Un bâtiment ne parle pas, mais il communique d’une autre manière des messages qui sont le reflet des idées des architectes. Si l’architecture est un langage, si elle est une « écriture d’idées », alors comment rendre l’idée visible ? Comment peut-on, dans un sens métaphorique, faire parler un bâtiment ? Nous proposons alors une hypothèse analogique : « Si le bâtiment parlait alors il parlerait chinois ». Cette hypothèse oriente nos recherches vers l’étude des rapports entre langage architectural et langage naturel. À l’intérieur de ce champ interdisciplinaire, l’écriture graphique et idéographique chinoise devient notre objet référentiel. Les caractères chinois unifient la forme et le sens en même temps, ils proposent une figuration des idées fondée sur le système idéographique. De par sa logique combinatoire et ses procédés rhétoriques, le processus de figuration des caractères chinois est un processus de transformation de formes simples vers des formes complexes, passant de significations limitées à des significations riches. Ce processus de conception de caractères montre également une série de schèmes idéographiques qui pourrait constituer un système méthodologique de sémantisation pour la représentation architecturale. Ainsi, l'écriture idéographique et l'écriture architecturale, pris comme deux processus de figuration peuvent parallèlement se comparer, et l’écriture idéographique pourrait proposer un outil conceptuel pour l’écriture architecturale. Il s’agit d’examiner un nouveau modèle linguistique qui pourrait être utile pour la conception de l’architecture contemporaine. / A building does not speak, but communicates messages in a different way which comes from architects’ ideas. If architecture is a language, if it is a way to "write ideas", we would like to ask how can we make ideas visible and, metaphorically, how to make a building speak? So we propose a hypothesis based on analogy: "If the building spoke, it would speak Chinese." This hypothesis has guided our research towards the study of the relationship between architectural language and natural language: inside an interdisciplinary field mixing graphic and ideographic issue Chinese writing becomes our referential object. Chinese characters unify form and meaning at the same time, they are representations of ideas based on the ideographic system - a system "write the idea" - which more or less influenced all other Chinese arts and could represent the the most complex idea in the simplest way. By the combinatory logic and in the rhetorical manner, the process of figurations of Chinese characters was a process from simple forms to complex forms, from the limited significations to the rich significations. This design process also shows a series of ideographic patterns, which could be a methodological system of semantisation for the architectural representation. As a result, ideographic writing and architectural writing, as two processes of representation can be compared in a parallel way: ideographic writing could then provide a conceptual tool for architectural writing, constitute a new linguistic model for the design of contemporary architecture.

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This thesis investigates the role of the term plot in mediating relations between architecture and narrativity. Examining organisational strategies in the creation of real and virtual spaces, it identifies literary works by novelists who have resisted, or subverted, plot conventions in fiction (Joris-Karl Huysmans, Edmond de Goncourt, Xavier de Maistre and Neal Stephenson), and introduces architectural spaces such as Thomas Edison’s film-studio Black Maria, and the plotless productions of early cinematography, to juxtapose concepts of plot and spatiality in a study of the production and consumption of pre-digital virtual spaces. Plot here relates therefore both to narrative sequentiality and spatial organisation – from "storyline" to "ground plan". The "plotless" narrative structure of Huysmans, Goncourt and de Maistre focuses on the interaction between man – the "writerin- residence" – and his domestic interior, functioning as an excitant or stimulant for the production of both material and imagined spaces. The media culture of late 19th century society saw the first significant attempts at moving image technology and its related spatialities – the Black Maria, the kinetoscope, the kinetograph, and the films produced by these, which had yet to find a narrative form. The architecture of the plotless novels and the proto-cinematic experiments of the late 19th century modulate between physical reality and fiction. They are ripe in their descriptive narrativity, expanding in the imagination of the consumer. Stephenson’s imaginative transposition of book media into a "Primer" – a new form of narrative media that develops its narrative content directly from the environmental context of its reader – concludes the discussion of the thesis, highlighting interrelations between fictive and real space, influencing both writer and reader. The refusal of narrative plot deprives the reader of causality, but emphasises the fictitious spatial creation in which the reader becomes immersed. These spaces, by virtue of their disengagement from plot, allow us to revisit the possibilities of virtual space without common preconceptions concerning the creation or experience of digital mediating technology.

