isparchitecture.com USE-VALUE VALUE AND THE QUESTION OF COMPLETION EMRE DEMIREL The post-modernist approach to architecture often presents tradition as a problem of image [2]. Postmodernism prioritizes the display of stylized images of historic buildings in order to prompt one to deal primarily with the visual appeal of the historic forms rather than the (bodily and emotional) experience of the buildings [3]. Tradition is polarized against modernity when it is treated as a reconstruction of past images or styles, which is to say that the appearance of traditional buildings or their object-like material presences are treated as always complete and fixed to a particular point in time when they were built. When tradition is understood in purely visual terms, it loses its relevance in our modern world, becoming instead a static image of the past. The rigidity of historical images creates a sense that tradition has nothing to do with future imaginations, and history’s appeal operates by virtue of its fictive attributes [4]. Past images or styles cannot be re-created in the present time. When they are re-constructed today they permanently demarcate the moment to which they belong. On the other hand, the bodily and emotional experiences of such buildings are free of time. Such experiences could be re-embodied through new building materials and techniques Tradition is polarized against modernity when it is treated as a reconstruction “ ” You say to me: ‘You understand this expression, don’t you? Well then – I am using it in the sense you are familiar with’. – As if the sense were an atmosphere accompanying the word, which is carried into every kind of application. Ludwig Wittgenstein [1] AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 170 DE M IR EL which are specific to the present time. The possibility of the re-embodiment of our emotional experiences from a traditional environment opens a door to new architectural configurations and the invention of an alternative modernity which is connected to our past. Looking from a non-visual but tactile view point, tradition can be considered as incomplete and enduringly open to new completions by offering a negotiable dialogue between the past and future. In order to explore how tradition can be understood in terms of the building’s physical qualities so as to open tradition to future inventive possibilities, Wittgenstein’s philosophical proposition of meaning as use is herein used as the basis of argument. Wittgenstein’s proposition suggests meaning cannot be predetermined or contain absolute definitions limiting our understanding to fixed mental images or other forms of representation. Meaning is provisional, open-ended, and continuously re-configures itself as it is used [5]. The flexibility and fluidity of Wittgenstein’s definition of meaning suggests that our understanding of things can be viewed in both complete and incomplete aspects. What is completed is associated with an object-like presence or, in Edmund Husserl’s terms, with the object of thought, whereas what is not yet complete refers to use, the experience of things, or the act of thought, all of which require active bodily engagement in the environment [6]. Before going into further detail, it might be useful to explain briefly what is meant by the word completion. The word complete is defined as “lacking nothing, whole, entire, full, or having all the required or complementary parts included; something undivided, uncompromised or unmodified” [7]. Such a definition indicates any kind of situation or process that has already ended. Therefore, complete suggests any case that has been fully established in itself or reached an ideal form which has no flexibility or tolerance for further interference. On this basis, Paul Ricoeur distinguishes between two types of meaning: ideal (complete or absolute) and circumstantial (or situational). According to the first type, the grasp of language occurs in reference to the absolute presence of objects, materials or actions. The absolute is similar to the way a dictionary introduces a term’s meaning within purely objectified and pictoral norms. The second type, on the other hand, suggests a grasp of language based on our experiences of the lived world. Accordingly, Ricoeur draws attention to the differences between names (words) and sentences. While any single name or word individually refers to the purified object-like presence of the thing as defined in the dictionary, a sentence refers to our lived experiences, our circumstantial engagements with the environment [8]. 171 isparchitecture.com Regarding our lived experiences, Ricoeur underlines the second concept: the process of completion or fulfillment. He argues that whatever we have experienced in the past remains in our minds or memories and in turn all these experiences cause us to re-embody these through new actions, events, or structures. It is like referring to past experiences for our future actions. What is meant by the term completion is simply the re-embodiment of our lived (emotional) experiences, and this embodiment renews itself continuously [9]. As Hannah Arendt notes, our lived experiences are like an invisible energy which enduringly holds a potential to be converted into a new concrete entity [10]. Applying this approach to tradition, it can be said that stylistic engagements present tradition as a picture: like reality, they develop a kind of normative understanding of tradition. However, our sentimental engagements with traditional environments structure our emotional experiences of them. These experiences are always open to