<<

21

Scientism: The Breeding Ground for Current Architectural Trends - or - Towards an Architectural Monoculture

AMY CATANIA KULPER University of Michigan

, at its core, is simply a method of practi- not to a singular predecessor, but to many possible cal that tests hypotheses against . subsequent movements. The value of this legacy is Scientism, by contrast, is the and value system that insists that the questions the scientific its spirit of inclusion, the conviction that many voic- method can answer are the most important ques- es have a place at architectural discourse’s table. tions can ask, and that the picture of However, detracting from these diverse offerings, is the world yielded by science is a better approxima- the sinking feeling that the discipline of architecture tion to than any other.” - John Michael Greer has no critical mass, that it lacks direction, and that it continues to wallow in an interregnum of ‘any- “Scientism is a scientific worldview that encompass- thing goes.’ This disciplinary dilemma is given insti- es natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews tutional expression in the academy, which currently and speculations, and em- operates under two pervasive models: the inclusive braces and as the twin pillars of a of life appropriate for an Age of Science.” model that features diverse pedagogical positions, - , Scientific American but rarely articulates what this diversity is in the service of; and the single-interest model in which “Put bluntly, the I and the WE were colonialised by one position is intensified, valued, and advanced, the IT. The Good and the Beautiful were overtaken however, the depth of this often comes at by a growth in monological .... Full of itself and flush with stunning victories, empirical science be- the cost of a potentially myopic worldview. came scientism, the that there is no reality save that revealed by science, and no truth save Amidst this institutional divide and this directional that which science delivers.” indecision enters scientism, the conviction that sci- - Ken Wilber, The Marriage of Sense and Soul entific and values are critical in answering “There is , and there is stamp-collecting....” the most pressing questions facing the discipline of - Ernst Rutherford, physicist architecture. So, how do we differentiate between scientific and scientistic tendencies currently oper- THE PLURALISTIC LEGACY OF THE ating within the discipline of architecture? When is LINGUISTIC AND THE science a useful analogical or methodological engine AUTHORITY OF SCIENCE to architectural design, and when does it exert a he- gemonic influence, marginalizing those discursive di- Of the many things poetics, semiotics and decon- mensions that lack empirical legibility? In his theori- struction put on the table for the discipline of archi- zation of scientism, Tom Sorrel articulates five theses tecture, it can be argued that their abiding legacy is that access scientism within the tradition of scientific less about the language of architecture per se, and empiricism: “(1) science is unified; (2) there are no more concerned with the ethos of pluralism. When limits to science; (3) science has been enormously ‘signifier’ and ‘signified,’ ‘authorship,’ ‘syntax,’ and successful at prediction, explanation, and control; ‘translation’ became exhausted tropes in the archi- (4) the methods of science confer on sci- tect’s and theorist’s toolbox, the residue pointed, entific results; and (5) science has been beneficial 22 WHERE DO YOU STAND

