ARCHODOS
Theoria originally implied a kind of active observation, combining perception with asking questions and listening to local stories and myths. This is travel treated not as a metaphor in discourse, but as both source and goal of discourse, or movement as a format for conveying information seen and heard. This would be travel as paraphor or travel and discourse carried one alongside the other as a context for intellection. This article articulates travel as paraphor using Greg Ulmer’s concept of the ‘popcycle’ to analyze the architect Le Corbusier’s ecstatic moment in the monastery at Val d’Ema, outside Florence, revealing the spatial practice of theoria within the architect’s travel tour.
THEORIA
TRAVEL AS PARAPHOR
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George Santayana’s famous adage, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” indicates an important link between history and problem-solving - the use of existing material and information about the past to create new solutions to contemporary problems. Here this aspect of applied history is articulated as “cyber-history” through analysis of historiography’s emergence in Ancient Greece, discussion of the contingencies of discursive research resulting in the spread of scholasticism in the Middle Ages, and ending with possibilities for cyber-history’s application to architecture curricula to rigorously fuse historical research, critical theory, and the projective work of the design studio. Later sections feature a case-study of cyber-history analysis of Le Corbusier’s urban works.
CYBER-HISTORY
APPLIED HEURETICS
