SCORES AND SKETCHES

Architecture is what happens between your ears.  The act of form generation has the greatest purity in your mind.  Purity is reduced the more that the process moves toward a form that exists.  

Architects use plans, elevations and sections to communicate the pure form in their minds.  These documents are comprised of arrangements of lines, which communicate concepts of relation.  A set of lines in the lower right corner of the floor plan, are proportionally located so as to communicate their intended relationship to that set of lines in the upper left of the floor plan.  A series of numerals, which is what are called dimensions, increase the autographic nature of the document.  

Goodman tells us that this curious combination of lines and numerals classifies the architectural plan as a score.  When we think of the term score, we of course immediately think of a musical score.  A musical score is a notational language, which is designed to allow for the performance of a musical work.  If the performance has reasonably close compliance with the performer’s interpretation of the notational language, then we will say that we heard Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto.  A musical work allows for subsequent performances of that work.

The architect and the composer are identical:  the greatest purity of their work exists in their minds.  A performance of a work of music from a score is identical to the construction (performance) of a building from a set of drawings.  For both, there is the mental conception, the paper symbolization of that conception, and then the performance by people who are interpreting the marks on the paper.  We expect many performances from a musical score, yet we expect exactly one performance of a building.

A musical performance is an extension of of the score.  A musical performance is not the work.  Likewise, a building is an extension of drawings.  The building is not the work.

I continue to fantasize about what it would be like if architects worked like composers.  In this flight, drawings are scores, which are then used to structure the performance of a building.

To try out this fantasy yourself, the next time you see a building under construction, think of what you see as a performance.  Imagine that they are building Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto.  And think of how this performance is being structured by a set of drawn notational marks on paper.