15
Apr
2009
words I have a great deal of disdain for
I don’t want to bang on about this too much today, as I’ve got a much more spectacular tirade planned, but I wanted to single out these two words for a particular savaging.when I hear otherwise intelligent people use these words, it makes me sad and angry. Sad that they have been sucked into the collective delusion that they are good words to use, and angry that nobody has the courage to stand up and say ‘Stop! these words make you sound like an idiot.‘
Materiality
Materiality is the chief offender of a group of words that end in -iality. You can take any word, and add -iality to it, wordiality, dooriality, spatiality, doggiality.The phrase that really makes my blood boil is often uttered in crits accompanied by copious beard stroking -
“have you considered materiality“
What this really means is ‘what is it made of?” or “what are the properties of this material that make it particularly appropriate for this situation?“, or any number of other similar questions related to materials, and the offending, beard stroker will counter, ‘but every profession has it’s lexicon, it merely allows me to convey my meaning in a succinct and crisp way‘, with a subtext of ‘you clearly don’t understand, and you are beneath me‘. My rebuttal to this I’m afraid is a DH0 disagreement, “bollocks!” but when pressed further I’ll try and rise up the disagreement hierarchy and give a more complete answer.Other fields use their specific language to sharpen their enquiry. Paramedics can recount the treatment given and condition of a patient being brought into A&E precisely because their words are so accurate that they need very few of them to completely describe the situation.Our field does exactly the opposite. My main gripe with the “have you considered materiality” probe, other than that it infects young impressionable minds with the idea that it’s ok to ask that question, is that it’s lazy, that’s it, just plain lazy. The M question (as it shall henceforth be known so that my blood remains at a gentle simmer) allows the questioner the luxury of not really having to ask a question. It is really the equivalent of a raised eyebrow that a nervous student takes to be a indication that they ought to keep talking. Its rise to ubiquity seems to stem from the the questioner not really knowing what the right question ought to be.If you find yourself about to ask the M question in the future, stop, for the sake of cute puppies and fairys everywhere don’t do it. Instead, ask yourself what is it that I really want to know and ask that question.When presented with a beautiful white card model of a – well, an anything really – the M question is a very easy trap to fall into. But really we can add so much richness to the discussion by simply asking real questions.
What is it made of?What do you want it to feel like when you run your hand or your cheek along it?How is it made?What do you want the materials to say about the space?
Architectonic
This is a word even more shrouded in obfustication and cigar smoke than materiality but thankfully less commonly used.The wikipedia article for architectonic is pitiful, and this seems to reflect the general understanding of the term.From a quick survey of about 15 eloquent, educated architects, the general consensus was that architectonic was about the fact that architecture is made of pieces of stuff, and so the -tectonic bit was about the bits of stuff meeting each other and how they did that. However, it was also agreed that it was a frown, nod and stroke beard moment in any conversation where they pretended to know what was being said.Again I’m going to apply the charge of laziness to this one, but on additional charge of laziness of misapropriating words from philosophy without understanding their context.—I’ve been feeling very alienated by my distaste for these words, but recently I’ve found an underground movement of people just like me, so I’m making a stand.So next time someone asks you the M question, look them squarely in the eye, and ask them straight back
“what, exactly, do you mean by that?”
I concurr.
Juxtaposition comes a close third. Followed by (not so subject specific but still extremely overused) essentially…..
“For the arts make their material (some simply ‘make’ it, others make it serviceable), and we use everything as if it was there for our sake. (We also are in a sense an end. ‘That for the sake of which’ has two senses: the distinction is made in our work On Philosophy.) The arts, therefore, which govern the matter and have knowledge are two, namely the art which uses the product and the art which directs the production of it. That is why the using art also is in a sense directive; but it differs in that it knows the form, whereas the art which is directive as being concerned with production knows the matter. For the helmsman knows and prescribes what sort of form a helm should have, the other from what wood it should be made and by means of what operations. In the products of art, however, we make the material with a view to the function, whereas in the products of nature the matter is there all along.”
Physics
by Aristotle
Book 2, Part 2
classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.mb.txt
The word in the original text about the art related to the product, is “architectonic”.
No archaeological evidence about Aristotle’s smoking habits or his pop culture references.
I found a great business version of this on the Harvard Business blogs.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/silverman/2009/02/10-business-words-to-ban.html
my pet hate is when people talk about ‘the idea of…’ and then talk about everything but the design they are presenting.
I was chatting with some fancy oxford trained teacher the other day and he hassled my use of the word critique when i used it as a passive verb rather than a noun. I don’t really understand what he means!
I agree with the spirit of the post in the sense that we dont spend anywhere enough energy making strong links with normal english and the public. As a discipline we are very stupid for creating all sorts of nomenclature and jargon in an effort to create a wall of mystery around what we do. When instead we should be making clear rational explanations about the skills we offer. We can’t have it both ways. We are either priest artists or creative rationalists, not both at the same time.
While saying that, the manipulation of space is quite complex and there will be occasions when either new words or combinations of words are necessary to explain something not normally articulated in the language… but thats another story.
Maybe we need to start a movement of ‘using simple language in design’?
oh dear, the head of MIT’s architecture department says…
http://www.notionparallax.co.uk/blog/index.php/2009/09/architecture-as-instrument-talk/
It turns out that the architectonic section actually is a real thing. It is a drawing instrument used for constructing proportions.
The link above is to a talk about it that I attended at the museum of the history of science.