Esta dissertação de mestrado se propõe a apresentar um estudo sobre o texto conhecido como Carta de Rafael -Castiglione a Leão X e suas implicações. Durante três anos tivemos a oportunidade e o prazer de recolher, junto ao Professor Dr. Luciano Migliaccio, uma série preciosa de textos que tinham por objeto de estudo a chamada Carta a Leão X. Segundo Christof Thoenes, a Carta constitui o prefácio em forma de dedicatória de uma Planta de Roma elaborada por Rafael, isto é, um corpus de levantamentos e de reconstruções gráficas dos edifícios da Roma antiga. A sua autoria nos leva aos maiores nomes do Renascimento italiano, uma vez que o documento é de grande interesse para muitos campos diferentes como os da história da arquitetura e da urbanística, da história das teorias e da didática da arquitetura, da história do desenho arquitetônico, seja no sentido técnico-prático (por exemplo, o emprego da bússola no levantamento dos edifícios) seja no teórico (o problema da representação sobre o plano dos objetos tridimensionais), mas também da história dos estudos antiquários e da arqueologia. Além disso, trata-se de um documento fundamental dentro do programa político do Papado de Leão X no inicio do Cinqüecento. Este texto, encontrado em três versões, foi exaustivamente estudado, permitindo várias leituras, e depois da publicação de Francesco Di Teodoro, teve a questão da datação e autoria praticamente esclarecidas. Quanto à autoria, trata -se de um produto coletivo, pois a carta foi escrita em nome de Rafael mas o rascunho é da mão de Baldassare Castiglione, assim como o estilo e também grande parte dos pensamentos expressos no texto sobre a antiguidade, sobre os monumentos, sua tutela e sua história. A nós foi de grande interesse compreender que a Carta seria o prefácio de um projeto ainda maior do papa Leão X que pretendia, através do trabalho de Rafael e do desenvolvimento das técnicas de ilustração e da gravura, apresentar a Roma antiga em um livro ilustrado, isto é , um Atlas da cidade. Essa propaganda ao mundo da imagem da Roma Imperial como sede legítima da Igreja estaria, portanto, associada à valorização do papel de Leão X na tutela dos monumentos antigos; no entanto , isto não deve ser interpretado como uma reconstrução material dos edifícios, mas uma proposta de conservá -los na memória por meio de uma reconstrução gráfica, antes do seu total desaparecimento. / The purpose of this dissertation is to present a study about the text kn own as Letter of Rafael - Castiglione to Pope Leo X and its implications. During three years, we have had the pleasure and opportunity to obtain from Professor Luciano Migliaccio a series of precious texts which had the objective of studying the so calle d Letter of Leo X. According to Christof Thoenes, the letter establishes a preface, in the form of a dedication of a Blueprint of Rome , elaborated by Rafael. That is, a corpus of settings and graphic reconstruction of the buildings of ancient Rome. His authorship takes us to the greatest names of the Italian Renaissance, once the document is of great interest to various fields, such as, history of architecture, urbanism, the history of the theories and didactics of architecture and the history of architectural design, whether in a technical -practical manner (the use of the compass, for instance, in constructing buildings), or in theory (the significance of three dimensional objects in the plan), as well as the history of antiquary and archeological stud ies. In addition to this, the document is fundamental inside the political program of the papacy of Pope Leo X, in the beginning of the XVI th century. This text, which can be found in three versions, was studied exhaustively, enabling various readings and, after the publication of Francesco Di Teodoro, it had its dating and paternity practically clarified. As for the paternity, the letter was signed in name of Rafael, however it is the result of a collective job the draft, the style, along with a great deal of the thoughts expressed about antiquity, the monuments, their custody and history, were the work of Baldassare Castiglione. It was of great interest to us to comprehend that this letter was the preface of an even greater project of Pope Leo X who inten ded, through the work of Rafael and the development of illustration and engraving techniques, to present ancient Rome in an illustrated book, that is, a map of the city. This advertisement to the world of the image of Imperial Rome as the legitimate headquarters of the church would therefore be associated to the valorization of the role of Pope Leo X as tutor of ancient monuments. However, this should not be interpreted as a material reconstruction of the buildings, but as a proposal to maintain their memor y by means of graphic reconstruction, before their complete disappearance.