for human beings.”1 Sorrel’s theses provide critical “The introduction of into architecture points of departure for locating scientism within the during the past two decades has helped reduce practices and of architecture. architectural discourse to issues of instrumental- ity. The most popular discussions presume the im- The supposition that science is unified must be portance of this so-called shift and focus placed in the context of the pluralistic humani- on the potential and limitations of this instrument, ties. The of empiricism is its claim to pro- aiding the perpetuation of the dichotomy. Thus the- duce clear and verifiable , that when linked oretical discourse tends to remain caught up in in- to other such truths contribute to a unified system strumental issues of form () and produc- of , or . Though this sys- tion (efficiency), while the humanistic dimension of temization has its , a decided drawback is architecture is further jeopardized and educational what Steven Connors calls its “manufactured am- programs become increasingly vocational.”4 nesia of things.”2 The criteria of clarity and veri- fiability privilege only the quantifiable aspects of A belief in the limitlessness of science can also be things, and thus necessarily forget much of what is found in the various logics deployed by architects, experienced. Bruno Latour alludes to this narrowed from form-finding and scripting practic- and exclusionary epistemological focus when he es, to parametric design and Building Information opines, “[e]pistemology is a professional hazard of Modeling (BIM). These logics share as a common first class air-conditioned train travel.”3 This sys- denominator the conceit that architectural “prob- tematic front of scientism, though appealing to ar- lems” can be “solved” mathematically. What archi- chitecture as a meta- narrative with the potential tecture’s systems, tools and logics eschew are the to gather up our discipline’s pluralistic trajectories, qualitative dimensions of experience (the sensual, is achieved at the cost of suppressing the poetic, the ephemeral, the transitory), the possibility for ethical, and experiential dimensions of our creative poetics, and ultimately, humanity. In a recent AD production. Complicating matters even further, the article entitled “Digital ” Neil Spiller writes: choice of a unifying epistemology rarely comes “Much recent architecture, especially the well- with a disclaimer or fine print about what is explic- known examples, has been devoid of humanity and itly excluded. panders to a need for ever more gratuitous complex surfaces and structures. This justifies or obscures The pervasive and well-worn claim that there are their simple, apolitical and vacuous objectives. Our no limits to science goes a long way towards ex- short-sightedness caused by the development of plaining architecture’s current capitulation to ever more dexterous ‘, the ubiq- technological imperatives. However, there are a uity of global and the of the deity number of territories within the discipline of archi- architect has encouraged a great ‘forgetting’ – a for- tecture that settle comfortably within the reach of getting that has subtracted the humanity from the the long arm of science’s limitless epistemological architectural products of our era.”5 prowess. Architecture’s systems, tools, and logics owe a debt of gratitude to such scientific trans- When Sorrel’s third thesis of scientism - that sci- gressions. Architectural systems-thinking at the ence has been enormously successful at predic- structural, mechanical, and material levels exploit tion, explanation, and control – takes within science’s limitless capacities in everything from di- the discipline of architecture, it occasions a discur- agrams of structural efficiency, to HVAC logics, to sive shift from questions of ‘what?’ to questions performative and responsive skins. The tools that of ‘how?’ Here, scientism’s intrusion propagates a we use for design, from graphite and triangles to false choice between content and technique, and the sophisticated machinery of digital fabrication, when the criteria for valuation are prediction, expla- are instruments that simultaneously instrumental- nation, and control, the deck is decidedly stacked ize their users. Alberto Péréz-Gomez argues that against content. In her seminal text, The Human architecture’s digital revolution polarized the disci- Condition of 1958, Hannah Arendt makes a distinc- pline into disparate camps of fine arts and applied tion that is critical to this prioritization of technique , while these new tools instrumentalize the in architectural discourse. Here, Arendt describes discipline. He writes: the innate human capacity to understand the dis- tinction between utility and meaningfulness, ex- SCIENTISM 23

