Ideally Formed

Formally Informed

�e Question of the NaturalCulture & �eory VFernando Jiménez Salmerón

Arti�cialMade by humans; produced rather than natural.Made in imitation of something natural; simulated.

Not produced or changed arti�cially; not conditionedProduced by nature

Natural

IdealRelative to an idea

A conception of something in its perfection

Given form or character toImbued with a quality or an essence

Informed

�e �rst doubt that came to my mind was if archi-tecture has a possibility of being natural, as we respond to a language based society I looked for my answer on the dictionary and I found what I was looking for, architecture is inevitably arti�cial. As we have seen, something natural it is something in which no human being has intervened, according to this de�nition even the primitive huts are arti�tial, no matter which example you take. But this made me ask myself a question, the primitive caves were natural but when we started inhabiting them, painting the walls, storing thing there, do we turned them arti�cial? Is arti�cial a rock just because a man place a mark of him onto it? �e answer seems to be a clear yes.

But we, as human beings, are natural, why then when we touch something we turn it arti�cial?

Nature is informed by the acts of all the living creatures except for us, because we are sensible of the changes made by other human, equally if a bee were capable of think and talk, when she �nd another hive she would recognize it as something arti�cial.

Even us, �nd something arti�cial when seeing a hive, the ideal part of the hive made out of hexagons, such perfection do not resemble the beautiful chaotically

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informed nature we are used to, resemble the human construction based on laws and regular shapes.

So even thought nature, or the natural, is uncon-sciously related with something informed, informal, not regular, without a clear law, there are still room for ideals, we can see pure geometry in nature but that doesn’t mean that it is natural.

We can see an example of ideal in nature on the hive; the main structure made out of hexagons is or could be covered on the exterior creating levels.

So, could architecture be natural? Yes, it could be, when it is done by someone di�erent than a man.

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But if we take nature as referent, when something is ideally formed there is always a point in which is formally informed, nothing is 100% perfect, nature tend to be in disorder, that is when comes the formally informed. Archi-tecture in this case as a Natural thing, has the same prob-lem. Here comes the big error of the �rst theorist in architecture, as Vitruvius, they took a good example of nature, the ideal of proportion, but what do proportion has to do with nature and with beauty? Perfection is in the imperfection, on the unexpected. It is there where beauty arises, on the informed. �ey are lacking the second part that makes nature so wonderful.

Vitruvius neglected this part searching for the formal perfection but is that possible? More on, it is beau-tiful? Nothing made out by human hand could possibly be 100% perfect, it could resemble so or be near to it but never accomplish the goal, there will always be a part which will be formally informed, why should we avoid this? Why should we make something that is going against our human nature?

In my opinion following Vitruvius line to nowadays, we �nd a much more mature theorist which are the parametric designers, like the architects of the Beijing Bubble building. �ey extracted the parametric laws behind the aggregation of bubbles and they applied them onto the façade of the building,

creating an arti�cial bubble layer of huge scale.

When they �nished that layer, people realized that it didn’t resemble a bubble and a�er time they found that what really makes a bubble is not just the parametric law

but the superimposition of several layers one on top of the other, now they realized the need of the formally

informed, the random combination of bubbles so they placed another layer behind and it worked just �ne.

Now the question, it is natural? Clearly not. Why bothering using then natural laws and rules? Because

people as human being identify itself with nature, feel comfortable with it, but nature does not rely just on ideal

but the combination with the informed.

creating an arti�cial bubble layer of huge scale.

When they �nished that layer, people realized that it didn’t resemble a bubble and a�er time they found that what really makes a bubble is not just the parametric law

but the superimposition of several layers one on top of the other, now they realized the need of the formally

informed, the random combination of bubbles so they placed another layer behind and it worked just �ne.

Now the question, it is natural? Clearly not. Why bothering using then natural laws and rules? Because

people as human being identify itself with nature, feel comfortable with it, but nature does not rely just on ideal

but the combination with the informed.

Natural creations always serve a purpose, they are made for ful�lling a necessity as Sullivan said, form follows function. But he got further than this, all the buildings have an Essence, he found the essence of the tall building that was being tall, but my question is what is the essence of the building itself ? In my opinion the ultimate essence of the building, a part of it that will never disappear is being arti�cial. And according to Sullivan, it has to be arti�cial in every inch; resembling nature would be a betrayal of this principle, a �ght against the real architec-ture.

Why then so much “natural” architects hide the real essence of the building with rounded corners and resem-bling what is not inherent to it? Seeing the Open house by Coop Himmelblau I �nd a more natural building than the organic ones from Wright.

�e �rst thing that comes to your mind is informed and arti�cial, but there is something natural on this “decontructivist” work, the accident of a spacecra� or the collapsing of a building and the remaining parts on the ground are seeing as something natural, as the stacking of rocks on a hill, it is shocking how it is resembling nature by highlighting the arti�ciality. It is arti�cially natural as it has both parts, it is ideally formed and ideally formally informed.

Every building is ideal and informed, it always comes from the ideal of something to �nish being informed as something else, close to the ideal sometimes but never the same. In my opinion all the constructions are ideally formed on the beginning to a�er being formally informed and the more conscious we are about this facts, the better architecture we will create.