renewals or new completions as they could be re-embodied through new modes of building materials and building techniques. Taking Wittgenstein’s position as a framework for this analysis, tradition is generally completed as an image or picture reality when it is engaged with its object-like qualities. When tradition is introduced as a display commodity, our encounter with tradition is reduced to a visual understanding. Within the terms of visual understanding’s reduction, tradition can only be contemplated retroactively in picturesque re-productions but not in new beginnings. Wittgenstein’s approach draws attention to the experiential and participatory qualities of traditional environments [11]. Such qualities can never be concretized by specifically defined stylistic orders; they are formless but at the same time formative; our emotional experiences and participation within spaces act like an invisible power that continuously initiates a person into Meaning is provisional, open-ended, and continuously re- configures itself as it is used. “ ” AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 172 DE M IR EL re-embodying it as new architectural reality. The question of completion in tradition will be demonstrated with three examples. The first is a miniature painting by the Persian artist Kamal al-din Bihzad (1450-1535), the second is a series of Le Corbusier’s sketches of Istanbul and the Green Mosque—which were done during his trip to Turkey in 1910—and the final example is the 1994 B2 House designed by the Turkish architect Han Tümertekin. At first glance these examples might appear completely different and irrelevant to one another. However, when the sketches are closely analyzed they reveal distinctly similar positions regarding the concept of tradition. The common point between Kamal al-din Bihzad, Le Corbusier, and Han Tümertekin is that they propose an alternative way of understanding tradition which suggests that one considers tradition not as a fixed object-like reality—or what is typically rendered as stylistic images or the outer appearance of building facades—but rather as an experiential reality, which is to say, a reality that is fluid, unfixed, and open to new configurations. From this perspective, Kamal al-din Bihzad, Le Corbusier, and Han Tümertekin share similar grounds in that each envisions architecture not as an object to be seen but rather as an articulation of an emotive terrain [12]. The emotive terrain does not prioritize the optical but rather a full bodily and sensuous contact with the physical built environment. Such an approach leads to a perception that traditional architecture is not primarily a physical but rather an existential entity. Viewing MINIATURES Through THE EYES OF WITTGENSTEIN The fifteenth century miniature painting by the Persian artist Kamal al-din Bihzad (1450-1535) depicts a famous religious event: the escape of the Prophet Joseph from his lover Zulaykha. Zulaykha, the wife of the respected Egyptian officer Potiphar, falls in love with Joseph and seduces him in her house. Joseph attempts to flee, but the house is structured in such a way as to make escape difficult (Figure 1). Although Bihzad was a talented painter and well aware of perspective, he opts to depict the cosmos in a distorted manner [13]. The distortion goes beyond the compositional technique typical of miniature paintings. It also relates to his way of conceptualizing architecture. The representation of architecture reveals something of Bihzad’s idea about what architecture itself means to the human mind. On closer inspection, Bihzad avoids illustrating a literal or realistic representation of the building. He was apparently not interested in how the building could be seen from the outside. Rather, his interest lies in what could be 173 isparchitecture.com FIGURE 1: THE PALACE OF POTIPHAR AND THE ESCAPE OF JOSEPH. ILLUSTRATED BY KAMAL AL-DIN BIHZAD (1450 – 1535). AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 174 DE M IR EL emotionally experienced moving from one space to another throughout the building [14]. As seen in the painting, the overall composition is established in the patterning of oblique lines. The movement—or the escape of Joseph from one space to another—is sensed through the change of door color, each located on the oblique lines. Each oblique wall draws attention to the movement from one closed door to another. The attention to each door creates a feeling as if someone is running from one corner to another in a labyrinth but cannot find a way out. There are many oblique walls and lines that suddenly change colors, creating a chaotic and confined atmosphere. As it is seen in the miniature, the building is not presented as an enclosed space; rather it looks like an unfolded box or an unwrapped three-dimensional shape. It seems that Bihzad did not envision the building in the sense of an object, which is apparent in Bihzad’s treatment of shape and profile as a topoi or a cartographic map. In Paul Rodaway’s terms, a topoi is the collection of emotional experiences and sentimental contacts that all draw an unfixed, re-imaginative, shapeless world [15]. According to Sufi philosophy, the case of shapelessness always presents the challenges of re-embodiment or finding new form, but perhaps such a challenge is unattainable for any sustained period [16]. The concept of shapelessness is similar to the idea that whatever meaning we attribute to the environment renews itself as we use it, or, in other words, as we sentimentally experience it each time. Bihzad’s approach runs parallel to Wittgenstein’s idea of meaning