How to Speak?
A conversation with Alberto Pérez-Gómez about the necessity of Language to Understand and Practice Architecture
K.M. Havik (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
Jorge Mejia Hernandez (TU Delft - Situated Architecture)
Lorin Niculae (Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism)
Alberto Pérez-Gómez (McGill University)
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Abstract
Elaborating on a host of historical and theoretical references, in this conversation Alberto Pérez-Gómez suggests a course of action for the development of the architectural discipline; opposing the banality of scientism and rationalism, and recognizing instead the need for a degree of obscurity and ambiguity as essential to the full exercise of our humanity in relation to what we build and inhabit. Metaphors, myths, stories and poems, he notes, are not only useful instruments to represent architecture’s aesthetics and purpose, but elemental human practices that define who we are and how we know. Tense between different polarities, the conversation explores architecture as a way to find sense and meaning by relying on timeless wisdom in the face of the many distractions and distortions that characterize our time.
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