Toward intercultural architectural practices able to map cultural diversity: making use of Wittgenstein’s tools to enhance intercultural dialogue

Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía — Monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura» 91 Toward Intercultural Architectural Practices Able to Map Cultural Diversity1 Making Use of Wittgenstein’s Tools to Enhance Intercultural Dialogue Hacia prácticas arquitectónicas interculturales capaces de cartografiar la diversidad cultural Herramientas wittgensteinianas para favorecer el diálogo intercultural Carla Carmona University of Seville [email protected] Abstract: This paper understands interculturality as an exchange of views on the basis of mutual respect and transformative understanding. Its purpose is to show that Wittgenstein’s conceptual tools, in particular his concept of “synoptic view”, as well as his remarks on architecture, can be helpful in order to foster intercultural architectural practices and contribute to making visible the cultural diversity of our societies with a view to promoting intercultural dialogue. I share the view, proposed by Material Engagement Theory, that materiality shapes how we think and how we live. This paper addresses architecture’s potential to put us on the path toward achieving intercultural dialogue. In particular, it deals with how architecture can contribute to the creation of intercultural spaces, one of the five policy approaches to the promotion of intercultural dialogue spelled out in the White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008). It suggests that, in addition to using spaces in intercultural ways, these should be designed interculturally. Besides, it explores the possibilities of architecture for the cultivation of critical thinking and shared values. I argue that our architectural practices can provide us with materialized overviews of cultural diversity and thus enlighten us, promoting analytical thinking, mutual understanding and awareness of one’s own cultural identity. By examining Wittgenstein’s idea that architecture is a gesture, I also advance that architecture conveys a Weltanschauung. The case is made in four steps. First, I define what I mean by intercultural architectural practices. Second, I shed light on the cultural diversity that is characteristic of contemporary societies by making use of Wittgenstein’s concept of “form of life” and by revising it. Third, I examine Wittgenstein’s concept of Übersichtlichkeit with a view to exploring architecture’s capacity to offer synoptic views of how different cultural identities overlap in contemporary societies. Next, I pursue Wittgenstein’s insight that architecture expresses the spirit of a civilization and connect it with architecture’s pedagogical dimension. Keywords: affordance, architecture, dialogue, form of life, interculturality, synoptic view, Wittgenstein, world-view. Resumen: Este artículo entiende la interculturalidad como un intercambio de perspectivas que parte del respeto mutuo y de una comprensión del otro cultural autotransformadora. Su objetivo es mostrar que las herramientas conceptuales de Wittgenstein, en particular su concepto de “visión sinóptica”, así como sus observaciones sobre arquitectura, pueden ser útiles para lograr prácticas arquitectónicas interculturales y contribuir a tornar visible la diversidad cultural de nuestras sociedades con el objetivo de favorecer el diálogo intercultural. 1 This paper is part of research conducted in 2018 at the Department of Cultural Anthropology of the University of Tokyo while enjoying a research stay financed by VI PPIT-US (University of Seville). 92 Carla Carmona ● Toward Intercultural Architectural Practices Able to Map Cultural Diversity Comparto la idea, propuesta por la así llamada Material Engagement Theory, de que la materialidad configura cómo pensamos y cómo vivimos. Este artículo enfoca el potencial que tiene la arquitectura para ponernos en el camino hacia el logro del diálogo intercultural. En particular, se ocupa de cómo la arquitectura puede contribuir a la creación de espacios interculturales, una de las cinco maneras de enfocar la promoción del diálogo intercultural explicitadas en el Libro Blanco sobre el Diálogo Intercultural (2008). Propone que en lugar de limitarnos a usar los espacios interculturalmente, estos deberían ser diseñados interculturalmente. Además, explora las posibilidades de la arquitectura para cultivar el pensamiento crítico y valores compartidos. Argumento que nuestras prácticas arquitectónicas pueden ofrecernos panorámicas materializadas de nuestra diversidad cultural y de esta forma iluminarnos, favoreciendo el pensamiento analítico, la comprensión mutua y una mayor conciencia acerca de nuestra propia identidad cultural. Mediante el examen de la idea de Wittgenstein de que la arquitectura es un gesto, también defiendo la idea de que la arquitectura expresa una Weltanschauung. Se distinguen cuatro partes. Primero, se define qué quiero decir por prácticas arquitectónicas interculturales. En segundo lugar, se arroja luz sobre la diversidad cultural que es característica de las sociedades contemporáneas haciendo uso del concepto “forma de vida” de Wittgenstein, revisándolo. En tercer lugar, examino el concepto de Übersichtlichkeit de Wittgenstein con la intención de explorar la capacidad de la arquitectura para ofrecer visiones sinópticas de cómo diferentes identidades culturales se superponen en las sociedades contemporáneas. Finalmente, discuto la idea de Wittgenstein de que la arquitectura expresa el espíritu de una civilización y lo conecto con la dimensión pedagógica de la disciplina. Palabras clave: affordance, arquitectura, diálogo, forma de vida, interculturalidad, visión sinóptica, Wittgenstein, cosmovisión. Copyright © 2019 Carla Carmona Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía, monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura», n.