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WHOLENESS AS A BASIC ASSUPTION FOR UNDERSTANDING OF MEANING PROVIDED BY ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE
Kinnert, Filip ; Löw, Jiří (referee) ; Michl, Jan (referee) ; Horáček, Martin (advisor)
Is it possible to perceive places and architectural forms as meaningful but without symbolic references? Is it possible to talk about the spirit of a place and life in things without kitschy sentimentality? This thesis approaches architecture as a built environment, and studies how we humans can relate to the context of the natural environment not only by means of interventions but also by satisfying the urge for meaning by mutual co-creation. A certain way of thinking, mainly oriented toward utility and abstract concepts, makes it impossible for us to viscerally connect with our environment. This appears as a part of the environmental crisis, the loss of sense of place, and the inability to create new soulful places. The theoretical basis for this thesis is theories by Christopher Alexander. His idea of wholeness overcomes the apparent alienation from nature, or the division between the subject and so-called “objective reality” and allows us to approach life and the environment in another way than as a mere mechanism. From the perspective of wholeness, the study of architectural language consists of recognizing the meanings of architectural forms as references on the one hand and, on the other hand, meanings of forms that express value by themselves. The latter belongs to the experience of our own subjectivity. Such meanings are expressed for example by art, but they are present in everyday life, and they can be reflected in the order of things, or in places thanks to our own experience of home – a place par excellence. In this endeavor for recognition, I search for support in the works of researchers of the phenomenological approach to architecture, and experts in the fields of philosophy, art, and science, who seem to work with the same assumption of wholeness. Using induction, comparison, and logical argumentation, I point to the correlations between the approaches, and I use their terminology as complementary in my own observations and examples. I offer this thesis to the discussion on the unified architectural theory. I also see opportunity in a vision of sensitive continuity on the richness of the architectural heritage without showing off the “ever new" architectural forms and, on the contrary, scrupulous imitation of "historical" forms. The mainly theoretical work is added with empirical research, in which I point out that some non-visual characteristics of structures can be of the same or even greater importance in evaluating the degree of life (wholeness) than the visual complexity. In doing so, I question some of the conclusions of the leading researchers in the field who investigate the concept of wholeness quantitatively.
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Man and the City - philosophical and cultural-anthropological aspects of the problem
Panoušková, Markéta ; Semrádová, Ilona (advisor) ; Hogenová, Anna (referee) ; Kalábová, Helena (referee)
This dissertation thesis focuses on the philosophical aspects of the relationship of Man toward the city. The main methods of the work are interpretation of texts connected with the city and a philosophically inspired analysis of the bond of Man with the city as a space and time constructed, inhabited and shared by humans, and with its experienced phenomena. First of all it presents the method by which the theme of the city has been dealt with by scholars from the field of philosophy and other social sciences. We find the theme of the city in the works of a whole range of philosophers: For example, it served J. A. Comenius as a symbol of human situation in life, Michel Foucault as a point of departure for his political-philosophical analysis of power, and Emmanuel Lévinas for his discourse on culpability, punishment and responsibility. In order to understand the phenomenon of the city, observations from sociologists, architects, town planners and historians of architecture are also important. Moreover, in their works it is possible to find overlaps into philosophical thought, for example Bernard Lepetit contributes to the theme of the temporality of the city with the concept of the "trace", whilst Jan Gehl, through his discourse on the perception of environment and the challenge of applying a human...
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