wikipedia dalibor vesely

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Dalibor Vesely 1

Dalibor Vesely

Dalibor Vesely was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1934. He studied engineering, architecture, art history and

philosophy in Prague and in Munich and obtained his PhD from Charles University in Prague. He studied with

Hans-Georg Gadamer, with whom he kept a correspondence that would last until the end of Gadamer's life. He was

also taught by Jan Patoka and has developed an interest in the poetics and hermeneutics of architecture.

Vesely has been influential through his writing and teaching in establishing the role of hermeneutics and

phenomenology as part of the discourse of architecture and of architectural design. He has taught some of the current

leading architects and architectural historians, such as Daniel Libeskind, Eric Parry, Alberto Prez-Gmez, Mohsen

Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow. He has taught at the University of Essex, at the Architectural Association in

London and since 1978 at the University of Cambridge Department of Architecture, where he also started an M.Phil.

programme in History and Philosophy of Architecture with Peter Carl. Vesely currently teaches Architectural

History and Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Manchester

School of Architecture. In 2005 he was recipient of the CICA Bruno Zevi Book Award granted by the International

Committee of Architectural Critics. In 2006 the Royal Institute of British Architects honoured Dalibor Vesely with

the Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Architectural Education.

Biography

Vesely was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1934. He studied engineering, architecture, art history and philosophy

in Prague and in Munich and obtained his PhD from Charles University in Prague. He studied with Hans-Georg

Gadamer, with whom he kept a correspondence that would last until the end of Gadamer's life. He was also taught by

Jan Patoka and has developed an interest in the poetics and hermeneutics of architecture.

Architecture and hermeneutics

Veselys work may be understood primarily as a contribution to cultural hermeneutics, and his exploration of the

historical background of modern science in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries is particularly rich in detail and

insight onto the changing nature of representation. Vesely polemises on concepts such as perspective and

anamorphosis, which are traditionally understood to have taken departure from Renaissance culture. Vesely

contributes to the current debate with the depth of the problem of representation; a question which has divided

Western philosophy with regard to the epistemological possibility of representation and understanding of natural

phenomena. The birth of modern science and its increasing challenge on traditional views has also marked the

divide within the possibilities of representation. In the context of the seventeenth century, this was especially clear as

a polemics surrounding the nature of scientific work and philosophical understanding.

According to Vesely, the inevitable partiality of such views is at the very core of the problem that affects the culturalunderstanding of representation. Its contingent nature was not always understood as a divide originating all kinds of

dualisms. Before modern science, representation was naturally contingent and the universal aspirations of science

(metaphysics) were bound to the nature of the epistemological ground (arch). Veselys work traces back the

ontological foundations of the problem to the Greek context, helping to clarify its original meaning. InArchitecture

in the Age of Divided Representation (2004), Vesely presents the notion of groundas having a provisional nature,

that can only be seized as a continuity of reference through different levels of representation, ranging from the more

explicit, visible world down to a latent worldof potential articulation. Precisely this continuity is what may allow us

to address the modern, fragmented notion of representation as a task of rehabilitation, which would trace the

fragment back to its original whole.
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Architecture and representation

In Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation (2004), Vesely sets the argument from the experience of

architecture, as it constantly works through different modes of representation, including "built reality".

Vesely defines the present cultural situation as divided and ambiguous, especially when it comes to architecture (pp.

4-12, 36, 44 ss). Twentieth-century architecture placed its trust in the epistemological model of modern science and

technology that is today largely reflected in instrumental concepts of city and suburban landscape. When

epistemology initiated its foundational enterprise it could hardly suspect that its role in validating scientific

knowledge would very soon be challenged. Quine's Epistemology Naturalized(1969) reports how this is precisely

what happened when it became clear that the argument developed in the terms of logical empiricism was not based

on the same empirical standing as the sciences. Today, the attempt to rehabilitate epistemology faces the problem of

bridging this gap. This is obviously not an easy task, since the gap is between different modes of representation and

concepts of knowledge that in some cases precede modern science, i.e., precede the historical notion of scientific

knowledge as it takes course from the seventeenth- and sixteenth centuries.