º 10, 2019, pp. 91–104, Madrid-España (ISSN 2386 – 5326) http://www.apeironestudiosdefilosofia.com/ Recibido: 10/1/2019 Aceptado: 22/2/2019 93 Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía — N.º 10 - Abril 2019 Monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura» The aim of this paper is neither to offer a comprehensive account of Wittgenstein’s remarks on architecture nor to examine the parallels that he established between philosophy and architecture. Instead, its purpose is to show that Wittgenstein’s conceptual tools, in particular his concept of “synoptic view”, as well as his remarks on architecture, can be helpful to foster intercultural architectural practices and contribute to making visible the cultural diversity of our societies with a view to promoting intercultural dialogue. I do not mean to claim that the quest for interculturality is behind Wittgenstein’s remarks on architecture, or for that matter behind his main philosophical concerns. Rather, I propose that Wittgenstein’s insights into architecture, his conceptual framework and his general understanding of philosophy can be highly useful to tackle the difficulties that arise in the context of intercultural dialogue, in intercultural architectural practice in particular. The Council of Europe and UNESCO have drawn attention to the need to acquire and promote cross-cul- tural dialogical skills with a view to achieving a society where mutual understanding is the starting point for building together and the end point of hate speech and other racist and discriminatory conflicts that have their origin in incomprehension (Mansouri, 2017). It is clear that we still have a long way to go in that direction and that the urgency to reach our goal is growing given that the degree of diversity in our societies is unprecedented and ever-growing. The White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (WPoID)2 adopted in 2008 identifies the creation of spaces for intercultural dialogue as one of the five keys to achieving a democratic and tolerant Europe, based on the ideas of community, communication and interdependence. Let me quote from WPoID: Developing a political culture supportive of cultural pluralism is a demanding task. It entails an education system which generates capacities for critical thinking and innovation, and spaces in which people are allowed to participate and to express themselves. (WPoID 25) Architecture has a big role to play in that task, both regarding the design of such spaces and the cultivation of critical, analytical thinking and shared values. I hold the view, proposed by Lambros Malafouris’s Material Engagement Theory, that “brains, bodies and things conflate, mutually constituting each other” (Malafouris, 2018: 756). “Things” includes architecture. Our engagement with architecture shares such metaplasticicty. How we see the world and how we think about it are constituted by the material world. In other words, materiality is entangled with our thinking and ultimately with our everyday life. It shapes how we live and how we think. This extends to our social ways of being. The focus on material engagement is after the realization of “the profound way materiality envelops our everyday lives and mediates our social ways of being with one another” (Malafouris, 2014: 140-141). As it has already been suggested regarding architecture, “by changing the material, we can change our socio-cultural practices” (Rietveld et al, 2019: 300). Architecture provides us with a variety of affordances3 to promote interculturality. Social cohesion is one of the aims behind interculturality. It has been shown brilliantly how architecture can contribute to enhancing social cohesion, how architecture has both a direct and a long-term impact on socio-cultural practices (Rietveld et al, 2019). Spaces can be designed in such a way that their qualities contribute to strenghtening our abilities to express ouserlves freely, our capacity to listen to the views of others or the cohesion of culturally diverse social groups. Their design can also contribute to making visible different forms of life within a society. The question that interests us here is what we can learn from Wittgenstein’s philosophy to design architecture in such a way that it provides us with the possibilities of engagement, that is, with the architectural affordances that we need in order to promote and gain more insight into interculturality. 2 Council of Europe (2008), White Paper on Intercultural dialogue, Strasbourg, https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/intercultural/Source/Pub_ White_Paper/White%20Paper_final_revised_EN.pdf [accessed February 10 2019] 3 I use the term “affordance” as it is generally accepted in the current debate: the possibilities for action provided by the environment (Gibson, 1979; Rietveld et al, 2019). 