From anything to architecture: Architecture as a field of analogical transpositions. (1st June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Martínez, Pablo Gil
• Is Part Of: Design ecologies. Volume 8:Number 1(2019)
• Page Start: 66
• Page End: 93
• Publication Date: 2019-06-01
• Subjects: Design -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Architecture -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Sustainable architecture -- Periodicals; Sustainable design -- Periodicals; 720.47
• DOI: 10.1386/des.8.1.66_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2043-0698

Abstract

The use of analogy is considered suspicious in architectural design. Tutors of architecture tend to eliminate its use by students suggesting avoidance of 'literal metaphor'. This probably is a symptom of an ideological bias towards the modern movement principles of abstraction. It is also arguably dangerous as it eliminates the powerful tool of analogy in developing original ideas and techniques. Besides, it eliminates potentially great architectural designs that can come from the use of analogy. Gehry´s Chiat/Day building in Venice, California, the unexpected architectural interior of Statue of Liberty, the design of a lamp that attempts the use a mechanism of design based on analogy of behaviour and finally a proposal for an archaeology museum are proposed as examples of the varied use of analogy in architecture to prove its potential.