Vesely's research delves into these historical settings that are understood to be the birth place of modern science, in

the general hope of exposing the origin of our modern notion of knowledge and how it came about to emancipate

from traditional representations of the world. Veselys research has accordingly been working out the historical

notion of representation, as it constitutes a central issue in this historical affair; and the construction of a modern

notion of knowledge has much to do with a changing nature in the concept of representation (pp. 13-19). The

concept as it is generally understood today largely surpasses the history of epistemology. According to Vesely, this is

because representation is generally understood on the basis of a certain "continuity between a particular mode of

representation and what is represented" (p. 14), a notion which has been current throughout the whole of European

architectural history.

The modern situation

When looking at the modern situation, Vesely finds that the problem is generally structured on the basis of an

ontological difference that is intrinsic to representation itself. This is precisely the difference that allows modes of

representation to emancipate from that which is represented, and from particular, given circumstances (pp. 4-5). The

discussion ofontological difference therefore constitutes an epistemological difference affecting the conditions and

possibilities of knowledge. And speculative thought, which we so associate with modern science, is built on this

difference. Charles Taylor (1995) points out how the question for modern science is to fit a particular mode of

representation to another, extrinsic representation: what we commonly call the "outer reality". The difference

between the two constantly jeopardizes their epistemological value; and affects not only the way in which

representation relates to what it means to represent, but also between different modes of representing it.

In response, Vesely's work explores how architecture constantly works between different modes of representation,

through the difference between project and what is built, for instance, when it translates a whole city into a diagram,

a plan or a map. The simple act of reading a map involves more than just the imagination to relate the map with the

buildings and the surrounding space; it involves the reciprocity between different levels of representation, that may

intake discrepancy and lack of information. According to Vesely, this kind of discrepancy might be useful to

understand the nature of the question; and may in fact become a means to understand what impairs the

communication between different levels of representation, and conversely, what happens when such communication

takes place.

Vesely also takes up the example of an experiment that, paradoxically perhaps, was carried out in the hey-day of

logical empiricism. The experiment was carried out by Schilder, and involved a temporary inversion of the visual

field (pp. 46ss), leaving other perceptual fields untouched. Schilder's experiment addressed the discontinuity betweenthe visual and other fields of perception, and exposed the situated human body as a basic structure of spatial
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reference (pp. 48-49). Vesely investigates how the subjects of the experiment found that their bodies were the first

instance they could rely on when trying to situate in a visual world that was not only upside down, but also turned

from left to right; and when trying to perform simple gestures like picking up a book, or reading. Although the

experience was difficult to endure, the inverted vision could be partially reconciled with the original body structure

(p. 47).

According to Vesely, the ability to reconcile the acquired inverted vision with the situational structure of the humanbody, points out to a deeper problem when dealing with situation, which is related to our ability to become situated

on provisional grounds, even when lacking a fundamental 'ground' of spatial or temporal reference. The example

from inverted vision also means to show that such a basis is far from being immediate; it is constituted in the process

of a search within the actual space and comes about in the reciprocity between different levels and forms of

representation such as visual, tactile, and so forth. Vesely elaborates on situation and the phenomenon of being

situated as an example of how we contextualize spatial knowledge and on which basis; and on how a particular point

of reference allows us to situate spatial knowledge. In the course of the argument, Vesely demonstrates that what

constitutes the fabric of situation is a continuity of reference and experience through different forms of articulating

spatiality down to an implicit structure that itself is neither visual nor tactile, and is only potentially articulated in the

objective realm (pp. 48, 82-87, 378ss).

Situation and perception

Veselys argument on the epistemological process of being situated develops in terms of an analogy to the formation

of the visual field. And takes the organic ability of sight only as a point of departure to the phenomenon of vision,

i.e. what one is able to recognize and know out of visual perception. Accordingly, the natural process of seeing is

shown to be a result from learning. Vesely presents the example of inborn conditions of blindness treated through

surgery, where sight itself only emerges after a painful stage of learning, and without which, the recently-acquired

sense of sight would be unable to detach or recognize individual objects out of a visual field (pp. 50-51). Vesely

describes how the integration of the newly-acquired sense relies on the fact that the world of the blind is already

structured, not only in terms of temporal sequences, but spatially; and that the reconciliation of the new ability of

sight takes place on an already structured ground of existing objects and spatiality. Perception such as visual or

tactile is reconciled upon an implicitly structured ground.

