Composition
as a way to study
Prof.dr.ir.
Taeke M. de Jong 2002-10-25
Ladies and gentlemen,
I
congratulate you editors, authors and potential readers of ‘Architectural
design and composition’ on her publication we celebrate today. In the family of
publications resulting from our Faculty’s pilot project of the Architectural
Intervention she is the sister ‘Ways to study’ waited for. While ‘Ways to
study’ has a more analytical character, ‘Architectural design and composition’
emphasises synthesis.
The book ‘Architectural
design and composition’ is a beautiful composition itself. That is the merit of
the editors distinguishing the denoting architectural, the denoted
architectonic and the experimental chapters concerning the making proper. But
when we speak about composition on one level of scale we speak in the same time
about components on another level of scale. And that concerns the authors. They
created spaces of thought and now have their position in a composition.
The mutual
position of components in a larger whole - the composition - is a matter of
form, state of dispersion of components, not yet of structure. The way
components are connected to each other, nailed, screwed or glued gaining
strength, is no longer a matter of fleeting composition in the eye of
composers, it is a matter of more durable structure in the imagination of
engineers.
A
composition can be preserved in different structures, but a given structure can
not change its composition without changing the way components are connected,
without loosening components and disintegrating structure itself.
Disintegration does not yet mean decomposition. So any structure presupposes a
composition, but the reverse a composition does not presuppose a structure.
Function
for its part presupposes a structure to function in. If you ask me ‘What is
your function’ I could answer ‘Speaker’. Whether I am speaking in a call box or
in a Faculty of Architecture determines really my function of speaker. The
function of this book for judges of urban artefacts is different from the
function for their designers. ‘Many are equipped for judgement, less to the
making. So master craftsmanship should be respected’ Schinckel is referred to
in the introduction of the book.
Coming back
to the readers I congratulated, the function of the book concerns the
readers. I hope they will use the book like a collection of rooms offering
space of thought and many possibilities to combine them into a multitude of
possible buildings, towns and landscapes, some of them with a scientific strength
and structure of academic design. That is a way to study by composition, by
synthesis, by making (the Greek word ‘thesis’ from ‘titenai’ is connected with
indo-german ‘doen’, ‘doing’). The Greek word ‘syn-thesis’ has a Latin
equivalent ‘com-position’. Both mean literally ‘placing together’ or the result
of such an action. The words ‘synthesis’ and ‘composition’ are still used in
contemporary language, be it with a slightly different reference as to
structure and making. Composition has less to do with structure and more with
making in a special sense of poièsis as earlier in this Faculty Cornelissen
stressed. The Dutch word for ‘writing poetry’, ‘dichten’ coincidentally refers
also to filling up gaps.
The only
reason to offer designers an assignment is to find possibilities clients are
not aware of before they are designed. Otherwise designing would be nothing
more than forecasting. To find such possibilities designers need space of
thought, often limited by their own routines, cliché’s and designers’ blocks.
Sometimes systematic work using structured models and their rules like Eekhout
(2002) maintains in ‘Ways to study’, offer the straight lines to escape from
such enclosure in circular reasoning. But not for long, because structural
rules soon produce new routines and blocks. Then the reverse, one has to break
structure loosening components to acquire space of thought anew. However, the
danger of ongoing breaking structure is loosing direction, bogging down in
emptiness. So a designer should find her or his personal rhythm of structural
ruling and again breaking these rules. And rules of structure are always broken
by context. Designers break rules finding their boundaries in the local
political, cultural, economical, technical, ecological or mass-space-time
context of design. And components of a composition always originate from other
contexts as Hertzberger (2002) beautifully argues in ‘Ways to study’. The
question of their ability to fit in any composition - chemists would say their
valency – is an important subject of composition in its development into
science. In a structure components get their function, in a composition their
‘pose’.
Composition
is possibility of structure, not yet actual structure itself as a set of
connections and separations making a once chosen composition durable and
suitable for realisation and use. Varying loose components, masses and spaces
in a fleeting composition is the very start, core and seed of designing.
Structure arrives later limiting the compositional dynamics of imagination.
Sometimes it could help to escape from composer’s blocks by structural lines of
view to open up new horizons. The use of topographical structure is an example.
But mostly it restricts space of thought by tunnel vision, missing the clouds of
fleeting compositions above any horizon. Has architectonic composition freed
from the heavy yoke of its structural limits any rules of its own? I think so.
For example the concept of pattern. Pattern contains more than repetition. For
example a stream pattern.
I defined
pattern as any regularity or rule in a state of loose dispersion. Pattern does
not yet suppose structure. But structure presupposes pattern. So I cannot
imagine a structure without a pattern, the reverse I can. This test shows the
very limits of imagination itself. A model is a structure coming back in many
systems. A type is a pattern coming back in many compositions. So pattern and
type are objects of generalising composition study on its way into science. In
the legend of a drawing we recognise a hidden typology behind the drawing. Any
legend presupposes a typology. Any legend-unit is a type. The drawing is a
composition of legend units, types, components to be structured later on into a
design that could be realised, a model of a possible reality as Klaasen (2002)
states in ‘Ways to study’ and again in the publication we celebrate now.
So, any
designer is a composer, but not every composer is also a designer. Let us
restrict ourselves to the acts of composers. A well known rule of composing is
to start with the largest component arranging the other components around this
first positioning. However, this rule presupposes already a classification of
components, a classification as to size. So, any composing activity has a
hidden presupposition of classification and choice. To compose a composition
one has to choose or create components. And choice supposes classification. The
hidden classification is often a functional one, derived from a programme of
requirements. It also could be a structural one. Cuperus (2002) shows in ‘Ways
to study’ several classifications of building materials each in their own way
strongly reducing the possibilities of combination. In the same way a chosen
classification limits the possibilities of composition. Could it be a formal
one too? Formal classifications could result in compositional rules like:
‘Start with rounded components, then add angular ones.’ or the reverse. It
raises questions of superposition and interference with many structural and
functional consequences. The combinatorial explosion of compositional
possibilities by a growing number of components urges for limitations of
choice. Often the composer starts with hidden functional or structural
limitations. Geuze (2002) defends in ‘Ways to study’ emotional limitations. The
task of composition is to find morphological ones.
The
composition of the book ‘Architectural design and composition’ is based on a
threefold classification: architectural, architectonic and experimental
perspectives. This classification represents an increasing freedom of
composition. However, on the meta-linguistic level of composing a book on
composition by this classification the editors limited their freedom of
composition to make it readable, ready for own selection and choice by the
readers. By limiting themselves this way they facilitate the readers to unchain
their own freedom of composition making progress in reading the book.
That is a
lesson for architecture, urbanism and landscaping in itself!
After this
introduction I would like to invite … to take position behind the lectern.