On the meaning of "concept" in architecture: a philosophical approach

Since Hegel, the notion of "concept" has occupied a central role in philosophy. Hegel draws attention to the fact that not only philosophy but art itself - in fact the whole of European culture - is affected by this process. Modernity is the dawning of the age of 'science'(Wissenschaft), of scientific knowledge, with all traditional forms of knowledge being challenged. This phenomenon concerns not only knowledge, but the "world of life" itself, which is subject to a global process of rationalization.

Western man has lost his "naivety", that freshness or spontaneity of vision which Schiller called an essential aspect of "poetry"(Dichtung). A century later, just after the First World War, Wilhelm Worringer confirmed Hegel's vision of art in the modern age. The time of "pure" art, expressing the "eternal in man" with the means provided by the world's traditions and cultures, as expressionism had tried to do, was over. Art theory tends to take the place of art, or at any rate of that art which is meant to be a bridge to the "beautiful and sublime".

The response of the artistic avant-garde is well known. Art itself becomes, as the countless "manifestos" show, intrinsically linked to theory. The creative act - but in what sense can we still speak of 'creation'? - implies an answer, a decision about the nature of art. What is art? - this question no longer belongs to critics and philosophers alone, but to the artists themselves. It is only in the light of this question that artistic activity becomes meaningful. Conceptual art appears in this context.

Architecture also responded to the challenges of the age. If modernism, sometimes attracted by utopianism, seems to ignore the historical condition of man, the texts of the first modernist architects contain promises of thought unexplored by their young imitators: the first modernism is radical, the second, the so-called International Style, is more oriented towards effective solutions proclaimed as absolute truths. Radical thinking is the result of great questions and questions and the seemingly simple answers are in fact challenges. What is being expressed is only a fragment of an overall vision that presupposes a long way of thinking, which the "functionalist" architecture (and only that) ignores. A major theorist will at some point feel the need to exaggerate in the hope of drawing attention to problems. Those who understand his intent start from those questions and come, in turn, to a comprehensive understanding of the task of architecture. In other words, beyond modernism as a doctrine, there is modernism as a cultural movement; by the radicality of its stance, it remains one of the sources of architecture today.

Read the full text in issue 6 / 2014 of Arhitectura magazine

The issue of Arhitectura magazine with the theme CONCEPT/ABSTRACTIZATION will be launched on Tuesday, January 27, at 17.00, in the CCA-UAR, 48 rue Jean Louis Calderon. The following contributors will be present at the launch: Augustin Ioan, Francoise Pamfil, Anca Sandu Tomașevschi, Florian Stanciu, Ștefan Vianu. Read more details here or visit the event page on facebook.