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lecture 4 Role of Metaphor

The document discusses the role of metaphor in architecture, highlighting its cognitive and ornamental functions. It distinguishes between different types of metaphors, such as structural, textural, and isolated pictorial, and emphasizes their significance in architectural criticism and design. Additionally, it encourages creative exercises to explore metaphorical concepts in architectural settings.

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1 views

lecture 4 Role of Metaphor

The document discusses the role of metaphor in architecture, highlighting its cognitive and ornamental functions. It distinguishes between different types of metaphors, such as structural, textural, and isolated pictorial, and emphasizes their significance in architectural criticism and design. Additionally, it encourages creative exercises to explore metaphorical concepts in architectural settings.

Uploaded by

samuelmeresa19
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Role of Metaphor

in architecture

Theory of Architecture II Ephrem N.


• "There are no two words in the English
language more harmful than 'good job'.“
The movie Whiplash
Aristotle
• Metaphor consists in giving a thing a name that
belongs to something else; the transference being
either from genus to species, or from species to
genius, or on grounds of analogy… that from analogy
is possible whenever there are four terms so related
that the second (B) is to the first (A) as the fourth (D)
is to the third (C), for one may then metaphorically
put D in place of B and B in place of D.
Marcus Hester
• Metaphor is essentially a decoration or ornament to
enliven style.
• This so-called ornamental view emphasizes, in
contradiction to the analogical or rational view, the
cognitive function of metaphor
• The two extremes about metaphor are
1.Rational view
2.Ornamental view
D. Berggren
• ‘Structural metaphor’ - which involves an abstract
relation of structures by analogy(similarity); which therefore
lies towards the Rational view
• ‘Textural metaphor’ - based on an emotional intuition
of similarity or difference between concepts, usually involving
an indirect association of images conveyed through words -
ornamental view
• ‘Isolated pictorial’ - this metaphor involves, a direct
association between the two poles, since it comprises both
objectives and emotional components.
Metaphor

• The three types in turn appeal to intellectual,


poetic, and visual sensitive.
Isolated Pictorial metaphors
• Sydney opera house

• TWA airport terminal


Metaphor In architectural criticism
• Architectural criticism is often heavily dependent on
metaphor both as a form of expression and tool of
analysis
Metaphor In architectural criticism
• “…. So his Unitarian Church at Madison, Wisconsin,
of 1947, is both plow and ship, hitting into the
prairie like something moving forward. Its choir is
raised up behind the glass and under the ‘praying
hands’ of the roof, like the suspended pulpit,
reached by a rope ladder drawn up behind, in which
Melville’s New Bedford parson preached of whales.”
Vincent Scully
Unitarian Church at Madison, Wisconsin, of 1947, Frank Lloyd Wright
The Cassa Milla - Antonio Gaudi
Erich Mendelssohn's Einstein Tower
• “The Cassa Milla, both in plan and elevation, is like a sea hollowed
cliff, its rock-cut façade water- smoothed and eroded, hung with
metal seaweed, and dug with windows like eyes. The whole ‘roles
around’ like Wordsworth’s early 19th C. image or a late painting by
Van Gogh. It seems to embody a total human participation in the
rhythms that infuse the natural world. That is why the strange gods
that crowd the roof of Gaudi’s sea formed acropolis enjoy such an
eerie life. They come as icons and guardsmen, from somewhere
underneath- hollow, plated and helmeted- and take their places
above and beside broken stairs. This is also why Gaudi’s is a
convincingly Expressionist architecture, in its own way a forerunner
of Surrealist sculpture and painting(like Picasso) and why later
‘Expressionist’ buildings, like Mendelssohn's Einstein Tower, tend to
be less convincing. The latter is mechanically streamlined, but is not
moving and therefore, means nothing, but Gaudi’s forms like the
best of Art Nouveau as a whole, are infused with the action of nature
and are therefore somehow real.”
Dynamic and creative role of metaphor

• By causing us to see one thing in terms of another,


metaphors help us to see things in some manner that
is new to us.
• The metaphor in a word lives when the word brings
to mind more than a single reference and the several
references are seen to have something in common.
Archigram
• Plug in cities
• Aircraft carrier city Hans Holein
• Capsule homes tower, warren chalk
• Walking city
Nakagin Capsule Tower Kisho
Kurokawa
Walking city
Metaphor in architecture

• Works of art may express human values, feelings and


dynamic states.
• We derive meaning from these works based upon our
perceptions of the sensory, formal and technical properties
of the work and from our own experiences.
• When the Sensory, Formal and Technical elements of design
are combined, they give expression to a work of art that can
be explained using the language of human emotion.
• Expressive Elements are those that give a structure the
appearance of having a mood, emotional state, character, or
dynamic qualities.
Metaphor in architecture

• In architecture when we use


metaphor to design a building, we
choose an idea or mental image
that we want our structure to
express.
Metaphor in architecture

• Frank Lloyd Wright, used metaphor in architecture to portray


harmony between technology and nature in his design for the
Kaufmann House.
Ero Sarinen -TWA airport
JORn UtZOn – Sydney opera house
Exercise 3
• Imagine a program which ever you fantasize
about and design a futuristic architectural setting
using metaphor as a design principle.
• The presentation technique should include
drawings and 3 dimensional presentations as
well as a report.
• The medium of presentation should be in A-3
format
• Additional optional presentations are left for the
designers choice
Exercise 4
• Pick any famous architectural work in local or
international history. Describe it in metaphoric
words. The description could be through
essay, poem, or verses.

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