Vesely shows how the task of bridging different plateaux of representation can only be fulfilled by covering the

distance to a common 'ground' (pp. 61-63). 'Ground' is like a point of departure from which it would become possible

to uncover the basic structure of spatiality; but it is hardly the case that such an epistemological ground can provide

us with an absolute source of spatial reference. The notion of epistemological ground is not established a priori, as a

given point of reference. It comes about in the process of searching, taking place as a continuum of references

between different levels of spatial understanding. In which case, what constitutes the structural source of situation is

this stream of references (p. 60).Vesely's notion of ground consists of a primary source of reference that in many ways coincides with the traditional

Greek understanding ofarch.Archis not an absolute source of reference, but only a primary one that works as a

point of departure towards our notion of "earth" and our understanding of "world" (pp. 50-52). This is an insecure

groundthat in a sense, speaks more of its own topography, than of clearly defined rules and references. Although

this is an unfamiliar ground for modern science, Vesely accurately describes how much of the understanding of what

it means to be situated derives from the knowledge of daily situations on Earth, where horizon and gravity play a

common role. Accordingly, architecture's task of raising and 'building' situations does not address the mere existence

of conditions such as floor or gravity, but concerns the fundamental condition of 'ground' allowing the phenomenon

of situation to take place.
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Situation and knowledge

On the epistemological level, this means that for Vesely, the nature of ground allows an understanding of spatial

structure; like a hermeneutical key granting access to phenomena of spatiality. Contemporary architecture has been

particularly keen on challenging the average views on groundviz. gravity as a basic ground for the displacement of

the subject. This is particularly the case of the collaborative architectural enterprise of Peter Eisenman and Jacques

Derrida. Although most architecture cannot escape the predicament of gravity, there are numerous examples of play

with gravity and the 'visual weight' of architectural mass against gravity, starting from the early twentieth-century

constructivism. Such architectural play shows an impulse towards the emancipation from gravity as a natural source

of situation, and looks forward to expose a more fundamental ground of reference and its problematic nature.

Architecture is thus setting a clear challenge on everyday experience as they are structured characteristically in terms

of up and down, and according to a horizontal ground. The experiment of the inverted vision seems to show exactly

that: the touch of ground helps to define the vertical and the relative distances of objects, orientation, and to

recognize the physiognomy of the space. Outside these conditions it seems more or less obvious that the 'grounds' for

situation escape our grasp. At the same time, architects are conscious that it is precisely the implicit nature of ground

as a structure of references that makes the task of its architectural exploration so difficult.

Moreover, according to Vesely, the notion of ground can never provide us with an absolute knowledge of the

whole, but only with a mediated understanding of spatial structure. This means that the task of uncovering the hidden

nature of ground becomes, a fortiori, one of looking for a provisional ground that is beyond gravity as a natural

source of spatial reference. The first long-term programme dealing with the consequences of the absence of gravity

was developed already in 1973 by the NASA Skylab. Vesely reports how one of the greatest difficulties encountered

by the astronauts is the constant loss of orientation that becomes a general difficulty in recognizing previously

known situations. Without gravity, an otherwise familiar compartment would be unrecognizable if not seen from a

particular angle. The Sky Lab experience seems to illustrate quite well how the phenomenon of spatial structure and

situation comes to be known through a sequence of approximations. Without the right orientation, simple recognition

such as finding objects in their right places would become an almost impossible task. Once found the right

orientation towards objects, however, the entire spatial frame of the compartment was recognized and so would all

objects in their right places and relative positions. In a situation without light or gravity, one of the Sky Lab

astronauts also described how a single touch on one of the walls of the space compartment would be sufficient to

enact the knowledge of the relative position of the body with respect to all objects (pp. 52-54). This seems to be

particularly relevant to show how a particular point of visual or tactile reference can provide with orientation; a

physiognomic recognition of the space; and be related to the spatial disposition of the whole. These are instances

that, according to Vesely, constitute a continuity of spatial reference and an epistemological, provisional ground. As

it arises in the continuity of understanding the potential structure of the space, the notion of ground seems to be of a

projective nature (p. 103).

