Architectural drawing as a 'kulturtechnik'

Abstract

The problem of modern architectural representation points to the shift from the conventional architectural practice in the subject-object integrity to the modern architectural discipline depending on the subject-agent-object mediation, and architectural drawing as the fundamental technique of this shift. Defining architectural representation as a series of mediation, it is aimed to remove the aura that is curtained on the architectural drawing by mystifications made with reference to unknowns.

Considering architectural representation as mediation, the medial turn that took place in the 1960s is influential. Expanding the medial turn to post-humanist references and opening up a wide variety of research areas with an interest in all kinds of non-human-centred mediations from human-centred media such as language and text, centralizes mediation as the inseparable and further productive ground of practical and theoretical activities. In this field, German Media Theory, with its kulturtechniken studies (in its posthumanist second phase after the 1990s), continues archaeological research without subjecting the subject-agent-object mediation to any historical and geographical limitations. With its orientation to the material and external conditions of the mediation of human-non-human agencies, it directs the architectural representation crisis which is based on polarisation based on subject-object distance such as theory-practice, image-object, intellectual-corporeal, to the analysis of practices of the sign. In this context, this text will be tracing the kulturtechnik qualities of architectural drawing in the literature of media and architecture.

German Media Theory was constituted as a reaction to the hermeneutic and sociological tradition. It is a rebellion against the human-centred, anxious power media analysis of the German intellectuals under the influence of the Second World War on media, communication, and technology; the studies based on the effects of communication media on people with a more linear understanding of history; and hermeneutic researches that point to textual interpretation with the assumption that it is the human subject with a higher mental structure that gives meaning to the material environment. In this context, it is positioned in the expanded field of the media mapped depending on hermeneutic and sociological approaches. Siegert specifies five fundamental kulturtechnik qualities that each of them is dependent on the other. Reading these qualities in the context of architectural drawing can be made possible to understand the conditions of the mediation that take place in the field of architectural practice without privileging the human subject.

(iv) Architectural drawing is a kulturtechnik, mainly because it creates the distinction between intellectual and bodily activities in which it operates. It is a kulturtechnik that emphasises the unity of the separation it reveals and keeps both possibilities of being imagined and being built as potentially current in itself.

(ii) Architectural projection is a media-technical configuration and per se assumes a culture based on the interaction of human and non-human (plural cultures).

(i) The media-technical trace of the projective quality of the architectural drawing is evident in Alberti's perspective formula. Its quality as a projection ground in modern processes is based on two framings, which he refers to as `window' and 'velum'. These are operational grounds of both a temporal and spatial imaginary world, giving way to a modern cultural-technical turn (operational chains).

(iii) While the guidelines of the projection space (grid) can signify the subjects in their absence by transforming them into objects, it also points to the ontological creation of the subject depending on the location, by evaluating this signification as a 'cleixis' (in other words, by being a set of guidelines open to the subject's operationality). It is not only a suitable ground for the demands of planning, certainty, and control of ideal temporal and spatial tendencies, but also includes being open to possibilities, intervals, and conditions of the situation as deixis of temporal and spatial framing. It is a creative, performative framing.

(v) The beginning of modern architectural history is determined by the inclusion of architectural drawing in the field. This is at the same time, the turning point in which the grid (the guidelines of projection) becomes decisive in architectural practice. It is the history of realisations of deixis in mediations between virtuality-actuality, abstract-concrete, imaginary-real. It is the history of the architectural drawing whose codes are territorialised and deterritorialised on this ground, continuously.

Bu metin modern mimarlık pratiğinin belirleyici tekniği olan mimari çizimi Alman Medya Kuramı’nın 1990’lı yıllardan sonra ağırlık kazanan “kültürteknik” açılımı bağlamında, posthümanist yönelimli bir dolayım (İng.: mediation) sorunsalı olarak ele alır. Mimari temsilin bir dolayım sorunsalı olarak ele alınmasında, 1960’lı yıllarda gerçekleşen medyal dönüm etkilidir. 1960’lı yıllarda gerçekleşen medyal dönümün güncel durumda posthümanist değinilere genişleyerek dil, metin gibi insan merkezli medyadan insan merkezli olmayan her türlü dolayıma ilgiyle yüksek çeşitlilikteki araştırma alanına açılması dolayımı pratik ve kuramsal faaliyetlerin ayrıştırılamaz ve daha öte üretici zemini olarak merkezi konuma taşır. Alman Medya Kuramı ise posthümanist değininin ağırlık kazandığı 1990’lı yıllar sonrası ikinci fazındaki “kültürteknik” açılımıyla, özne-aracı-nesne dolayımını, herhangi bir tarihsel ve coğrafi sınırlandırmaya tâbi kılmadan arkeolojik bir araştırma olarak sürdürmesi, insan ve insan olmayanın dolayımının maddesel ve dışsal koşullarına yönelimiyle, kuram-pratik, imge-nesne, zihinsel-bedensel gibi özne-nesne yarılmasında inşa edilen medyal alanlardaki kutupsallaştırmalara temellenen mimari temsil krizini, gösterge pratikleri analizine yönelten; onun dolayım esasında ele alınmasını işaret eden bir kılavuz olarak değerlendirilir. Böylelikle, mimari çizimin sıklıkla hakkındaki bilinmezlere atfen yapılan mistifikasyonlar ile üzerine çekilen aura perdesinin kaldırılmasına imkân tanımak amaçlanır. Özne nesne mesafelenmesine bağlı olarak, modernite ile görünürlük kazanan özne-aracı-nesne dolayımının uzantısında, mimari çizimin kültürteknik niteliklerinin ortaya konulması ile, artan zaman-mekân-bilgi deviniminde nesnenin maddesel deneyimi ile çıkmaza giren mimari temsil sorunsalına, onun doğumuna içkin olan dolayım yetisi üzerinden bir açılım getirilmesi hedeflenmektedir. Bu doğrultuda Alman Medya Kuramı’nın öncü isimlerinden Siegert’in belirttiği temel kültürteknik nitelikler mimari çizim bağlamında ele alınarak, ilgili mimarlık ve medya literatüründe iz sürülmüştür.