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Meaning in life, morality and built heritage
No full textWhen Machado articulated the need for an architectural theory on remodeling in 1976 or, more recently, when Anderson (2021) defined ‘traces’, which can be described as marks or remnants left in place by cultural life that can be embodied in emotions, events, memories or meanings, they emphasized that architectural intervention should be understood as an interpretative and meaning-constitutive act. Both Anderson’s view and Machado’s metaphor of the palimpsest conceptually enclose the past as a repository with a certain weight and meaning that requires encompassing degrees of interpreting, opposing or transforming the old into the new. This implies that our architectural interventions are ‘morally pregnant’ since architectural decisions about conservation and reuse will affect those ‘traces’ and meanings. Put differently, through architecture we communicate about what is important or relevant. Hence, it is unsurprising that architecture in general and the treatment of built heritage, i.e. its preservation and reuse, frequently involves a kind of moral condemnation (such as in Belgium recently Het Steen, AfkrikaMuseum, St. Anna church Ghent) and that leading architectural awards (e.g. Pritzker, Aga Khan) refer to ethical concepts in their jury reports. The question is what a reflection about this ethical layer can bring to architectural theory and practice, especially with regard to questions about built heritage and reuse.
In this paper the suggestion is that we can explore this moral nature of architectural interventions by a threefold reflection. (1) Although it may be questioned whether it is truly architecture, the description of and reflection on memorial architecture as a symbolic practice provides us with an understanding of its symbolic (i.e. involving meaning) and ethical nature, the related difficulties in memorial design and the frequently reoccurring moral criticism. (2) Against this background, it becomes clear why questions about contaminated or difficult heritage are ‘morally pregnant’. In those cases, we explicitly have to deal with meaningfulness and to deliberate about what, how and to whom we speak through our architectural interventions and what we consider to be valuable. (3) Hence, there is no reason to suppose that questions about built heritage and reuse will become less morally loaded. Heritage inherently represent values and attachments of different kinds and thus is balancing them out a difficult enterprise. Notwithstanding this difficulty, the architectural result of this sought-for balance will strengthen if our reflective and deliberative understanding and moral awareness improve (both in architectural practice and education).
Chris Bessemans wrote his PhD in philosophy (Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven) on phenomenological value ethics and moral conflicts and has been teaching (part-time) at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts at the UHasselt since 2020. Currently, he is developing his research (at TRACE, ARK, UHasselt) in architectural ethics and in particular he works on the ethical dimension of meaning (in life) in architecture and built heritage.
Meaning in life, morality and built heritage
Meaning in life, morality and built heritage
No full textWhen Machado articulated the need for an architectural theory on remodeling in 1976 or, more recently, when Anderson (2021) defined ‘traces’, which can be described as marks or remnants left in place by cultural life that can be embodied in emotions, events, memories or meanings, they emphasized that architectural intervention should be understood as an interpretative and meaning-constitutive act. Both Anderson’s view and Machado’s metaphor of the palimpsest conceptually enclose the past as a repository with a certain weight and meaning that requires encompassing degrees of interpreting, opposing or transforming the old into the new. This implies that our architectural interventions are ‘morally pregnant’ since architectural decisions about conservation and reuse will affect those ‘traces’ and meanings. Put differently, through architecture we communicate about what is important or relevant. Hence, it is unsurprising that architecture in general and the treatment of built heritage, i.e. its preservation and reuse, frequently involves a kind of moral condemnation (such as in Belgium recently Het Steen, AfkrikaMuseum, St. Anna church Ghent) and that leading architectural awards (e.g. Pritzker, Aga Khan) refer to ethical concepts in their jury reports. The question is what a reflection about this ethical layer can bring to architectural theory and practice, especially with regard to questions about built heritage and reuse.
In this paper the suggestion is that we can explore this moral nature of architectural interventions by a threefold reflection. (1) Although it may be questioned whether it is truly architecture, the description of and reflection on memorial architecture as a symbolic practice provides us with an understanding of its symbolic (i.e. involving meaning) and ethical nature, the related difficulties in memorial design and the frequently reoccurring moral criticism. (2) Against this background, it becomes clear why questions about contaminated or difficult heritage are ‘morally pregnant’. In those cases, we explicitly have to deal with meaningfulness and to deliberate about what, how and to whom we speak through our architectural interventions and what we consider to be valuable. (3) Hence, there is no reason to suppose that questions about built heritage and reuse will become less morally loaded. Heritage inherently represent values and attachments of different kinds and thus is balancing them out a difficult enterprise. Notwithstanding this difficulty, the architectural result of this sought-for balance will strengthen if our reflective and deliberative understanding and moral awareness improve (both in architectural practice and education).
Chris Bessemans wrote his PhD in philosophy (Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven) on phenomenological value ethics and moral conflicts and has been teaching (part-time) at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts at the UHasselt since 2020. Currently, he is developing his research (at TRACE, ARK, UHasselt) in architectural ethics and in particular he works on the ethical dimension of meaning (in life) in architecture and built heritage.