pressed linguistically by distinguishing between “in out the notion of the mind as mirror, the notion of order to” and “for the sake of.” Arendt’s critique of knowledge as accuracy of representation would not is that it gets caught in “an unending have suggested itself.”8 Here, Rorty articulates phi- chain of means and ends without ever arriving at a losophy’s dilemma, a dilemma shared by architec- principle which could justify the category of means ture. It is not that our representations are becom- and ends, that is, utility itself.”6 Ultimately she ar- ing increasingly realistic that is problematic, but gues that the “in order to” has become the content rather that this tautological over- determination is of the “for the sake of,” or more succinctly, that equated with the construction of disciplinary “utility established as meaning generates meaning- knowledge. Two examples might serve to illustrate lessness.”7 Arendt’s argument is an apt character- how scientism and the objectivity it values have ization of contemporary architectural discourse. In supplanted earlier linguistic paradigms in architec- the past decade, we have witnessed the systematic tural discourse, proffering itself as the next new purging of meaning from the discipline of architec- thing. Umberto Eco raises the first in an essay in ture, an evacuation that has been accomplished by Travels in Hyper Reality, and specifically a passage the subtle substitution of ‘how?’ for ‘what?, of util- in which he examines a full-scale reconstruction of ity for meaningfulness, of technique for content. the White House’s oval office. Eco writes: This shift represents an epistemological devia- tion in which knowledge is no longer constituted “Constructing a full-scale model of the Oval Office through a dialogue with the primary dimensions (using the same materials, the same colors, but of reality, but rather is removed and preoccupied with everything obviously more polished, shinier, with the secondary engagement of methodologies, protected against deterioration) means that for his- processes, techniques and other manifestations of torical information to be absorbed, it has to assume formalized experience. This raises the question of the aspect of reincarnation. To speak of things that the appropriate situation for technique within ar- one wants to connote as real, these things must chitectural discourse. Does it have a place within seem real. The ‘completely real becomes identified the discipline? Certainly. Is its place to redirect dis- with the ‘completely fake.’ Absolute unreality is of- course exclusively to matters of performance? This fered as real presence. The aim of the reconstruct- constitutes an intentional depletion of the poten- ed Oval office is to supply a “sign” that then be tial cultural of architecture – a self-imposed forgotten as such: The sign aims to be the thing, to wound we seem only too willing to inflict. abolish the distinction of the reference, the mecha- nism of replacement. Not the image of the thing, If scientism, as Sorrel argues, assumes that the but its plaster cast. Its double, in other words.”9 methods of science confer objectivity on scientif- ic results, then the implications for the discipline The perversity entailed in constructing a full-scale of architecture bear principally on the territory of model of the Oval Office is simply that this- tau representation. For example, architecture’s objec- tological representation has nothing to tell us. Its tive impulse can be located in the hyperrealism status of stand-in or double has effectively stripped of contemporary digital renderings. With a push the model of its communicative capacity “for the of a button architects produce texture mapping, sake of” something else, it was fabricated “in order imbuing nondescript 3D models with materiality to” more closely approximate the thing itself. Sci- and lighting that rival photo-realistic images of ac- entism’s objective impulse evacuates and depletes tual . The innate ‘objectivity’ of this prac- any potential meanings and connotations of the tice resides in our ability as a profession to pro- sign, substituting a close approximation to reality, duce increasingly realistic representations of our one that can be engaged empirically. The second work. Perhaps the consequences of this tendency example is a text by Robin Evans entitled “Transla- are easier to discern in another discipline. Richard tions from Drawing to Building” in which Evan’s ar- Rorty describes the philosophical trope of the mir- ticulates the particular agency of translation within ror of as follows: “The picture which holds the discipline of architecture. In this essay, Evans traditional philosophy captive is that of the mind as reveals that his belief in the generative capacity of a great mirror, containing various representations the architectural drawing stems from a brief period – some accurate, some not – and capable of be- teaching in an art school: ing studied by pure, nonempirical methods. With- 24 WHERE DO YOU STAND