as use. Looking at this miniature painting from Wittgenstein’s point of view, Bihzad tries to create a perception of the cosmos which renders itself in an account of use rather than in picturing reality. As explained above, use refers to our bodily involvement with things and activities; it is highly connected to what we experience sentimentally through our environment [17]. As Wittgenstein asserted, any temptation to concretize meaning reduces our understanding of it to mental representations [18]. Presenting architectural reality as a fixed physical presence is avoided by Bihzad. His interest lies in the shapeless presence of the building, as if he wants us to think about the paradox which is, in Wittgenstein’s terms, between the non-existence of the intended object and the fullness of the seen object [19]. The way Bizhad conceptualizes architecture constructs a kind of vision that recommends how to look at tradition and traditional architecture. In the miniature, what we see is an example of traditional architecture, but it is presented in a way that is dramatically different from the way 175 isparchitecture.com FIGURE 2: LE CORBUSIER, MajesticSilhouettes of themosques on the”hugehumpedback toStamboul”, 1911. AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 176 DE M IR EL the postmodern has conditioned us to see tradition. The building is presented not in a completed shape; rather, it looks shapeless. The reason for presenting reality in such a way is closely linked to how Bihzad wants us to give meaning to (traditional) architecture. It seems Bihzad brought architecture into consideration not as a question of the object, which is how postmodernity intends to shape our perception of the traditional environment, but as a question of completion. The question of completion is not concerned with the reproduction of reality (representing as fully as possible the appearance of things and thus repeating past forms and styles) which is already completed; instead, it is primarily concerned with the re-activation of what is sensually experienced, which leads the way toward the configuration of new realities. MINIATURES AND LE CORBUSIER’S DRAWINGS: RE-CONCEPTUALIZING TRADITION The analysis of one of Bihzad’s miniatures has shown that the building is not presented with a photorealistic impression. It was argued that lack of photorealistic impression is closely linked with how Bihzad conceptualizes architecture. He constructs a vision about the built premises that suggests the viewer consider traditional architecture not in the sense of its material reality but in the sense of what we emotionally experience through it. Thus, Bihzad’s engagement with the traditionally built environment is in this regard parallel to how Le Corbusier considers tradition. Le Corbusier’s approach is clearly demonstrated by his sketches of Istanbul and the Green Mosque in Bursa during his trip to Turkey in 1910 [20]. Although the sketches were made using different painting techniques and materials, like Bihzad, Le Corbusier did not picture the buildings in the way they realistically appear. Le Corbusier’s concern was not the outer appearance of the buildings or their stylistic images, but what he emotionally experienced through his immersion in the historic environment. Looking at Le Corbusier’s sketches more closely, it can be seen that they lack any photorealistic depiction or clearly rendered detail; his record of the existing built environment was always intentionally left incomplete (Figure 2). As in Bihzad’s miniature, the manner of incompleteness releases the architectural object from its physical existence and converts it into an experience of its emotional ambiance. In doing so, the sketches refresh our engagement with the architectural object in keeping the prospect of wonder alive and arousing different emotional states in each and every moment viewed. Thereby, our perception of the architectural figure is not confined to the aesthetic definition of its absolute object-like appearance, and is instead left open-ended to new emotional encounters. 177 isparchitecture.com FIGURE 5: THE SULTAN’S PRAYER ROOM is NOTED IN LE CORBUSIER’S DRAWING AS THE DARKEST PLACE. EMOTIONAL EFFECT CREATED BY THE TRANSITION FROM DARKER TO LIGHTER SPACES THET PRIMARILY INDICATED IN LE CORBUSIER’S PLAN DRAWING. FIGUREs 3 & 4: Floor plan of the green mosque in bursa by leon parville (LEFT); Plan sketch of The Green Mosque in bursa by le corbusier (RIGHT). AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 178 DE M IR EL The aforementioned attitude of Le Corbusier can also be attributed to his drawing of the Green Mosque. Le Corbusier’s notation on the plan of the Green Mosque demonstrates that he is imprecise about the exact position of the walls, the location of the outer windows and the doors, and does not elaborate the ornamental details that emphasize the material-like presence of the building. Instead, he keenly illustrates the emotional reactions created in the transition from the darker to the brighter and from the brighter to the darker spaces. Le Corbusier does not intend the drawing to re-construct the object-like presence of this traditional building but rather reconfigure its emotional cartography [21]. For example, the darkest hatch is the sultan’s prayer room, which was clad with dark blue tiles and was located opposite to the large prayer hall clad with white marble (Figures 3-5). Moving from the lower darker space to a higher and brighter space creates an emotional experience that affects how the building renders itself in our mind. Le Corbusier’s concern is not what