture as the Making of Metaphors” was organized near the Art and Architecture building at the Museum of Fine Arts Yale University 11/02/67 until 12/04/67. The guest speakers were: Paul Weiss, [4] William J.J. Gordon, Christopher Tunnard, Vincent Scully, Turan Onat, Kent Bloomer, Peter Millard, Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, Forrest Wilson, and John Cage.
Background of my research
The Yale lectures were transcribed, but instead of being published by Perspecta part of the proceedings were published in 1971 by [5] “Main Currents in Modern Thought”. In 1991, after twenty years of professional practice designing and applying this approach to design I wrote [6] many monographs, nine of which were then published by various learned journals (see references). Six were not and remain unpublished.
In Manhattan, from 1969 to 1973 we formed and operated [7] LME;” Laboratories for Metaphoric Environments” to bring together scholars, practitioners to further study metaphors. Out of this came a plethora of drawings now published in a book called [6] “Gibe”. Many of my studies were also complemented by my visit to all of Europe where I made hundreds of pen and ink drawings which put into a book and are now hanging in art galleries in Florida. Recently in 2009, and as part of the conversations with scholars on the internet site called Academia.com I again researched [8] Andrew Ortony’s (located at Northwestern University) book titled “Metaphor and Thought” which thankfully and finally had a compendium (anthology) of linguistic, psychologist, philosophical, educational and communication scientist on metaphors. From this and my notes from [3] Paul Weiss and [9] William J.J. Gordon I wrote 21 monographs two of which have been published while the other 19 are submitted and being peer reviewed.
“Architecture: The Making of Metaphors” and several of my recent monographs were informed by my daily study of [10] David Zarefsky’s (also, coincidently located at Northwestern University) lectures and book titled [10] “Argumentation: the study of effective Reasoning” published by The Teaching Company (see footnotes) . There are many others which are documented in my references and footnotes as I am their grateful and passionate student. All of this has been driven by my childhood quest which has persisted in my studies, teaching and practice where I have learned that ultimately it is the individual talent within each designer, artist, writer, and scholar that finally shape the works that surround us. The answer was there all the time, I just had to be “educated” a process which I look forward to continuing for along time as led by Paul Weiss passed away at 103 years of age just after completing his last book, “Surrogates”.

El posmodernismo acaso no fue más que el resultado del pensamiento apocalíptico finisecular que le dio sentido, o buscó dárselo, aun al precio de desbaratarlo, a la estética moderna. El siglo cambió y, una vez más, el apocalipsis no ha tenido lugar. Volverá el momento de elaborar uno nuevo. Pero esta tarea no recaerá sobre nosotros. Lo que nos toca ahora es efectuar el inventario de nuestros bienes que, forzosamente, arrojará también las deudas contraídas. Entonces habrá que quitarles la etiqueta de post-ismo a todas las artes.Para empezar, una constatación: hemos sobrevivido al posmodernismo, emergiendo de la indecidibilidad del sentido, desactivando la homogeneización de los discursos erigida contra la autoridad, restituyendo su especificidad a los fenómenos artísticos, convertidos durante décadas en textos. Hemos sobrevivido a la unión, realizada paradójicamente en nombre de la diferencia, de lo otro, de aquello que no podría ser juntado, operación ésta que llevó a muchos intelectuales y filósofos, procedentes sobre todo de los medios académicos alemanes, ingleses y norteamericanos, a manifestar su azoramiento por el sinsentido.

Raising the persistence question about architectural entities consists in asking what is necessary and sufficient for a past or future architectural entity, like a building, to exist now. In this paper I investigate how the persistence question about buildings is affected by their spatial relocation. Why do we normally doubt that Notre Dame can survive its meticulous stone-by-stone transfer to Las Vegas? I argue that, since architectural plans are not capable of specifying all the constitutive properties of a building, the source of differentiation among constitutive and non-constitutive properties for buildings lies in a property’s being eligible or not eligible to be aesthetically relevant in the aesthetic judgements about them. As a matter of fact, our aesthetic judgements about buildings often concern, and are grounded on, extrinsic contextual properties. This explains why buildings can usually not survive relocation: because normally there is no basis for ruling out any extrinsic contextual feature of the building as inessential. I also try to explain why the change from thirteenth century Paris to contemporary Paris proved not to be lethal to Notre Dame’s persistence, in spite of its being more significant than other imaginary context changes that we would easily count as fatal.

PAPERS

1) Virginia Bonicatto (Universidad Nacional de La Plata/Universidad Torcuato Di Tella).

LA MATERIALIZACIÓN DE UNA ESTÉTICA NACIONAL: RICARDO ROJAS EN LA ARQUITECTURA ARGENTINA.