“I was soon struck by what seemed at the time this line of thinking with respect to digital technol- a peculiar disadvantage under which architects la- ogy, which is a foregone conclusion in our field, bor, never working directly with the object of their and the supposition that these make thought, always working at it through some inter- architecture (both as a practice and as a conse- vening medium, almost always the drawing, while quence of that practice) better. In his 2004 article, painters and sculptors, who might spend some time “Why has Critique Run out of Steam?” Bruno La- on preliminary sketches and maquettes, all ended tour calls this ameliorative assumption into ques- up working on the thing itself which, naturally ab- tion. At the crux of his argument is the distinction sorbed most of their attention and effort.... The between “matters of ,” typically the domain of sketch and the maquette are much closer to paint- science, and “matters of concern,” historically the ing and sculpture than a drawing is to a building, territory of the .11 Latour argues that and the process of development – the formulation criticism has run out of steam precisely because – is rarely brought to conclusion with these pre- there is no common ground between ‘matters of liminary studies. Nearly always the most intense fact’ and ‘matters of concern’ – they are encoun- activity is the construction and manipulation of the tered as two disparate groups of things. The disci- final artifact, the purpose of preliminary studies be- pline of architecture, with its legacy of fine arts and ing to give sufficient definition for the final work to , stands straddling these matters begin, not to provide a complete determination in of fact and matters of concern. Though we have advance, as in architectural drawing.”10 demonstrated that we are unwilling to accept the tenets of post-critical , we remain at arms What Evans’ articulates for the disci- length from criticality, predicated upon our inability pline of architecture, and what scientism and its to recognize the territories we straddle, and archi- privileging of objectivity ultimately renders prob- tecture’s unique capacity to find common ground lematic, is the representational question of just between the two. Technology enters the discipline what constitutes this complete determination in as an imperative, asserting its non-dialogical re- advance. Is it a representation that is over-deter- lationship with matters of concern. A snapshot of mined and assuredly predictive, or is it a repre- the current state of our discipline would reveal the sentation that is suggestively incomplete and pro- waning of post- as a form of new aes- jective? At stake in these questions surrounding theticism grounded in the subjectivity of taste and digital renderings are three critical questions for connoisseurship, on the one hand, and the waxing the discipline of architecture. Do we equate these of a pervasive scientism grounded in the objectiv- increasingly realistic representations with the pro- ity of and empirical science and the duction of knowledge in our field, and if so, what betterment they promise. If this survey of Sorrel’s sort of epistemology does this yield? Is the unin- theses begins to account for the rise of scientism tended consequence of scientism – the reorienta- within the discipline of architecture, then it might tion of our production towards ‘objects’ – an ac- be useful to examine both disciplinary and extra- ceptable outcome? And finally, as images become disciplinary vehicles for the germination and dis- increasingly realistic, they become decreasingly semination of these ideas. communicative in inverse proportion. Is the ability to approximate reality worth explicitly narrowing Digital Technology Tips the Scales our discursive potential? A perusal of AD issues over the last four or five Sorrel’s fifth and final thesis on scientism isthe years elucidates the degree to which digital tech- tacit assumption that science has been beneficial nology not only dominates our discussions of prac- for human beings. That most people would con- tice, production and craft, but also has effective- sider this thesis a truism is sufficient of ly eclipsed other discursive trajectories. An issue the pervasiveness of scientism in contemporary from 2006 entitled “Techniques and Technologies . If science fosters the empirical examina- of Morphogenetic Design,” guest edited by Michael tion of things, and the rhetoric of scientific Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock of ensures that these things are constantly improv- the Architectural Association’s Emergence and De- ing, then how could science be anything other than sign Group, is a sequel to the 2004 issue “Emer- beneficial to human beings? Architects recognize gence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies.” SCIENTISM 25

editor, Helen Castle, attributes this sequel to bio- quent and developments. The proph- logical “content spiral[ing] outwards” – a prescient ecy seems to be equal parts debilitating and self- description of scientism’s increasingly dominant fulfilling. grip on the architectural imagination.12 Though ostensibly the editors are placing scientific con- The Global Crisis and the Mandates of tent, specifically morphology, on architecture’s Sustainability table, they are doing so through the qualifications of strategies, techniques, and technologies. Each The global ecological and economic crisis has simi- of these designations signal that the editor’s are larly privileged the technological dimensions of not interested in scientific content, or the ‘what’ of architecture, transforming the discipline, or as Pe- morphology per se, but rather, the performances nelope Dean argues, “de-disciplining” it: and operations of morphology, or the ‘how.’ The is- sue becomes something of a technique manual for As architecture continues to be a target of the production of unique biomorphic forms, explic- environmental reform, the ambitions of the itly eschewing questions of why architecture ben- discipline have shifted from a Modernist no- tion of being able to design the environment efits from an engagement with this content beyond to a subservient role as a part of an environ- the limited scope of formal agility. The reduction ment by design. In this realignment, archi- of what Hensel cavalierly calls the ‘biological para- tecture’s relationship to the environment has digm’ to morphological techniques, severely limits predominantly advanced through a combina- architecture’s potential engagements with the con- tion of building and applied technology from tent of . When Hensel writes: the 1980s onwards, leading to a subcategory of architecture devolving into a kind of tech- It is precisely the complex and dynamic ex- no- science more commonly known as green change between an organism and its environ- architecture,’ or perhaps more accurately de- ment, and the functionality that evolves from scribed as ‘green building.’ it, that makes synthetic life interesting for ar- chitecture. Understandably, the very notion of In this devolution the de-disciplining of ar- architecture that is alive may sound scary to chitecture from a socio-cultural project into a some and blasphemous to others. However, technological specialization – the sustainable what is proposed here is not a version of Mary subculture where technology can apparently Shelley’s Modern Prometheus. Instead, it in- solve all problems – has taken place; in other volves embedding into buildings the biochemi- words, de-disciplining by shrinkage.14 cal processes and functionality of life for the advantage of , other species and the Dean’s description of architecture’s abandonment 13 environment... of our socio-cultural agendas is not surprising given the amplitude of the environmental crisis, and the it is difficult to assess whether he is advocating for cultural tendency to resort to technological impera- a naïve literalism, or resorting to a metaphorical tives in such moments. When technology assumes broadening of the territory that the focus on tech- a dominant role within the practice of architecture, nique disallows, however revisiting the subtitle of and design takes a back seat, conditions are ripe the article leaves little room for doubt. for a disciplinary receptivity to scientism.