Meaning in life, morality and built heritage
Ethics, architecture and prison design - a primer
No full textAfter some decades of neglect, the importance of prison design on well-being, rehabilitation and reintegration has been gaining acknowledgement over the past years. In parallel, there is growing interest in prison studies and rising awareness in new penology to seek alternative understandings to counter the dominant rationale that focuses on efficiency and surveillance. However, the ethical underpinnings of prison design remain underrepresented in architectural theory. This paper argues that, given that one’s ethical view on punishment is relevant to guide deliberative design choices, architects have the responsibility to critically engage and contemplate the ethical foundations of prison designs. The paper explains the ethical nature of architecture and design briefly and then turns to how we can make sense of the practice of punishment as a moral and symbolic practice while recognising concerns about its moral justification. The paper suggests that, in order to morally justify the practice and to make it symbolically intelligible, we need a concept of detention that is radically oriented at rehabilitation. By way of illustrating possible design responses, the paper refers to the Belgian case of the twenty-first-century detention houses. Intended as a primer, this paper considers the relation between ethics and architecture and aims to show the inevitability and relevance of ethical reflection to architectural design by focussing in particular on penal design. The paper aims to enrich the debate on penal design and to invite further reflection but does not intend here to expand the notion of penal design, nor to exhaustively engage or list different forms of penal designs and their ethical status or meanings
Ethics and value-reality. Aurel Kolnai's legacy: an analytic ethic based on the phenomenology of value-consciousness and moral awareness.
No full textNot availabl
Ethics and value-reality. Aurel Kolnai's legacy: an analytic ethic based on the phenomenology of value-consciousness and moral awareness.
No full textNot availabl
Adaptive Reuse: Different Functions, Shifting Meanings And Moral Aftershocks
No full textWhile many contributors to the emerging research field of adaptive reuse, already acknowledge that an act of repurposing is an act of translation, (re)occupation, recognition, etc., its implications have not yet been ethically scrutinized. This reflective (moral phenomenological) analysis delves into this relation between adaptive reuse, possible shifts in meaning and, though often implicit, moral swell (i.e. eliciting moral debate). The paper draws upon three illustrative cases within the context of adaptive reuse to demonstrate how ostensibly sensible design decisions, particularly concerning the integration of new functions, can trigger moral ramifications. We contend that a crucial aspect of addressing this issue lies in consciously incorporating these moral considerations throughout architectural design processes, research endeavors, and policy formulation
Moral meanings of architecture and adaptive reuse
No full textAfter modernism’s failure and postmodernist critiques, mainstream architecture turned away from ethics. However, over the last decades, the ecological challenges introduced a paradigm shift and re-introduced ethical awareness. Yet, the crisis within architectural ethics remains. There is no consensus about the relation between ethics and architecture, a comprehensive framework or language for dealing with ethical issues within architecture is still absent and architectural ethics is very often pragmatically oriented. Additionally, the ethical foundations and values of architectural codes, awards, architectural contests, and briefs are not made explicit.
Within the emerging subfield of adaptive reuse, this is not different. Although the architectural interventions adaptive reuse entails show them to be meaning-constitutive and moral acts, that communicate about values and places and alter their meanings, their ethical dimension is not made explicit or substantially scrutinized. In our view, reflections regarding the ethical dimensions of architectural interventions in built heritage can function as a spearhead for understanding the ethical nature of architecture in general.
If architecture relies on ethical choices based on conceptions of the good, we should recognise that the ethical underpinnings that ground and guide our deliberative design decisions is what we should reflect about in the first place (cf. Fisher 2019, xix; xxiii). Our deliberations about what objectively matters and how to correspondingly design, is the essence of the architectural practice. This is why D’Anjou (2020, 7) emphasises that design and architecture are ethically engaged actions that shape human being and our being-in-the-world. Wasserman, Sullivan and Palermo (2000, 34; 80) summarise it by referring to architecture’s intentionality being its ethical force.
To address the ethical within architecture more substantially and explicitly, we must attend to the long overdue role of moral philosophy within architecture. Our suggestion to turn to moral phenomenology contrasts with mainstream architectural-ethical writings produced over the last decades and demonstrates, as Spector suggested, that “moral philosophy could be fruitfully pursued in an ongoing effort to bring a sense of unified purpose back to architecture” (2005, xi). This kind of analytical phenomenology, which Düchs and Illies (2018, 98) described as a practically non-existent research field, may contribute in a substantial way to the development of architectural ethics.