94 Carla Carmona ● Toward Intercultural Architectural Practices Able to Map Cultural Diversity 1. Intercultural Architectural Practices4 Before addressing the question, let me explain in certain detail what I mean by intercultural architectural practices. I understand as “intercultural architectural practices” those practices of architecture that work toward the understanding and the promotion of interculturality. In my view, interculturality has “dialogue” at its core. Intercultural dialogue is not about persuading societies, communities or individuals to be more like the majority, but is instead a process to promote deliberation about disparity and divergence rather than gaining consensus (Hardy & Hussain, 2017: 67). Moreover, and this is missing in WPoID, it is a transformative dialogical engagement with the cultural other. Intercultural dialogue can be understood (as it has been approached by certain voices within hermeneutics5) as a fusion of horizons, which means that our initial understanding, our horizon, broadens, gets transformed, as a result of dialogue (Taylor, 1994). Multicultural approaches to the management of cultural diversity as a means to secure inclusive and cohesive societies have been found inadequate, not to mention cultural assimilation. After all, multiculturality is little more than “the empirical fact that different cultures exist and may interact within a given space and social organisation” (WPoID 11). This interaction might be conflictless, but if we want transformative, cohesive understanding between societies and within societies, we need more than that. If what we want is to work on the nature of that interaction, we need interculturality, which can be portrayed as an open and respectful exchange of views on the basis of mutual respect and transformative understanding. In fact, it has been argued that multiculturalism often shared the same conception of society that assimilationism: an opposition of a majority and a minority (or minorities) in static positions, which led to the stigmatization and segregation of communities and the assumption of cultural stereotypes, precisely because of the emphasis placed on cultural specificity. The idea to reject would be the following: since we are different, since we belong to different cultural groups, it is better to remain isolated in order to avoid conflict. By contrast, the truth is that cultural identities often overlap. The otherness of the cultural other is therefore more familiar to us than what is generally thought. Moreover, WPoID makes clear that intercultural dialogue is also needed on an individual level, since every individual may integrate different cultural affiliations: Intercultural dialogue is therefore important in managing multiple cultural affiliations in a multicultural environment. It is a mechanism to constantly achieve a new identity balance. (WPoID 18) Architecture can play a fundamental role in fostering interculturality, both between societies and within a society. The widely extended idea behind the dominant policies is that we can use spaces in that direction. But we have already seen that it is not the only strategy that can be developed. In addition to using spaces interculturally, (previously) we could design spaces interculturally. Such spaces will provide society with further and more successful possibilities of engagement to encourage interculturality. Imagine spaces with the capacity to map how different cultural identities overlap, or spaces with architectonic qualities that inject pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness into our societies in a non-mediated way. Let us look more closely at the kinds of spaces that are explicitly addressed in WPoID: It is essential to engender spaces for dialogue that are open to all. Successful intercultural governance, at any level, is largely a matter of cultivating such spaces: physical spaces like streets, markets and shops, houses, kindergartens, schools and universities, cultural and social centers, youth clubs, churches, synagogues and mosques, company meeting rooms and work places, museums, libraries and other leisure facilities, or virtual space like the media. 4 Certainly, my approach to intercultural architectural practice has some features in common with Kisho Kurokawa’s philosophy of symbiosis and what he has called “the architecture of the age of life”, with its focus on plurality and its desire to overcome “universalism”. However, his conception of intercultural architecture as hybrid architecture, “in which elements of different cultures exist in symbiosis” (Kurokawa, 1994: 25), is not what I am trying to promote here. A comparison between his approach and the one proposed in this paper shall be the topic of another article. 5 For instance, think of diatopical hermeneutics, which builds on the concept coined by Raimundo Panikkar (1979) and elaborated by Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2014: 92), as well as of its revised form, multi-topia hermeneutics (Giri, 2017: 37-38). Fidel Tubino has explicitly fostered insight into the concept of “intercultural dialogue” by making use of diatopical hermeneutics (Tubino, 2009). 95 Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía — N.