Without going into detail with respect to other topi- The Complicity of Interdisciplinary Exchange cal themes for other issues of AD, the point I want to make is that the digital revolution has not only If the current buzzwords in academia are ‘interdis- radically changed the tools of our discipline, it has ciplinary exchange’ and we are well versed in the also shifted the content. New digital technologies advantages of critical discourse between disparate have created an appetite for innovative techniques, fields of study, then I would like to explore how this pulling content with the greatest affinity – content milieu ultimately fosters the spread of scientism. that is unified, limitless, predictive, explanatory, Architecture’s slightly schizophrenic legacy of fine controlled, and objective – into architecture’s or- arts and applied science presents a challenge to bit. Our discipline’s preoccupation with technique the notion of disciplinary identity. Jane Rendell de- is an implicit content filter, perpetuating the ethos scribes this challenge as follows: of scientism as the breeding ground for all subse- 26 WHERE DO YOU STAND

If we define a discipline as a system of rules scientism in the search for a common language, of conduct or as a method of practice, then meta-narrative or discourse. This leaves us with architecture is not a discipline, since it com- the question: how can we counteract the pernicious bines a number of methods of practice. How- influence of scientism on the discipline of architec- ever, if we define a field of study containing ture? First, we can reclaim borrowed concepts and a number of disciplinary approaches but with redefine appropriated terminology to impart dis- a shared object of investigation as a recog- nized subject, then we could define architec- ciplinary agency. Reyner Banham’s often-derided ture as a subject. As a subject, is architecture use of the term ‘’ serves as a useful ex- unique because of the particular combination emplar of this strategy. Not satisfied to deploy the of disciplinary approaches it comprises and/ term according to the ground rules of environmen- or is any one of these disciplinary approaches tal discourse, Banham made it disciplinary rather in themselves unique? We could argue that, than capitulating to the logics and mandates of an- as a subject, architecture encompasses sev- other discipline. Second, we can put science and eral disciplines and uniquely brings together technology into dialogue with poetics and the hu- modes of that are often kept apart manities, thereby fostering a rigorous conversation (historical analysis and material science for example) and so provides possibilities for and exchange between matters of fact and matters multi- and interdisciplinary research. We could of concern. And third, we can exploit the inclusive also suggest that central to the subject of ar- and communicative capacities of architectural rep- chitecture is architectural design, a particular resentation in addition to its demonstrative and ex- mode of practice led research whose disciplin- planatory capabilities. ary specificity cannot be found in other types of practice or design. We could therefore make One of the most salient features of scientism as the case that architecture is unique as a sub- a prevalent post-linguistic paradigm is the degree ject and as a discipline.15 to which it continues to rehearse the form/con- tent division of linguistic thought in the guise of At stake in Rendell’s assessment of architecture’s a technique/content disparity. If this paper prof- status as a subject or a discipline is the question of fers an explicit critique of scientism, its ambition whether architectural discourse is always-already is equally to ensure that science does not become inter- and thus intra- disciplinary. Do all of the dis- the baby that gets thrown out with this disciplinary parate trajectories collected under the subject ar- bath water. How can architecture tap into science chitecture already model interdisciplinary commu- as a source of interdisciplinary inspiration without nication and critical exchange without capitulating falling prey to scientism? to scientism’s seductively unifying meta-narrative? Architecture would then advance a model of disci- of science Lorraine Daston and Peter plinary exchange that preserves criticality by (re- Galison explore the possibility of the of turning to Latour’s terminology) placing matters of epistemology, which Daston refers to as “applied fact into dialogue with matters of concern. .”16 This positioning of the of science mitigates against the universalizing ten- Against Scientism: Averting an Architectural dencies of scientism by positing an epistemologi- Monoculture cal and ontological dimension to its operations, situating science simultaneously in the real and the In conclusion, this paper has examined scientism constructed, the factual and the experiential. Three and its portrayal as a unified, limitless, predictive, final examples will serve to demonstrate how this explanatory, controlled and objective worldview conception of science as applied metaphysics might that is beneficial to human beings, and explored allow architecture to tap into the nascent potential its role as a breeding ground for new architectur- of the sciences without reproducing the linguistic al trends. It has examined the factors contribut- paradigm’s form/content division. ing to the proliferation of scientism, including: the revolution in digital technology and its affinity with In a discussion of the historic debate between scientific content; the global ecological crisis with and Wilhelm His over the appropriate its technological imperatives and subsequent mar- modes of scientific representation, Daston and Gal- ginalization of design; and the complicity of inter- ison introduce the concept of ‘ of the disciplinary exchange which is often usurped by SCIENTISM 27