<p>This essay tries to show how The Swedish Museum of Architecture, Stockholm, with the exibition Architecture in Sweden - Function, Design and Aesthetic through the Ages, presents and represents architecture. It is stated that this is done in a multi-perspectival, multimedial fashion, with the aid of, for example, photography, models and mixed material surrounding the wide concept of ’architecture’. One chapter discusses the relationships between the exhibition on site, the exhibition catalog and the museum´s website. Another chapter argues that there can be no essential or perfect representation of architecture, although this utopian wish most certainly exists even today. A general idea is that the problems regarding architectural representation has something to do with its double position within art history as well as its multi-dimensional characteristics. In addition to this, our daily encounters with architecture is also said to contribute. Furthermore, it is argued that exhibitions understood as site-specific and temporal events, need further research.</p>

<p>This thesis investigates the role of the term plot in mediating relations between architecture and narrativity. Examining organisational strategies in the creation of real and virtual spaces, it identifies literary works by novelists who have resisted, or subverted, plot conventions in fiction (Joris-Karl Huysmans, Edmond de Goncourt, Xavier de Maistre and Neal Stephenson), and introduces architectural spaces such as Thomas Edison’s film-studio Black Maria, and the plotless productions of early cinematography, to juxtapose concepts of plot and spatiality in a study of the production and consumption of pre-digital virtual spaces. Plot here relates therefore both to narrative sequentiality and spatial organisation – from "storyline" to "ground plan". The "plotless" narrative structure of Huysmans, Goncourt and de Maistre focuses on the interaction between man – the "writerin- residence" – and his domestic interior, functioning as an excitant or stimulant for the production of both material and imagined spaces. The media culture of late 19th century society saw the first significant attempts at moving image technology and its related spatialities – the Black Maria, the kinetoscope, the kinetograph, and the films produced by these, which had yet to find a narrative form. The architecture of the plotless novels and the proto-cinematic experiments of the late 19th century modulate between physical reality and fiction. They are ripe in their descriptive narrativity, expanding in the imagination of the consumer. Stephenson’s imaginative transposition of book media into a "Primer" – a new form of narrative media that develops its narrative content directly from the environmental context of its reader – concludes the discussion of the thesis, highlighting interrelations between fictive and real space, influencing both writer and reader. The refusal of narrative plot deprives the reader of causality, but emphasises the fictitious spatial creation in which the reader becomes immersed. These spaces, by virtue of their disengagement from plot, allow us to revisit the possibilities of virtual space without common preconceptions concerning the creation or experience of digital mediating technology.</p>

This essay tries to show how The Swedish Museum of Architecture, Stockholm, with the exibition Architecture in Sweden - Function, Design and Aesthetic through the Ages, presents and represents architecture. It is stated that this is done in a multi-perspectival, multimedial fashion, with the aid of, for example, photography, models and mixed material surrounding the wide concept of ’architecture’. One chapter discusses the relationships between the exhibition on site, the exhibition catalog and the museum´s website. Another chapter argues that there can be no essential or perfect representation of architecture, although this utopian wish most certainly exists even today. A general idea is that the problems regarding architectural representation has something to do with its double position within art history as well as its multi-dimensional characteristics. In addition to this, our daily encounters with architecture is also said to contribute. Furthermore, it is argued that exhibitions understood as site-specific and temporal events, need further research.