exists as a literal built reality but as a sensed reality. Again, the aim of analyzing Le Corbusier’s drawing of the Green Mosque is not to show the material Le Corbusier engaged. Instead, it is to reveal his working methods insofar as tradition is concerned. His visual notations demonstrate that his approach to tradition is not architectural but topical [22]. This non- architectural but topical vision is in keeping with how Bihzad and the Turkish architect Han Tümertekin engage with tradition. Overall the point of significance is not Le Corbusier’s sketching or painting methods. Instead, his alternative method of engaging traditional architecture is the point of interest. As elaborated above, Le Corbusier offers a model for understanding tradition [23]. For Le Corbusier, tradition is not the fixation of things in representations inherited from the past, such consideration that inevitably causes the development of a standardized position toward tradition highly conditioned by pre-defined patterns. Instead, tradition suggests new beginnings for Le Corbusier. He exemplifies the alternative notion of tradition in his paintings as he does not limit reality to pre-defined norms and patterns or to picturesque definitions. Instead, he intended to evoke different emotional reactions each time his paintings were viewed. Therefore, his painting is alive and dynamic as it produces new feelings and thus new meanings at each viewing of it. Le Corbusier’s attempt to re-approach tradition is similar to a Wittgensteinian philosophical approach in that both suggest discovery is what makes meaning renewable. Putting things into rigid preconceived patterns of what they ought to mean makes our perception of meaning past-oriented because meaning 179 isparchitecture.com refers to the moment when things first appeared to us. Like the outer appearance of the building, the patterns are already constructed and mark the moment of the time completed. However, what makes meanings persist through time is perhaps their shapelessness that puts actions in the first place as opposed to meanings. Within the context of this issue, how tradition could be future-oriented is the main question of this paper [24]. B2 HOUSE The B2 House was built in a small traditional Mediterranean enclave, Büyükhüsun, in north- western Anatolia. This small settlement is established on a mountain slope, which descends steeply southward towards the Aegean Sea below. It is a couple of miles away from the ancient Greek city of Assos located on the coast. Büyükhüsun is a traditional town and in keeping with the town’s look and feel, the intention of Han Tümertekin was to create a traditional house [25]. When the award- winning house was built, the building’s front facade (Figure 8) drew the attention of respected local and international journals. However, Tümertekin’s approach to tradition was different. On the one hand, the architect controversially reveals the ways in which modernity has conditioned us to see traditional architecture. On the other hand, his FIGURES 6-8: VIEW OF B2 HOUSE OVERLOOKING AEGEAN SEA AND LESVOS ISLAND; DISTANT VIEW OF B2 HOUSE subtly emerging from landscape; AND VIEW OF FRONT FACADE (left to right). AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 180 DE M IR EL FIGURE 9: Sketch of b2 house depicting tensions BETWEEN DEFINED AND UNDEFINED BOUNDARIES. FIGURE 10: view of RETAINING WALL AND BUILDING suggesting a kind SPATIAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN the two. FIGURE 11: VIEW OF HoUSE AND REAR RETAINING WALL. FIGURE 12: VIEW OF HoUSE AND REAR RETAINING WALL. 181 isparchitecture.com approach strongly parallels the way both miniaturist Bihzad and Le Corbusier consider traditional Turkish architecture, particularly when looking to a Wittgensteinian inspired reading of tradition. Approaching the enclave, the settlement’s houses have a landscaped look, as they are camouflaged to blend into the slope’s surface. Among them is the B2 House, which stands with a back-like front, aligning with its context. It is not visually insistent and therefore does not dominate over the other buildings. On the front facade, Tümertekin refrained from a picturesque definition. The large binding panels made by reed strips create a plain front surface unrelated to any picturesque display of existing traditional dwellings. In the overall simplicity, only the bindings’ colors permit the building to be seen from a distance. Before gaining a clear idea of the appearance of the building, the dark-brown color strikes the eye and evokes curiosity. The experience of the building piques interest before one even arrives at it (Figures 6 & 7). The starting point for Tümertekin is the retaining wall at the back rather than the building itself. However, Tümertekin’s intention is more than constructing a simple wall to hold the earth behind. His intention, rather, is to continue the angled pattern of the already existing traditional street. Following the street pattern, the building was not designed as an absolutely individual object. It emerges as a seemingly natural outcome of the continuing wall (Figure 8). The retaining wall begins before a person arrives at the boundary of the building and in doing so, it prolongs the path that one normally expects to complete at the building’s main entrance. However, when a person arrives at the entrance door, the retaining wall immediately directs attentions to another distant point. The purpose of the retaining wall is not defining a physical boundary but rather topographically The Confinment to appearance practiced in an architectural context