Resonances of the unknown

Citation

(2011), "Resonances of the unknown", Kybernetes, Vol. 40 No. 7/8. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2011.06740gaa.022

Resonances of the unknown

Article Type: Special issue abstracts From: Kybernetes, Volume 40, Issue 7/8

Claudia Westermann

University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relevance of second-order cybernetics for a theory of architectural design and related discourse.

Design/methodology/approach – First, the relation of architectural design to the concept of “poiesis” is clarified. Subsequently, selected findings of Gotthard Günther are revisited and related to an architectural poetics. The last part of the paper consists of revisiting ideas mentioned previously, however, on the level of a discourse that has incorporated the ideas and offers a poetic way of understanding them.

Findings – Gotthard Günther’s conception of “You” is specifically valuable in reference to a theory of architectural design in the sense of an architectural poetics.

Originality/value – The research furthers the field of architecture by contributing to it a new theory in the form of an architectural poetics. It addresses questions of design with a procedural framework in which critical engagement is an intrinsic principle, and offers an alternative to existing discourses through a poetry of architectonic order that is open to the future.

Keywords Architecture, Poiesis, Gotthard Günther, Inhabitable theories, Cybernetics, Philosophy

Paper type Conceptual paper