º 10 - Abril 2019 Monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura» Town planning is an obvious example: urban space can be organized in a ‘single-minded’ fashion or more ‘open-minded’ ways. The former include the conventional suburb, housing state, industrial zone, car park or ring road. The latter embrace the busy square, the park, the lively street, the pavement café or the market. If single-minded areas favour an atomized existence, open-minded places can bring diverse sections of society together and breed a sense of tolerance. It is critically important that migrant populations do not find themselves, as so often, concentrated on soulless and stigmatized housing estates, excluded and alienated from city life. (WPoID 33) It mentions the potential of museums and heritage centers to challenge selective narratives, as well as the intercultural possibilities of non-physical spaces, such as cultural activities, in particular those that promote creativity, such as the arts: “the arts are also a playground of contradiction and symbolic confrontation, allowing for individual expression, critical self-reflection and meditations” (ibid.). Likewise, it understands sport or the workplace as further playgrounds in which to play with the limits of our cultural images and extend them. Strikingly, there is little reference to how physical spaces should be built. We are told that we should go for space which is open-mindedly organized, instead of single-mindedly organized. But what does practicing architecture in such a way mean? How should architecture be designed? The WPoID seems to forget the role played by architectural design in the capacity that those centers might have to enhance cultural diversity and understanding. Backing investment on the creation of buildings that by definition contribute to the exchange of views and social cohesion, such as schools or universities, cultural and social centers, museums or other leisure facilities, is without doubt a good thing regarding intercultural dialogue. Nonetheless, caring about the qualities of those spaces could also help to bring about intercultural dialogue. We find a reference to “design” concerning urban planning: Particular attention needs to be given to the design and management of public spaces, like parks, civic squares, airports and train stations. Urban planners are encouraged to create ‘open towns’ with sufficient public space for encounters. Such spaces, ideally constructed with an open mind –planned for a variety of uses, that is– can help to generate a shared civic sense of place and an intercultural commitment. (WPoID 46) If we want to create “open towns”, we might also want to create “open buildings”, in the sense that they have “sufficient space for encounters”. That openness has been a widespread policy in the design of airports and train stations all over the world. Some of our museums, libraries or cultural centers have also been conceived in such a way, making sure that they have sufficient space for encounters. For instance, think of the Akita International University Library. In its main space, a theater-like great hall, reading spaces and bookshelves are displayed in an ever-growing radial manner. Library users, as real wanderers, are free to walk around and pick up the book they want. The space, its design, seems to invite them to learn and get inspired from each other, to interact in respectful ways and to contribute with deep satisfaction to the general atmosphere of exchange and concentration. It is indeed “constructed with an open mind”, so that it can adapt to “a variety of uses” and generate “a shared civic sense of place”. Certainly one of the best examples is the project of the New Amsterdam Park, conceived by RAAAF [Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordance] in collaboration with Atelier de Lyon: a floating park conformed by 24 barges, interconnected by a myriad of passages and short-cuts, which can also be accessed from the water, since one can also explore the park in small boats. Those spaces, all freely accessible, are supposed to host different subcultures, which will be able to interact and feel familiar to each other. In fact, the main aim of the park is to turn people from different subcultures into trusted strangers. With that idea in mind, the park offers an endless number of spots from which to observe others and be observed by them. One can be viewed and view from a distance, and one can alter the distance as much as one wants, and get close whenever one feels ready and has the curiosity for it. Furthermore, possibilities of interaction change with the season, and this leads to new combinations of social subcultures. Which architectonic qualities are better for such purposes is likely to vary from one country to another, from one city to another (and in different neighborhoods within the same city), and even from one village to another. In some places one will feel that a certain kind of vastness is needed, while in other places it might take the form of a cozy place of retreat. In some places one will look for light and the presence of nature and in others for thick walls and chiaroscuro. In that sense, its context, the kinds of buildings in the area, regarding both their use and their aesthetic qualities, should not be ignored. 96 Carla Carmona ● Toward Intercultural Architectural Practices Able to Map Cultural Diversity In order to gain more insight into the nature of cultural diversity, in the next section we shall look closely into Wittgenstein’s concept of “form of life”. 