can be interpreted as the idealization of meanings. “ ” AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 182 DE M IR EL narrating the building as evoking a bodily and emotional experience. In fact Tümertekin does not want the visitor to face the building immediately. As Gill explained by referring to Wittgenstein, immediacy is limitation [26]. When we grasp things immediately, our understanding of the things are reduced to the visual level [27]. Such understanding is like the way a dictionary presents things as a momental event that allows no freedom to consider them habitually [28]. Here delaying the arrival enables bodily involvement with the building, which happens before the visual one. The delay in turn gives time to construct the architecture mentally in the mind before physically experiencing it. The other intention of Tümertekin’s retaining wall is to create a street- like settlement. He addresses the experience of the Turkish street. For Tümertekin, the street is not a collection of the building facades set side- by-side. Rather, he considers it a journey already-begun in order to enact it bodily. Neither the retaining wall on the left nor the blind wall of the building on the right is directly related to any appearance of the traditional Turkish houses specific to the region. His attempt is not to re-picture them but rather to allow traditional architecture to re-establish meaning as the re-embodiment of what we have bodily and sentimentally experienced through the setting. Therefore, the building reveals its meaning not so much when someone looks at its front and other façades individually, as when one actively participates in the journey which starts from the enclave and continues throughout the building. The irregular relationship between the retaining wall and the north face of the building is manipulated in such a way as to create a spatial dialogue that encourages bodily experience. Arriving at this point, one faces a lower retaining wall, which is positioned in such a way as to create a passageway to the other side of the building. On first viewing, the convergence of the retaining wall and the building itself gives the impression that the journey to the building site is complete. However, this is not actually so. Surprisingly, on approach, the upper wooden deck immediately frames the view far beyond the building, and, together with the lower retaining wall (in the middle), takes the attention away from the building to the sea and to the infinite horizon in the rear (Figures 9-12). Tümertekin’s intention is not to create a destination that is completed by physical boundaries, but rather to create the sense of an incomplete journey. Here the temptation is always to draw attention toward the back of the building. In contrast to a building’s front, David Leatherbarrow argues that “the back is hardly an identifiable figure, neither a picture-like 183 isparchitecture.com FIGURE 13: MAIN FLOOR PLAN OF THE B2 HOUSE. FIGUREs 14 & 15: Floor plan of traditional turkish house juxtaposed with photograph of traditional turkish house (left to right). AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 184 DE M IR EL display of representational shapes” [29]. Yet, for Tümertekin, the building does not consist simply of its outer appearance. Its appearance constitutes an emotional experience engendered by bodily movement, responding through personal interaction with all aspects of the building [30]. In doing so, more emphasis is given to invisible presence, which is re-configurable ad infinitum over time. For Tümertekin architecture does not start when we physically enter the building but rather occurs at the moment we sentimentally begin to experience things related to the building before and after arriving within its physical boundaries. Architecture begins when the building begins to alert one’s feelings and evoke some anticipation. In this regard, Tümertekin addresses the traditional Turkish Mediterranean houses in Bodrum. The B2 House’s design was based on the same traditional experience, as described by the architect here: I am gradually thinking that architecture lies in the differences between the physical boundary and the perceived boundary. […] First I formulized this a little with the Bodrum House; here the boundary of the house physically exists, but these are the boundaries that are set up when only the doors are closed. Outdoor and Indoor are deliberately interlaced with each other. During day-time the sliding doors of the house around the courtyard remain open and the garden continues into the inside and the inside continues into the garden. This obscurity is so advanced that when all these sliding doors are closing at night-time, the small kid says that his grandmother is setting up a house […]. There are two boundaries; one is physically what you own and the other is what you can see beyond or what you can perceive a location which is yours and not yours [31]. Accordingly, architecture has two boundaries. In the first case one can physically see it, and in the other, one can sense it, but cannot show or empirically demonstrate it. Mentally, architecture first occurs at the moment of tension between these defined and undefined albeit boundaries. The tension is the same that Wittgenstein described as the emptiness of the intended sign and the fullness of presence [32]. Accordingly, architecture may not be limited by its physical boundaries. Its sentimental boundaries are not stabilized as exactly as the physical ones, and therefore they are incomplete. The experience of boundary continues both before and after. The