eye.’17 His accused Haeckel of smuggling subjectiv- the form of the Material Connexion showroom and ity into his scientific illustrations, and supported his . The ambition of this extensive sample argument with the evidence that Haeckel had pho- collection is to de-specify materials according to tographic equipment available to him, but chose their use, while exhaustively cataloging the inher- not to use it. Daston and Galison use this example ent properties of any given material. Through the to demonstrate that reality is a matter of degrees, act of de-specifying materials, Material Connexion and that although photography might be less sub- is opening up the potential for materials to be de- jective than scientific illustration, there are large ployed for multiple uses specific to their intended degrees of subjectivity in this purportedly “objec- performance. As the depth of material epistemolo- tive” scientific endeavor. For Daston and Galison, gies are probed, the breadth of potential applica- epistemologies of the eye bring together the sci- tions of material experience expands exponentially, ence of the eye and the experience of seeing into producing an open-ended ontology of epistemol- a seamless reality. Parallels can be drawn between ogy. this moment in the and the rheto- ric of eschewing authorship that is prevalent in the One trajectory of discursive representations can be contemporary discourse surrounding parametric traced from images of disembodied hands perform- design. This rhetoric lapses into scientism when it ing scientific experiments in the Enlightenment, to tacitly equates the suppression of authorship with the serialized, how-to imagery of D’Alembert and the ambition to objectively read the parameters of Diderot’s , to the combinatory logics any given design problem and proffer a formal so- of Durand’s comparative building types, to the tau- lution. This process culminates in an overtly sub- tological representations of Peter Eisenman’s early jective eureka moment in which the disinterested houses, to contemporary representations by archi- author capriciously chooses the final form. When tects like Philippe Rahm. In Rahm’s discursive rep- architects like Ben Van Berkel and Caroline Bos of resentations of climatic architecture, scientism’s UN Studio critique the authorless process of para- propensity for prediction, explanation, and control metric design calling for increasingly “intelligent” are explored. His use of meteorological representa- parameters – they nudge the scientific of tional conventions produces drawings with a great parameters towards the lived experience of spatial deal of explicitness, and very little room for inter- practice. pretation and experiential insinuation. Conversely, James Corner’s use of eidetic operations in which In the 1920s, theatrical designer Adolphe Appia he refers to “a mental conception that may be pic- produced a series of monumental stage sets, de- turable but may equally be acoustic, tactile, cog- ploying an abstract and reductive modernist lan- nitive, or intuitive,” results in an entirely different guage. Architectural , Peter Carl, describes form of representation.18 Field Operation’s repre- this moment as “Appian materiality” – a moment sentations belong in the category of the ontology in which the material conditions of architecture of epistemology because they exploit the common became generalized. Carl locates a historical - ground of natural and human cycles, bringing the ment in which the universalizing tendencies of concerns of ecological science into dialogue with early and the universalizing tendencies the exigencies of human spatial practice. of scientism elided, and the legacy of generalized materiality extends from the 1920s to contempo- Before considering the next new trend in architec- rary digital representational practices like texture tural practice and theory, we need to escape the mapping. When all material can be applied to rep- chokehold of scientism on the discipline. In order to resentations like a thin veneer, though paradoxi- have a rigorous discussion about what comes next, cally in photorealistic renderings, this condition of we need to eschew the allure of scientism and the generalized materiality has reached its apex, or na- seduction of technique that as we speak, are busy dir, and the universalizing tendencies of scientism anticipating the next trend that looks alarmingly – the dual conviction that science is unified and like the last trend. Is the discipline of architecture has no limits – have insinuated themselves into the busy whittling itself down into a discursive mono- discipline of architecture once again. But perhaps culture, a mere shadow of its former self, or can in response to the scientism of this generalized we resist this vocational impulse and recover the materiality, a scientific alternative has emerged in subject of architecture in all of its ungainly diver- 28 WHERE DO YOU STAND