2. Cultural identities and forms of life The importance of the notion of “form of life” in Wittgenstein’s philosophy has been contested. There are current debates regarding its meaning and scope6. Peter Hacker has pointed out that despite the fact that the word Lebensform occurs in the Philosophical Investigations only three times, it is of fundamental importance because “it is an integral part of the revolution in philosophical thought that the Investigations was instigating” (Hacker, 2015: 4). It functions as a cornerstone to the general conception that underlies that revolution and it is linked with other essential notions, such as those of “language-game” or “practice”. Wittgenstein’s insight that speaking a language is part of an activity, in itself a part of a complex web of interconnected and overlapping practices, embedded in a form of life, continues to shed light on the way we live. That web of interconnected and overlapping practices provides a common ground, something which is not grounded on something more fundamental, a set of certainties, a world-view, an attitude toward life, the world and our fellow human beings. Thus, Wittgenstein’s statement that “What has to be accepted, the given, is –one might say– forms of life” (PPF 344-345). He pursued this insight in the remarks collected in On Certainty (OC). The following two quotations are particularly revelatory: Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality, but as a form of life [Lebensform]. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well). (OC §358) But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or unjustified; as it were, as something animal. (OC §359) I share the view that there is a plurality of historico-cultural forms of life: A form of life is a way of living, a pattern of activities, actions, interactions and feelings which are inextricably interwoven with, and partly constituted by, uses of language. It rests upon very general pervasive facts of nature. It includes shared natural and linguistic responses, broad agreement in definitions and judgements, and corresponding behaviour. (Baker & Hacker, 2009: 74) Danièle Moyal-Sharrock has shown brilliantly how the concept of “form of life” is intertwined with other framework concepts which have often been confused or conflated with it (Moyal-Sharrock, 2015). In those quotations in which the historico-cultural dimension of the concept of “form of life” –as well as of other framework concepts, such as “certainty”, “patterns of life”, “ways of living” or “facts of living”– is more straightforward, Wittgenstein often seems to be picturing a plurality of “forms of life” which are independent and do not overlap. I think that Stefan Majetschak has argued for replacing “forms of life” by “patterns of life” in order to remedy this fact, with a view to discouraging the ontological isolation usually attributed to the term Lebensform (Majetschak, 2010). Wittgenstein’s discussion of the capacity of Westerners to understand Chinese people (LWPPII 89; Z §219) or the ability of human beings in general to understand lions if they were to speak (PPF §327), come to mind. The aim of such passages in the later Wittgenstein is to make us aware of the difficulty of understanding others if one does not share their form of life. Forms of life are pictured as disconnected from each other: We also say of a person that he is transparent to us. It is, however, important, as regards our considerations that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange 6 See the volume “Wittgenstein and Forms of life” that the Nordic Wittgenstein Review dedicated to the concept in 2015, ed. by D. Moyal-Sharrock & P. Donatelli: http://www.nordicwittgensteinreview.com/issue/view/NWR%20Special%20Issue%202015 [accessed January 10 2019] 97 Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía — N.º 10 - Abril 2019 Monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura» traditions; and, what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them. (PPF §325) Other examples refer to how “we”7 would not find our feet with the people from a tribe with no expression of feeling of any kind (Z §§383-390). In general, Wittgenstein is thinking of the interaction of a foreigner in an unknown country or of an explorer’s interaction with a community that is unknown to him (with a language that is also unknown to him) (PI §206). He used his own experience as a foreigner in England as an example: “Which foreigner doesn’t feel that way when he comes to England?” (Wittgenstein, 2000: TS 232; MS 135-137, 1947-1948). His well-known witty remark regarding English women can also be interpreted along these lines: It is important for our approach, that someone may feel concerning certain people, that he will never know what goes on inside them. He will never understand them. (Englishwomen for Europeans.) (CV 84e) His remarks on aesthetics also contribute a great deal to picture forms of life as isolated islands. Consider his remarks concerning the British sculptor Frank Dobsons’s ability to appreciate “Negro Art” (LC I, 27-28). Wittgenstein’s fundamental idea is that Dobson’s appreciation cannot be the same as the appreciation of an “educated Negro” because “Negro Art” plays different roles in their respective lives. The same applies to the appreciation of a “Negro” tunic by a European. Wittgenstein gives his own example: […] I say I appreciate a good Negro tunic –does this mean I would have one made, or that I would say (as at the tailor’s): ‘No… this is too long’, or does it mean I say: ‘How charming!’