The continuity of reference

Vesely seems to confer a projective ability on spatiality that is thus knowable from its own potential to generate a

situation. According to Vesely, the continuity of reference to ground exists within a permanent tension with the

actual space, a continuity which under certain conditions may be disrupted and even destroyed (pp. 55-56). The fact

that there are discrepancies between different levels of representation should perhaps be no surprise as it is the case

of the above-mentioned examples of reading a map, or orienting oneself in a space under zero gravity. That there is

discrepancy between the given representation of a space and the actual space is in fact a common datum of everyday

experience. The question is not to be solved, although it may constitute one important point of departure to

understand the phenomenon of representation. This is particularly the case of extreme conditions where the

phenomenon of 'continuity' is no longer recognizable. In the cases of aphasia and apraxia, which rank among others

of what is generally known as mental blindness, there is a blatant discontinuity between the possibilities of notional
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understanding and the actual performance of a purposive act or standard articulation of speech. The work and

research that has been carried out on mental blindness tends to show that the ability to articulate both speech and

purposive actions and gestures is nonetheless affected by the surrounding environment, and is not based upon mental

impairment alone. On the contrary, it has become increasingly clear that such conditions do not take place solely as a

result of mental functions; neither can they be enacted by the situational structure, as both contribute to the failure

and success of treatment (p. 57). Vesely brings the argument about these conditions back to the experiments

regarding orientation, such as the inverted vision experiment and orientation under zero gravity conditions, and

correlates it with the problems experienced with mental blindness. This is because of the fundamental knowledge of

spatiality that is at stake that enables a possible representation to be actually effected. As regards spatiality, Vesely

presupposes an existing continuity between the possible and the actual spatial configuration, as a mediated structure

(p. 58). This understanding of representation seems to reverberate Husserl's phenomenological treatment of

representation, as moving from the horizon of vague, informal representation (Vorstellung), through a number of

possibilities (Vergegenwrtigungen), until it finally reaches actuality (Reprsentation). The fact that Husserl only

used the word Reprsentation to deal with explicit forms of representation, may serve us as an example of how a

whole representational process was being kept in the background. Husserl's process of representation shows that our

knowledge of spatiality intakes different levels of articulation, which are not always as clearly defined as we wouldwish. This means that the ground and point of departure of explicit references is not a point of departure towards a

growing, cumulative knowledge of situation, but is rather a 'coming back' into a prereflective world of experience. In

this sense, representation takes place as a spectrum ranging out of explicit forms of articulation into an implicit

background, a concept that seems to be confirmed by later phenomenology of perception. It seems obvious that,

because of the nature of this prereflective ground, verbal or visual articulation of it cannot take place in an explicit

sense. On the contrary, the phenomenological gaze at this background takes place indirectly (p. 69) as a

preunderstanding of the world. If this is so, then not only our epistemological ground is constituted as an identity of

interpretation of different levels of perception, but also the concept of representation as such is constituted as a

movement out of a prereflective background. This is precisely the background against which it becomes possible for

an articulated structure to take place and be identified as such (pp. 75-77). This also means that the differencebetween different levels of articulation, namely between a preunderstanding background and a given object is

precisely what allows us to see the object and situate it within our world of experience. If we accept Vesely's

argument, then the difference that formerly stood as an epistemological barrier now becomes a necessary condition

for representation to take place.

The latent world of architecture

Vesely addresses the preunderstanding of world as a latent world (p. 83), that is potentially articulated and

structured, and whose relationship to its visible manifestation is not immediate. The reciprocity between this

prearticulated level and its visible articulation dwells within the very ontological difference th at has been discussed

previously. Such reciprocity is a schematic constituent of phenomena of continuity and metaphoricity, that have been

constantly described throughout the primary tradition of Christian humanism in the nature of being and becoming.

Vesely thus enters the core of the question of representation in terms of its coming into the level of visibility. In the

sequence of Vesely's argument, the subject of visibility becomes then, of itself, problematic in nature as it intakes a

background of potential articulation.

