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Terms in this set (42)
In some ways, you might understand the imagination
and the understanding as opposed.
The imagination is temporal, the understanding is universal.
The imagination is multiple while the understanding is singular.
But the understanding is also passive.
It receives the imagination's input.
The imagination is active.
So we might say that the imagination organizes the sensuous manifold
according to organizing principles that can be received by the understanding.
And here we have the idea that architecture produces knowledge.
and the understanding as opposed.
The imagination is temporal, the understanding is universal.
The imagination is multiple while the understanding is singular.
But the understanding is also passive.
It receives the imagination's input.
The imagination is active.
So we might say that the imagination organizes the sensuous manifold
according to organizing principles that can be received by the understanding.
And here we have the idea that architecture produces knowledge.
So perspective as a system brings together self and the world.
It brings them all together and organizes them
according to a single point of view.
But there's one more thing about a system like perspective,
a system that constructs knowledge rather than just
describing objects that already exist.
Think about that point of convergence, that point
where all lines converge in infinity.
And then think of that picture plane where we actually
see the representation that perspective gives us.
When we try to go back into infinity, and that picture plane blocks our way,
and we realize that we, of course, can't reach infinity,
but that somehow, we get the strange sense
that there's something looking back at us at the other end
of that line of vision.
That thing looking back at us might be perspective's other.
It might be the city itself, the social city that's
looking back at us as individuals, that we're
locked into this perspectival system by that point of view,
but that somehow, the social city and the collective is looking back at us.
Or it might just be the thing, that unthinkable thing that is not us.
And it's very interesting if we go back to the Urbino panel one last time
and look at a close-up of the door to that temple.
And notice that the painter painted that door slightly ajar.
Now, look even more closely.
When they cleaned the painting a few years ago,
they discovered-- you see that little spot just
to the right of the door in that space of very deep shadow.
They discovered the nail hole where the nail
had been from which the painters would pull
the string that represented all the converging lines of the perspective.
But that hole, that point of convergence,
that point where the thing exists that's looking back at us,
is inside the temple, inside the darkness, the void,
that the temple is enclosing.
It's almost as if architecture itself is somehow--
the whole reason for architecture is to contain that void and that moment
of convergence where the thing that's looking back at us,
that's challenging our very existence as subject, resides.
It brings them all together and organizes them
according to a single point of view.
But there's one more thing about a system like perspective,
a system that constructs knowledge rather than just
describing objects that already exist.
Think about that point of convergence, that point
where all lines converge in infinity.
And then think of that picture plane where we actually
see the representation that perspective gives us.
When we try to go back into infinity, and that picture plane blocks our way,
and we realize that we, of course, can't reach infinity,
but that somehow, we get the strange sense
that there's something looking back at us at the other end
of that line of vision.
That thing looking back at us might be perspective's other.
It might be the city itself, the social city that's
looking back at us as individuals, that we're
locked into this perspectival system by that point of view,
but that somehow, the social city and the collective is looking back at us.
Or it might just be the thing, that unthinkable thing that is not us.
And it's very interesting if we go back to the Urbino panel one last time
and look at a close-up of the door to that temple.
And notice that the painter painted that door slightly ajar.
Now, look even more closely.
When they cleaned the painting a few years ago,
they discovered-- you see that little spot just
to the right of the door in that space of very deep shadow.
They discovered the nail hole where the nail
had been from which the painters would pull
the string that represented all the converging lines of the perspective.
But that hole, that point of convergence,
that point where the thing exists that's looking back at us,
is inside the temple, inside the darkness, the void,
that the temple is enclosing.
It's almost as if architecture itself is somehow--
the whole reason for architecture is to contain that void and that moment
of convergence where the thing that's looking back at us,
that's challenging our very existence as subject, resides.