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\title{Aesthetically Speaking}
\author{Jennifer R. Chellappa}
\date{\today}
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\lettrine{A}{rchitecture} is a profession that fully envelops the study of context and physical surroundings.  Referring to the dialogue and relationships between spaces, objects, solids, and voids becomes challenging to describe in immaculate detail.  The issue commonly found in describing architectural design theory is how to properly convey design ideas and maintain a sense of linguistic integrity.  Occasionally, when describing design ideas discourse becomes increasingly figurative.  The challenge in writing an architectural thesis is capturing the figurative language of architectural ideas in a technical document.  An example successfully combining figurative writing and technical clarity is demonstrated in the article, ``Strolling Through Tokyo's Hothouse of Architectural Wonders'' by Michael Sorkin:

\begin{quote}
``Part of the problem--which also occurs at Prada--is that exterior walls that depend on the play of nonorthogonal openings must resolve the crisis of intersection with floor slabs that are perforce horizontal. Herzog \& de Meuron simply allow the slabs to butt against the building's skin, which doesn't look too bad. Ito fusses away on the interior, using surface details to try to resolve the meeting of the irregular openings with the right-angled floors and walls. This dissipates what I think would be the greater potential of a more direct approach.''
\end{quote}

However, not all architectural writing achieves substantive articulation.  It is just as easy to make a seemingly genuine statement out of nonsense.  For example, the statements, ``Aesthetically speaking the internal use adjacencies and circulation is further compounded by taking into account the philosophy of commonality and standardization'' or "Indubitably the introduction of brutalism presents extremely synergetic challenges to the creation of an immoral monument to posterity" were created using a template called, ``Do-It-Yourself Architectural Dialogue'' which lists sets of interchangeable architectural phrases and allows one to make intelligent-sounding sentences with little to no meaning.  There should be constraint on the use of these type of frivolous words.  The profession concerns the relationship of form and function and resolves this study with a manifestation of a visual, physical, contextual matter which is known as architecture.  The significance of architectural design should not be lost by the lack of linguistic detail or use of bland vocabulary, but rather enforced with clear and intentional word phrases.

The portion of Sorkin's article has four sentences.

\begin{enumerate}
	\item Part of the problem--which also occurs at Prada--is that exterior walls that depend on the play of nonorthogonal openings must resolve the crisis of intersection with floor slabs that are perforce horizontal.
	\item Herzog \& de Meuron simply allow the slabs to butt against the building's skin, which doesn't look too bad.
	\item Ito fusses away on the interior, using surface details to try to resolve the meeting of the irregular openings with the right-angled floors and walls.
	\item This dissipates what I think would be the greater potential of a more direct approach.
\end{enumerate}

First, the topic is on architecture and second Sorkin focuses on a number of contemporary renowned architects.  The visual concept he is decribing among all the architects and their designs relates to structural pieces meeting one another at obtuse or acute angles.  The junction between angles is despised because they are usually a result of a planned design crossing a standard of necessity.  He maintains the reader's attention by devoting one descriptive sentence per architect, allowing the flow of his writing to fall like a list.  Sorkin uses very decriptive words which directly state a specific idea.  He uses specific nouns and adjectives relating to the details of a building and uses synonyms to maintain consistency, synonyms such as ``nonorthogonal'' and ``irregular'' or the words ``intersection,'' ``butt against,'' and ``meeting.''  The visual concept is formulated with the consistency of his comparative statements.  Even though Sorkin is comparing a list of renowned architects who vary in their design approach, one can visualize their similarities of design work by Sorkin's method of word layout and synonymous word usage.

Unlike the combinations of words by Sorkin, the two sentences created by ``Do-It-Yourself Architectural Dialogue'' leaves the reader in a state of mental frustration because after having read the sentences one still feels an urgency to find clarity.

\begin{enumerate}
\item Aesthetically speaking the internal use adjacencies and circulation is further compounded by taking into account the philosphy of commonality and standardization.
\item Indubitalby the introduction of brutalism present extremely synergetic challenges to the creation of an immoral monument to posterity.
\end{enumerate}

These two sentences\cite{blake1998ads} are supposedly referring to architectural ideas.  However, neither sentence makes any reference to one main concept.  There is no connection between the sentences except that they both have a fancy way of communicating nothing.  In sentence one, it begins, ``Aesthetically speaking\dots'' implying a sense of person.  Who is speaking?  Also in the same sentence, ``\dots the internal use adjacencies and circulation\dots'' leave the question ``Where?'' unresolved.  Throughout the parts of the sentence it continually creates more questions and no answers.

An appropriate method for architectural writing is first to observe and understand the details of a building's design.  There is a tendency for people to notice bold and obvious objects first, so it would be best to introduce an overall design concept noticeable at first glance then follow that with a more specific part of the building.  This will guide the readers from a broad concept to the relative details.  Writing does not have to be complicated, keeping it simple is a safe way to maintain a clear idea.  Although, if there is a significant part of design, include it and communicate the relevance and relationship.  Examples of importance may be the name or an architect, the geographical location of the building, or the time period of the building. Architecture itself is playing with a combination a several scientific truths, therefore, communicate architecture like you would communicate a scientific idea.   However, make room for poetic vocabulary.  Discern appropriate moments in writing for words that can evoke emotion and sentiment.  While it is preferred to make your writing sound eloquent the meaning must not be lost.  It can maintain eloquence as long as it does not lose accuracy.

While figurative language can enhance architectural writing it does not substitute for describing the essence of an architectural design.  Providing concise descriptions of context, objects and how they respond to one another will prove the true nature of design.  Using large words and flowery language may bury the visual concept under superfluous vocabulary.  Maintaining focus on the important features will build a visual concept in the mind of the reader.  The use of figurative language is not a taboo, though should be placed less frequently than the use of words describing the technical attributes of a building.  After all, architecture is made up of the physical nature which surrounds us and how these surrounding relate to one another and ourselves.  Architectural linguistics have a reputation of becoming more jargon than architecture.  To prevent further development of jargon it is important to maintain a proper order and relationship between choice words, just as an architect would in their own design.

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