En 1909, Ricardo Rojas publicó La restauración nacionalista. La publicación intentaba, a través de una serie de pautas, reformar la educación con fines patrióticos. En el marco de este trabajo emprendido por Rojas, las artes y en particular la arquitectura tenían un rol fundamental como medios educadores de la sociedad. En el presente trabajo realizaremos un recorrido por el texto concentrándonos en el rol otorgado a las artes y al espacio urbano, entendidos como medios educadores de la sociedad. En este sentido, veremos cómo Rojas hizo uso de la ciudad y la arquitectura en sus discursos. A través de las dos obras que hemos seleccionado, veremos en qué medida las ideas de Rojas fueron utilizadas en el ámbito de la arquitectura para validar posturas que encontraban en el pasado hispánico una respuesta al eclecticismo de principios de siglo XX.

THE MATERIALIZATION OF A NATIONAL AESTHETIC. RICARDO ROJAS AND ARGENTINIAN ARCHITECTURE.

In 1909, Ricardo Rojas published La restauración nacionalista. The book was meant to reform the education towards patriotic purposes through a series of guidelines established on the text. As part of this work undertaken by Rojas, arts and architecture in particular had a crucial role as social educators. In this paper, we will make an analysis of the text focusing on the role given to the arts and the urban space understood as social educators. In this sense, we will study how Rojas used the city and the architecture in his speech. Through the two works we have selected, we will see to what extent the ideas of Rojas were used in the field of architecture to validate positions that found in the Hispanic past a response to the eclecticism of the early twentieth century.

2) Juan Ricardo Rey-Márquez  (Universidad Nacional de San Marín, Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales/Centro de Producción e Investigación en Restauración y Conservación Artística y Bibliográfica Patrimonial -TAREA).

SOBRE EL CONCEPTO DE GUSTO EN EL PRONTUARIO ARTÍSTICO DE FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ D’ACOSTA: UN CAPÍTULO OLVIDADO DE LA ESTÉTICA IBEROAMERICANA.

Hacia finales del período colonial, el Nuevo Reino de Granada recibió el impacto de la Ilustración en el terreno de la estética y la teoría del arte. El eclesiástico español Francisco Martínez D’Acosta jugó un papel importante en la introducción de estas ideas a través de su obra Prontuario artístico; ó diccionario manual de las Bellas Artes, pintura, escultura, arquitectura, grabado & c. (Madrid, 1787). El presente artículo se concentra en el análisis del concepto de gusto que Martínez D’Acosta desarrolló en este libro, delimita la originalidad de su tratamiento y estudia las posibles influencias de los filósofos de la Enciclopédie, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo y diversos tratadistas españoles.

ON CONCEPT OF TASTE IN FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ D’ACOSTA’S PRONTUARIO ARTISTCO: A FORGOTTEN CHAPTER OF THE IBERO AMERICAN AESTHETICS

Towards the end of colonial era, Nuevo Reino de Granada received Enlightenment influence on the field of aesthetics and art theory. Francisco Martínez D’Acosta, a Spaniard clergyman, played an outstanding role in the introduction of new aesthetical ideas through his book Prontuario artistic; ó diccionario manual de las Bellas Artes, pintura, escultura, arquitectura, grabado & c. (Madrid, 1787). This article focuses on the analysis of the concept of taste D'Acosta Martínez developed in this book defines the originality of its treatment and study the possible influence of the philosophers of the encyclopedia, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Benito Jerónimo Feijoo and several Spanish authors of treatises on art.

While elsewhere in Palermo – like in other Italian or foreign cities – the unachieved stands for a transformation process that has been interrupted, in the neighbourhood of Danisinni the unachieved is the symbol of an existential dimension. Not only from a topographic point of view, but also economically and socially, Danisinni is a world on its own: it is a village inside the city, but also a place on the outskirts, cut off from public transport connections. In recent times, though, projects of urban regeneration have been developed including street-based forms of art (mural graffitis, circus and theatre performances). The paper will analyse these processes of artification by means of different interpretative keys. The neologism “artification”, recently emerged in the philosophical and artistic debate, has several theoretical nuances. It can have a mere decorative value – e.g. mural graffitis – or it can hint to a deeper transformation.  Artification can indeed trigger off relational processes and regenerating experiences. In this respect, as it effectively shows how art can acquire an educational value and produce improvement not only in urban areas – as they become more beautiful – but also in the residents’ quality of life, the latter meaning of artification is more significant than the former one. For all these reasons the urban regeneration, triggered in Danisinni and now spreading to neighbouring areas, is as model example. Danisinni’s marginality, I argue in conclusion, has been turned into an “other” perspective on the reassessment of our cities.