According to Vesely, "the horizon of visibility displays a synthesis of the prereflective experience and of the

achievements of reflection insofar as they preserve ontological continuity with the visible" (p. 85). On the other

hand, the rise onto the explicit level of visibility primarily seems to express the problem of representation in terms of

what is kept from the prereflective world. This could perhaps be seen as a consequence of the traditional concept of

inner representation as relating to an external reality. Vesely challenges this concept of representation, and widens itas a spectrum that ranges from the explicitness of our world down to implicit levels of articulation. Consequently,

the term reality is restricted mostly to certain types of representation (e.g. virtual reality) that view reality as
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Dalibor Vesely 6

something extrinsic (pp. 308-315). Vesely's concept of representation, however, takes place in terms of a

communication between a wide range of levels; whereby the question that concerns representation also concerns the

truth of representation, a question that has been amply developed by modern hermeneutics. In this domain, the

visible world conveys a kind of knowledge of the prereflective levels of articulation that also jeopardizes the

epistemological status of the visible. As we have seen, contrary to empiricist belief, the visible world by itself does

not constitute an epistemological ground (pp. 84-86). Instead, our epistemological ground is constituted by features

such as orientation, physiognomy, and the relative position of things with regard to one another; and it is from these

features that a provisional ground comes to be constituted as regards spatiality. This ground is not a still point of

reference. On the contrary, by ground is here meant a source and stream of references. This means that the explicit

horizon of the visible, tangible world is the most explicit form of embodiment we have, but such a narrow horizon

we can only take as a point of departure if we want to understand the rest of our world that is largely beyond

visibility. This also means that the visible holds a very important part as a symbolic representation of our world,

enabling us to see and imagine beyond the visible.

Finally, this means that we construe our knowledge of 'world' largely on the basis of invisible, implicit references

which are only symbolically re-enacted by the visible realm. The level of visual representation may perhaps be

compared to the level of more explicit verbal articulation as regards the implicit, preverbal domain of knowledge.Just as visual representation, verbal articulation has the power to emancipate from the given world, and the freedom

to convey any meaning. This is a power bestowed upon representation, allowing it to withdraw from its original

symbolic domain, thus establishing a tension between the instrumental nature of representation and its larger

symbolic field.

Bibliography

The Architectonics of EmbodimentIn:Body and Building (MIT Press, 2002).

Space, Simulation and Disembodiment in Contemporary Architecture In:Architecture and Phenomenology

(Eindhoven, 2002).

Architecture in the Age of Divided Representation: The Question of Creativity in the Shadow of Production (MIT

Press, 2004). ISBN 0-262-22067-9

The Latent World of Architecture In: Space-Place, Symposium on Phenomenology and Architecture (HK Heritage

Museum, 2005).

Further reading

Derrida, Jacques (1993).Khra. Paris: Galile.

_____________ (1967, 2003).La voix et le phnomne : Introduction au problme du signe dans la

phnomnologie de Husserl. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

Eisenman, Peter (1999).Diagram Diaries. London: Thames and Hudson.

Heidegger, Martin (1925, 1985). Categorial Intuition In:A History of the Concept of Time, trans. T. Kisiel.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 47-72.

Heidegger, Martin (1928, 1984). The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, trans. Michael Henry Heim.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Husserl, Edmund (1900, 2001).Logical Investigations, vol. 2. International Library of Philosophy.

_____________ (1970). The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr.

Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press.

Kornblith, Hillary (ed.) (1985).Naturalizing Epistemology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

MacArthur, John (1993).Experiencing Absence: Eisenman, Derrida, Benjamin and Schwitters In:Knowledge

in/and/or/of Experience. Brisbane: IMA, pp. 99-123.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1945, 1998).Phnomnologie de la perception. Paris: Gallimard.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/embodyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Physiognomyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hermeneuticshttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Truth


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Prez-Gmez, Alberto (1983).Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Quine, Willard Van Orman (1969). Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University

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External links

University of Pennsylvania faculty page[1]

References

[1] http:/ /www.design. upenn. edu/new/arch/facultybio. php?fid=71
http://www.design.upenn.edu/new/arch/facultybio.php?fid=71http://www.design.upenn.edu/new/arch/facultybio.php?fid=71


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