Date

2008-1-1

Author

Mennan, Zeynep

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Originally written as a curatorial essay for the international architectural exhibition “Non Standard Architectures” at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2002-2003), this paper discusses the formal and epistemic implications of the advent of this new paradigm (1). The non standard inscribes itself within the realm of contemporary architectural experimentations making extensive use of recent computational design technologies and its formal catalogue is marked by highly complex dynamic forms that indicate a revival of the organic tradition. The paper recasts this recent organicism in historical continuity with the early modern organic tradition, in order to highlight and reassess this formal tradition resurfacing today. Early modernist and non standard instances of the organic lineage show a remarkable formal reminiscence which conceals however significant epistemological, perceptual, geometric/mathematical and technological distinctions. The paper discusses this reminiscence in terms of a powerful ‘gestalt switch’ which is both perceptual and epistemic. The modernist mechanic-organic debate is hence revisited in terms of a basic epistemological distinction which invariably associates intelligibility in formal processes with stability and identity, as displayed in typical, standardized forms, while organic formal processes are defined as individualistic, subjectivist, intuitionist processes that escape systematic analysis and rationalization. The debate invariably records a negative anchorage of the organic in modernist thinking, as a counter-modern instrument denouncing mechanic normativity or standardization. The so-called hermetic formal processes of the organic tradition are becoming increasingly transparent as studies in complexity and computation develop. Organic form is now being rationalized and objectified with an ever increasing computational content, one that is supplied by advances in computer-aided methodologies and procedures used in the development and control of form. The current revival of the organic inserts itself at the very heart of altering logics of material and industrial production which sustain and supply organicist formal processes with technical and material processes of serial but non-identical realization. The formalist methodologies used in computational design research ease the understanding and control of complex forms and enable their production by extending the interface from standardization to non standardization. The organic paradigm is now augmented with a computational essence that adds to the first biological essence of the modernist organic tradition. Indeed, the organic owes its revival to this double essence which reforms its epistemological status and betrays its historiographical obfuscation. In this sense, the non standard is argued to be a first reconciliation of mechanic and organic paradigms, as the neo-organic is now inclusive of the mechanic, and can be sent back into the materiality of serial industrial processes to stand the test where its modern predecessor failed. A growing accuracy to translate form into computational languages now allows for a rigorous discussion of once intuitive topics. Increasingly de naturalized within an increasingly naturalized epistemology, the neo-organic revives intuitionism as a lighter variant of a heavy formalism operative in computational architectures.

Subject Keywords

Non standard, Organic, formal processes, Formalism, Intuitionism

URI

http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/2008/cilt25/sayi_2/171-183.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/50905

Collections

Department of Architecture, Article