? (LC I, 28) Wittgenstein’s insight is that it is unlikely that someone who does not belong to that form of life would get one done and that if he did, wearing it won’t be the main interest behind his acquisition. Wittgenstein also believes that he won’t be able to make the kind of comments that he is able to make at the tailor’s regarding the correction of a suit. Furthermore, Wittgenstein seems to be equating a form of life and a culture in a particular time. For instance, in his discussion of the concept of “a cultured taste” (LC I, 25-26). This is particularly clear in LC I, 29: Suppose Lewy has what is called a cultured taste in painting. This is something entirely different to what was called a cultured taste in the fifteenth century. An entirely different game was played. He does something entirely different with it to what a man did then. In this regard, a revision of Wittgenstein’s notion of “form of life” is much needed. Wittgenstein’s general equation between a culture and a form of life needs to be revised in these times of extraordinary cultural diversity. Contemporary societies encompass multiple cultural forms, in such a way that different forms of life coexist, overlap and interact within the same culture. Identifying a culture with the frontiers of a country or with a linguistic community does not seem to make sense any longer, if it ever did. Contemporary linguistic communities, and contemporary societies in general, are culturally diverse on a hitherto unprecedented scale. Furthermore, as I have underscored somewhere else8, the last decades of the 20th century and the 21st century –deconstruction and postcolonial theories in particular– have made self-evident that understanding a particular culture requires understanding other cultures. For instance, we cannot understand Picasso’s cubism without traditional African sculpture or French Impressionism without Japanese woodblock prints. Could we develop architectural practices that fostered the understanding of meticulously interwoven forms of life, imbued with elements or character traits of each other? This kind of approach takes a stand against the conception of a single human form of life (Moyal-Sharrock, 2015), which is assumed by Rietveld 7 On Wittgenstein’s use of ‘we’, see Sandis, 2019. 8Carla Carmona, “Using Wittgenstein’s Philosophy to Erase Conceptual Misconceptions in Dance Practice”, forthcoming in Revista de historiografía (2019). 98 Carla Carmona ● Toward Intercultural Architectural Practices Able to Map Cultural Diversity et al (2019: 301)9. I have drawn attention elsewhere to the need to ensure that our cities do not project over those who inhabit them a general human form of life, but, on the contrary, notice and preserve the dissimilarities, the details that differentiate forms of life from each other (Carmona, 2017). I do not mean to abandon the idea of cultural identity. In this regard, I differ from the tendency to move from the intercultural to the transcultural to make sure that one avoids mere multiculturalism (Guasch, 2010). It is true that the accepted cohabitation of different cultural groups under the same framework of citizenship is not enough, but the solution does not lie in overcoming cultural differences through the promotion of individual subjectivity. The old identity-difference dichotomy that those who appeal to the “transcultural” wish to leave behind by strengthening the role of specific subjectivities, could well be tackled from the dialogical dimension of human identity. Our identity is not something that springs from our interior, but is built from interaction and dialogue with others (Taylor, 1994). The fact that cultural identities in contemporary societies are complex and multifaceted should only inspire us to move further in that direction. In the next section we will see that Wittgenstein’s notion of Übersichlichkeit can be useful in order to pursue what we want: architecturing the cultural diversity that is characteristic of contemporary societies and tracing how forms of life overlap. 3. Architecture as a synoptic view of a culture Wittgenstein was after synoptic views, or surveyable representations, of our use of words: A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. –Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links. The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’? (PI §122) The expression has also been translated as “lucid presentation” or “perspicuous representation”. All of them fail to grasp the insight of the German expression. The concept in question is übersichtliche Darstellung, which refers to a presentation as if seen from above, an overview. Philosophy, according to Wittgenstein, ought to describe, and philosophical description was for him such an overview (of the use of our words): Philosophical description gets its importance from the fact that it affords us an overview [Übersicht] which guards us against adopting a different system only because we do not see the right one. We yearn for a perspicuous representation, i.e., for a system, we do not see the right one, we are seduced into adopting a false system by the language or by some circumstance or other, and philosophy saves us by offering us the correct perspicuous representation. (Waismann & Wittgenstein, 2003: 124-125) Let us go back to PI §122. It is a kind of “understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’”, in which intermediate cases, “finding and inventing intermediate links” play a fundamental role. Wittgenstein compared the task of the philosopher to that of the geographer: 9 Rietveld et al (2018), mentioning Wittgenstein explicitly, hold the view that “the notion ‘form of life’ can refer both to a sociocultural practice and to a species”, in