This thesis is a critical reconsideration of the relationship of architectural production with its modes of representation. Historically, the representation of architecture has been signifying an interval where the displacement between the mental conception and its material expression has taken place. The group composed of plan, section and elevation is called orthographic set, which has been accepted as a universal code in architecture since it is attributed with the basic premise of its being objective and international. It is this attributed character of the drawings, which will be investigated in respect to the act of sectioning. Section displays an ambiguous character that it is the picture plane and the act of cutting at once. This study is a critical redefinition of section as a spatial act of framing. The construction of picture plane is discussed as a specific condition of framing, thus of sectioning. Like the specificity of the perspectival representation, the section constructs its own frame, in which the physical cut into the body of architectural object and its flattened spatial depth overlap. Therefore, section is redefined as the operation of a spatial framing, which rather hides than displays. It is in this hidden dimension that the epistemological value in architectural representation lies. The significance of the picture plane, that is the incision plane, is revealed by its relation to the constitution of perspective and projective drawings. The related concept of projection, whose mode strictly corresponds to the distance stimulated by the mode of projection, provides not only a critical distance but also brings about the operations to overcome that distance. In this respect, acknowledging section in architectural representation as a conceptual spatial frame, the study tries to reveal the inherent depth of the medium of representation, which is sometimes more promising than what is displayed in.

Em projetos arquitetônicos, lápis e papel continuam sendo os instrumentos mais usados para elaborar desenhos à mão livre para dar suporte às atividades das etapas iniciais de projeto. Ferramentas digitais convencionalmente utilizadas por arquitetos carecem de funcionalidade apropriada e não oferecem interfaces amigáveis para os estágios iniciais de concepção arquitetônica. A solução para estes problemas fundamenta-se em dois apoios tecnológicos: (i) em dispositivos de hardware já disponíveis que podem ajudar projetistas a expressar suas ideias através de sketches à mão livre; e (ii) em princípios de funcionalidade presentes em softwares experimentais os quais, combinados com hardware apropriados, poderiam oferecer interações humano-computador amigáveis e intuitivas nas etapas iniciais de projetos arquitetônicos. Esta pesquisa revisa e sintetiza literatura relevante à esta hipótese, especialmente quanto às formas como projetistas de arquitetura interagem com os computadores, como dispositivos de entrada restringem possíveis interações e como diferentes funcionalidades podem ser exploradas através dessas interações. A revisão do estado da arte dos softwares experimentais de modelagem baseada em sketch para projetos arquitetônicos permitiu descrever em detalhe as funcionalidades oferecidas e argumentar que, se combinadas, essas funcionalidades forneceriam um apoio mais adequado para as etapas iniciais de projeto arquitetônico. Cenários de uso são desenvolvidos para explorar tais combinações e demonstrar possibilidades atuais e futuras das ferramentas digitais durante a fase de concepção do projeto arquitetônico. / In architectural design, pencil and paper remain the most used media to create freehand drawings to support the activities of early designing stages. Digital tools conventionally used by architects lack of appropriated functionality and do not offer friendly interfaces for early stages of architectural designing. The solutions for these problems are twofold: (i) hardware already available can help designers to express their first ideas by freehand sketches; and (ii) functionality principles are present in experimental software and, combined with appropriate hardware, could successfully provide a friendly and intuitive human-computer interaction in the early stages of architectural designing. This research revises and synthesizes literature relevant to this hypothesis, taking special attention to the way architectural designers interact with computers, how input devices constrain possible interactions and how functionalities can be explored through these interactions. The update to the state-of-the-art studies in experimental, sketch-based modeling software for architectural design allowed detailed descriptions of the functionality they offer and allowed to argue that, combined, this functionality would provide a more adequate support for initial stages of architectural designing. Scenarios of use are developed, exploring such combination and demonstrating current and future possibilities for digital tools to use during initial stages of architectural designing.