TRUTH

To be any good, you need to be unselfishly dedicated to what is. In any design that we produce, it must respond to the truth of the forces that shaped it. This applies to an industrial object as well as a building.

The concept of truth is rarely discussed when applied to buildings. I don’t ever remember this term’s uesage in crits or in schools. Yet the buildings and objects that we worship as universally good are, in this sense, truthful.

Think of Mies’ Crown Hall. Or Hagia Sophia. Or think of your own favorite. How about the iPhone? Each of these examples provide precision, order and discipline.

Science, to be truthful, also must contain precision, order and discipline. In science, the visual display of results are indicators of the forces which shaped the experiment. Likewise, in our drawings, our visual display of our solution is a direct extension of the building creation forces.

So in both science and in design, we seek truth by minimizing capricious subjectivity. Our results are the product of vigilant and and precise understanding.

While the above description may sound overly predisposed, this is far from the case. For in either design or scientific endeavors, there is always the unique individual outlook. How many scientific experiments have been challenged by a different interpretation of the results? It happens all the time. Same for design. While the architect may proclaim truth, it is a foregone conclusion that others may not interpret the results exactly the same way.

It is certainly because of this individual viewpoint in either discipline that keeps us human. And, yes, it also mandates that truth, ultimately is personal. It is not universal.

Which should serve as motivation for us to continue to seek truth. Each of our efforts in this scientific design works toward an ever closer attempt at truth. In a nutshell, this is all we can ask of our efforts.