This paper seeks to refute the claim that architectural value is one and the same value as the artistic value of architecture. As few scholars explicitly endorse this claim, instead tacitly holding it, I term it the implicit claim. Three potential motivations for the implicit claim are offered before it is shown that, contrary to supporting the claim, they set the foundations for considering architectural value and the artistic value of architecture to be distinct. After refuting the potential motivations and offering some coun- terexamples to the claim, I provide some comments upon the interaction(s) between aesthetic, artistic, and architectural values, which are benefitted and supported by Louise Hanson’s discussion of attributive value in the ar- tistic domain.

The screening of the promotion video for Skopje 2014 made evident that the Macedonian government perceived the problem of Skopje to be one of aesthetics. The aim to participate in the global cultural economy and tourist industry was to be gained by transforming the dull grey matter of the brutalist architecture built in the period after the Kenzo Tange's 1965 master plan for the reconstruction of Skopje. These two versions of architectural ugliness, 'post-communist kitsch' and 'brutalism,' frame the argument that both Skopje 2014 and its criticisms, are politically driven in multiple ways.

La Lama di Massimiliano Fuksas a Roma, ovvero lo spazio dissolto nella luce.
Il progetto degli architetti Massimiliano e Doriana Fuksas attualmente in fase di completamento nel quartiere EUR di Roma consta di due edifici: il nuovo Centro congressi (la cosiddetta Nuvola) e l’hotel Lama. Se è la Nuvola ad attrarre lo sguardo per la sua leggerezza e i colori chiari, il blocco nero della Lama quasi svanisce al suo fianco. Nondimeno è proprio la Lama, con il sottile, lucente, buio, parallelepipedo che lo costituisce, a offrire spunti per riflettere sul rapporto fra luce e volume. Siamo abituati a pensare che prima percepiamo il volume (lo spazio in cui siamo) e poi la luce; la Lama ci impone il processo inverso e consente di meditare sul rapporto fra spazio e visione un processo percettivo necessariamente immerso nel tempo. Giacché, accanto alla lieve Nuvola, la Lama in quanto buio monolito passa curiosamente inosservata, soprattutto durante il giorno. Il suo buio assorbe tutto intorno a sé, la sua presenza resta alcunché di inavvertito, di sottratto alla percezione. È invece di notte che la Lama appare, ma prima come luce che come spazio, a condizione di essere immersi nel tempo e alla fine di un processo che richiede movimento: cioè percorrendo la via Cristoforo Colombo nel tratto che costeggia il laghetto. Nel tragitto essa si mostra non come volume, bensì solo come immateriale riflesso, confuso coi lampioni e le luci delle automobili, come debole gioco di luci della città. È solo alla curva che essa rivela il suo profilo gigantesco, come un fondale nero, affilato, che con il suo silenzio e la sua grandiosità molto dice della nostra natura inquietante.

In the last two decades, research on the arts showed that the perspective provided by somaesthetics could highly contribute to the efforts of rethinking artistic practices and the aesthetic experience in general (Shusterman 2014; Journal of Somaesthetics vol. 1-7). In addition, somaesthetic perspective helped also to re-conceptualize the social impacts art exerts (Ryynänen 2015), viewing those from different angles than the ones provided by the sociology of art (Luhman 2000), relational aesthetics (Bourriaud 2002), participation theories (Bishop 2012) or the anthropology of culture (Pfeiffer). Taking part in these efforts, in an earlier study (Veres 2014) I suggested taking architecture as the best model for a somaesthetically oriented scrutiny of the arts and conceiving it as the main point of orientation throughout the aesthetic field. However, given that aesthetic phenomena are countless and infinite, I fully admit the model provided by architecture might seem less explanatory with regards to the somaesthetic aspects of intensely performative creative practices, like dance, music or theatre play, and all the human activities, which are relevant aesthetically but do not have the status of art. What directly connects architectural structures to the overall Lebenswelt in an encompassing experience is the dimension of audibility that comes with every kinesphere, most notably in the public space and the multifarious sites of human residency. This presentation shall provide some critical comments for a somaesthetically conscious and acoustically sensitive architectural planning.

Nell’età contemporanea in cui l’architettura tende spesso alla ricerca della spettacolarità e a creare forme in cui la destinazione d’uso si annulla in un’esperienza estetica, la questione dell’ornamento torna a essere centrale nel dibattito filosofico e architettonico. Di contro, le problematiche legate all’ecologia e al paesaggio pongono sempre più insistentemente l’accento su un’etica della responsabilità che condanna i “crimini” di un’estetica disinteressata al rispetto dell’ambiente. Alla luce di queste coordinate può essere utile riprendere le riflessioni di quei teorici, come Louis H. Sullivan, John W. Root e Adolf Loos, che tra Ottocento e Novecento hanno dichiarato in modo esplicito i “crimini” dell’ornamento. La loro lezione, ricordandoci la pluralità valoriale del nesso decorazione/ornamento, può offrire ancora oggi stimoli al dibattito, richiamando a quel senso “della convenienza” (quid decet) che è misura etica, oltre che estetica