such a way that “within the human form of life there are many different sociocultural practices” (46). Their definition of affordance, which they interpret as “Wittgensteinian”, goes along the same lines: affordances “are not related to a particular individual but to an entire practice, to a form of life” (46), they “are relative to the abilities available in a form of life” (47). Rietveld et al also identify “builders, English language users, concert pianists, and academics”, as examples of forms of life within the overarching human form of life” (2018: 47). However, I hope to have made clear that Wittgenstein’s notion “form of life” cannot be identified with “a sociocultural practice” in the singular. For that matter, it is neither a mere aggregate of sociocultural practices. By contrast, such practices intertwine and are part of a worldview, the form of life in question. “Concert pianists” or “academics” share language games, but those language games that they share do not constitute by themselves a form of life (in Wittgenstein’s terms). 99 Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía — N.º 10 - Abril 2019 Monográfico «Wittgenstein. Música y arquitectura» One difficulty with philosophy is that we lack a synoptic view. We encounter the kind of difficulty we should have with the geography of a country for which we had no map, or else a map of isolated bits. The country we are talking about is language, and the geography its grammar. We can talk about the country quite well, but when forced to make a map, we go wrong. (LWL 43) We encounter problems to deal with the geography of a country for which we have not map. We face similar problems concerning the cultural diversity that is characteristic of contemporary societies. I would like to use Wittgenstein’s metaphor of “the geography of a country for which we had not map” to shed light on our lack of understanding regarding the cultural diversity that surrounds us. We either “have no map” for that or “a map of isolated bits”, in which the blank parts have to be filled with intermediate cases. Those intermediate cases are “intermediate links”, which have to be found. I understand the overlap of different forms of life as instances of intermediate links in that context. In that regard, Wittgenstein leaves room for creativity: we can also invent them. Architecture, conceived as a synoptic view, can “invent” intermediate links. It can have an effect in how we relate to each other and shape society in that way. My proposal is that certain architectural practices can be instances of such an overview. We need an architecture that is perspicuous regarding our understanding of our society, that is to say, that presents things by outlining their structure and relations, that makes clear the connections and correlations between the different forms of life that coexist, that materializes an intercultural description of how things are by making use of intermediate cases. Wittgenstein’s remark on the octahedron as a bird’s eye view of the grammatical rules comes to mind: An octahedron with the pure colors at the corner-points e.g. provides a rough representation of colour-space, and this is a grammatical representation, not a psychological one. […] Using the octahedron as a representation gives us a bird’s eye view of the grammatical rules. (PR §1, 51-52)10 The octahedron sheds light on the color-space. Likewise, buildings could be conceived as maps of all the routes and geographies regarding the cultural diversity of contemporary societies. Wittgenstein asserted that his “duty is to teach you the geography of a labyrinth, so that you may completely find your way about it” (Wittgenstein, 2000: 162b, 6v). For the sake of intercultural dialogue, it might be worth taking seriously certain architectural practices’ potential to map cultural diversity. Building a parallelism between a philosophical problem (such as it was understood by Wittgenstein in PI §123) and an architectural one, the later could take the form: “I don’t know my way about”. After all, contemporary societies are also cultural labyrinths. As regards cultural diversity in contemporary societies, one could well say what Wittgenstein stated about language in PI §203: [It] is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another size and no longer know your way about. It is interesting to read from this point of view the foreword to Philosophical Remarks (PR): This book is written for such men as are in sympathy with its spirit. This spirit is different from the one which informs the vast stream of European and American civilization in which all of us stand. That spirit expresses itself in an onwards movement, in building ever larger and more complicated structures; the other in striving after clarity and perspicuity in no matter what structure. The first tries to grasp the world by way of its periphery –in its variety; the second at its centre– in its essence. And so the first adds one construction to another, moving on and up, as it were, from one stage to the next, while the other remains where it is and what it tries to grasp is always the same. (7) Let us ignore Wittgenstein’s pessimism regarding the spirit of his times and focus instead on his differentiation between a kind of architecture that builds “ever larger and more complicated structures” and another 10 In German it reads: “Die Oktaeder-Darstellung ist eine übersichtliche Darstellung der grammatischen Regeln.” (PR, footnote no. 1, p. 52).