How to Speak?

A conversation with Alberto Pérez-Gómez about the necessity of Language to Understand and Practice Architecture

Journal article (2021)

Authors

K.M. Havik Situated Architecture - Architecture and the Built Environment
J.A. Mejia Hernandez Situated Architecture - Architecture and the Built Environment
Lorin Niculae Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism
Alberto Pérez-Gómez McGill University
Research Group
Situated Architecture (Architecture and the Built Environment) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2021 K.M. Havik, J.A. Mejia Hernandez, Lorin Niculae, Alberto Pérez-Gómez
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7480/writingplace.5.5880
More Info
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Published Date

2021

Language

English

Faculty

Architecture and the Built Environment

Department

Architecture

Research Group

Situated Architecture

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.