sity? If scientism is the new black, what can we do to ensure that it is a fad with a very short shelf life?

ENDNOTES

1 Tom Sorrell, Scientism: Philosophy and the Infatuation with Science (London: Routledge, 1991): 25. 2 Steven Connors, < http://www.bbk.ac.uk/ english/skc/thinkingthings/ >, “Thinking Things,” accessed 25 August 2008. 3 Bruno Latour, “Trains of Thought: Piaget, Formalism, and the Fifth Dimension” Common Knowledge, 6: 187. 4 Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Built Upon Love: Architectural Longing After and (: MIT Press, 2006): 199. 5 Neil Spiller, “Digital Solipsism and the Paradox of the Great ‘Forgetting’,” Architectural Design, no. 80, (July 8, 2010) 131. 6 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 154. 7 Ibid. 8 , Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979): 12. 9 Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper Reality: Essays (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1967): 6-7. 10 Robin Evans, Translations from Drawing to Building (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1997): 156. Italics are mine. 11 Bruno Latour, “Why has Critique Run Out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern,” Critical Inquiry, 30, no. 2., (Winter 2004) 233. 12 Helen Castle, “Editorial,” Architectural Design, 76, no. 2 (June 2006) 4. 13 Michael Hensel, “(Synthetic) Life Architectures: Ramifications and Potentials of a Literal Biological Paradigm for Architectural Design,” Architectural Design, 76, no. 2 (June 2006) 25. 14 Penelope Dean, “Never Mind All that Environmental Rubbish, Get on with your Architecture,” Architectural Design, 79, no. 3 (May/June 2009) 25. 15 Jane Rendell, “Architectural Research and Disciplinarity,” Arq: Architectural Research Quarterly, 8, no. 2 (2004): 143. 16 Lorraine Daston, “The Coming Into Being of Scientific Objects,”Biographies of Scientific Objects, ed. Lorraine Daston (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1. 17 Lorraine Daston and , Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007), pp. 17-54. 18 James Corner, “Eidetic Operations and New Landscapes,” in Recovering Landscape: Essays in Contemporary Landscape Theory, ed. James Corner (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), p. 153.