In this talk, we would like to discuss the upset of our recently started research project concerning the ethical nature of architectural interventions in built heritage and show some preliminary results of a view that phenomenologically describes in what sense architecture is a moral and symbolic enterprise. This strengthens the idea that architectural education and the profession, as Spector (2005, 10) claims, “must be substantially remodelled” as architects must be able to explain their design choices on ethical grounds. As both Spector (2005, 21) and Kingwell (2021, 20) have mentioned, the vanguard or locus where societal problems are discussed is frequently the architectural playing field. In that regard, architectural education must much more than nowadays involve profound critical and ethical thinking and reflection so as to strengthen and mature future practitioners
Adaptive Reuse: Different Functions, Shifting Meanings And Moral Aftershocks
No full textWhile many contributors to the emerging research field of adaptive reuse, already acknowledge that an act of repurposing is an act of translation, (re)occupation, recognition, etc., its implications have not yet been ethically scrutinized. This reflective (moral phenomenological) analysis delves into this relation between adaptive reuse, possible shifts in meaning and, though often implicit, moral swell (i.e. eliciting moral debate). The paper draws upon three illustrative cases within the context of adaptive reuse to demonstrate how ostensibly sensible design decisions, particularly concerning the integration of new functions, can trigger moral ramifications. We contend that a crucial aspect of addressing this issue lies in consciously incorporating these moral considerations throughout architectural design processes, research endeavors, and policy formulation
Moral meanings of architecture and adaptive reuse
No full textAfter modernism’s failure and postmodernist critiques, mainstream architecture turned away from ethics. However, over the last decades, the ecological challenges introduced a paradigm shift and re-introduced ethical awareness. Yet, the crisis within architectural ethics remains. There is no consensus about the relation between ethics and architecture, a comprehensive framework or language for dealing with ethical issues within architecture is still absent and architectural ethics is very often pragmatically oriented. Additionally, the ethical foundations and values of architectural codes, awards, architectural contests, and briefs are not made explicit.
Within the emerging subfield of adaptive reuse, this is not different. Although the architectural interventions adaptive reuse entails show them to be meaning-constitutive and moral acts, that communicate about values and places and alter their meanings, their ethical dimension is not made explicit or substantially scrutinized. In our view, reflections regarding the ethical dimensions of architectural interventions in built heritage can function as a spearhead for understanding the ethical nature of architecture in general.
If architecture relies on ethical choices based on conceptions of the good, we should recognise that the ethical underpinnings that ground and guide our deliberative design decisions is what we should reflect about in the first place (cf. Fisher 2019, xix; xxiii). Our deliberations about what objectively matters and how to correspondingly design, is the essence of the architectural practice. This is why D’Anjou (2020, 7) emphasises that design and architecture are ethically engaged actions that shape human being and our being-in-the-world. Wasserman, Sullivan and Palermo (2000, 34; 80) summarise it by referring to architecture’s intentionality being its ethical force.
To address the ethical within architecture more substantially and explicitly, we must attend to the long overdue role of moral philosophy within architecture. Our suggestion to turn to moral phenomenology contrasts with mainstream architectural-ethical writings produced over the last decades and demonstrates, as Spector suggested, that “moral philosophy could be fruitfully pursued in an ongoing effort to bring a sense of unified purpose back to architecture” (2005, xi). This kind of analytical phenomenology, which Düchs and Illies (2018, 98) described as a practically non-existent research field, may contribute in a substantial way to the development of architectural ethics.
In this talk, we would like to discuss the upset of our recently started research project concerning the ethical nature of architectural interventions in built heritage and show some preliminary results of a view that phenomenologically describes in what sense architecture is a moral and symbolic enterprise. This strengthens the idea that architectural education and the profession, as Spector (2005, 10) claims, “must be substantially remodelled” as architects must be able to explain their design choices on ethical grounds. As both Spector (2005, 21) and Kingwell (2021, 20) have mentioned, the vanguard or locus where societal problems are discussed is frequently the architectural playing field. In that regard, architectural education must much more than nowadays involve profound critical and ethical thinking and reflection so as to strengthen and mature future practitioners
Masterplan Groene Long Meulenberg
No full textDe cité Meulenberg werd ontworpen door architect Joseph André en was geïnspireerd door het ontwerp voor Winterslag van Adrien Blomme, met de tuinwijkgedachte van Ebenezer Howard indachtig. Daardoor heeft Meulenberg van oorsprong veel potentieel voor een verwevenheid van wonen, werken, diensten, open ruimte en groen. Dit historisch aanwezige potentieel wordt vandaag onvoldoende benut. Via het engagement van heel wat verenigingen en gemeentelijke diensten en binnen het complexe project Noord-Zuid Limburg, detecteerde de gemeente Houthalen-Helchteren de nood om te werken aan een gedragen master- en actieplan om dat groene karakter van Meulenberg opnieuw leven in te blazen. Vandaar dat het project “Groene Long Meulenberg” werd getiteld.
Via een participatieve methodologie wil het team UHasselt/Plusoffice met de gemeente Houthalen-Helchteren en vooral samen met de bewoners en gebruikers van de wijk een voedingsbodem creëren voor duurzame projecten in de wijk Meulenberg die de buurt zelf kan continueren (ook na het project). Dit participatietraject wil werk maken van een gedragen actieplan, concrete winsten op korte en (middel)lange termijn en een zelfstandig werkend buurtatelier. Het is dus geen klassiek masterplan, maar een gedragen en gemeenschappelijke visie op de wijk en op de manier waarop er aan kwaliteitsverbetering kan gewerkt worden, van onderen uit en soms van boven af
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