continuation is what Tümertekin sought to achieve using the uniquely placed retaining wall. In fact, buildings are constructed on the definition of physical boundaries which separate inside from outside. However, when too much focus is given to boundaries, architecture reduces itself to a frontal articulation, or an outward appearance. Addressing Wittgenstein, the confinement 185 isparchitecture.com to appearance practiced in an architectural context can be interpreted as the idealization of meanings. In other words, reducing circumstantial meanings to ideal ones occurs when things are decontextualized from the intended audience and environment [33]. The crucial point for Tümertekin is creating a journey before creating the object itself. Creating a journey means taking off any façade-like frontal barrier and by doing so initiating a person to move. In one sense, Tümertekin’s manner addresses how the miniature artist Bihzad perceives architecture, which is façade-less and boundless so that it is presented in a picturesquely less defined and more ambiguous form. It comes into being as an unfolded box or a topoi, a sentimental narration of landscape that contains a collection of emotional moments. In the B2 House, the utility spaces appear withdrawn and are located in the back. As a result, there is large empty living space generated for the daily use. The living space is not divided into smaller rooms, going so far as to have no interior wall or partition separating the terrace. The space is like a large room, except for a wardrobe compulsorily used to separate two bedrooms on the upper floor. In contrast, it is completely left open and tolerant of future arrangements and other incremental adaptations that occur as someone inhabits the space. In that sense, the way Tümertekin arranged the house’s layout is attributed to the re-embodiment of the traditional Mediterranean Turkish house experience (Figures 13-15). In those dwellings, all functional places and storage units are placed to the sides allowing for the creation of a large open space in the middle perfect for a variety of social activities [34]. As Turkish scholar and architect Cengiz Bektaş has noted, traditional Turkish architecture is so often tempted to eliminate frontal barriers and characterizes itself as an open venue [35]. Even furniture is constructed as earth-bounded element; any object used for sitting is not much heightened or separated from wherever it is located. Such objects are introduced as part of their ground. Less heightened furniture does not sharply separate one space allocated for a specific activity from others arranged in a single living room. So the entire floor is a piece of furniture, not confined to a predetermined activity. More openness increases the opportunities for possible bodily interactions with the space. Taking traditional Turkish architecture as reference, the intention of Tümertekin is not to create architecture in the sense of building, because building to him means to verticalize things or construct spatial elements in a vertical sense. Verticalization physically gives space a boundary or physical definition. Instead the tendency in experiencing the B2 House is to eliminate a definitive account or sense of AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 186 DE M IR EL total completion as much as possible. The B2 House interior comes into being in the sense of topology [36], an open venue that continually takes shape as someone interacts with it. Perhaps there are other factors, beyond the way of interpreting tradition, contributing to the B2 House’s success. However, when looking at the region where the B2 House was built—Büyüksun—many buildings imitate local traditional buildings by using local materials. Many originally concrete buildings are clad with traditional facades consisting of stylistic figures and ornaments. The superficial use of material strengthens the stylistic consciousness of tradition created by post-modernist tendencies. That the B2 House exemplifies a model of encountering tradition in building, not in an imitative manner but in an inventive one, remains worthy of exploration. CONCLUSION The philosophical approach of Wittgenstein’s meaning as use is a model for an alternative way of considering tradition in architecture. A miniature painting by Bihzad, sketches of Istanbul and the Green Mosque by Le Corbusier, and the B2 House design by Han Tümertekin were the examples of how Wittgenstein’s notion of tradition transpires in architecture. Although it seems that these examples appear quite different in material and method, or that they are seemingly irrelevant to one another, they share the same concern and propose a similar approach to tradition. How each handles tradition, as demonstrated here, serves as a model for contemporary practice, which maintains a propensity toward an incessant vacillation between the imitation of the past and the ultra- technocratic conception of the future. The alternative is consistent albeit constantly in flux. It is not limited to an encounter with the historic image of buildings, but is rather concerned with what is emotionally experienced or communicated through them. The emotional reading of buildings could explain why Bihzad avoided photorealistic, object-like depiction of the buildings in his miniatures and likewise why Le Corbusier’s sketches lack any precise depiction. The main interest of these thinkers was not representing a picture of reality but rather the emotional contact between a sensuous body and the built environment. In a similar way, the B2 House comes into being not as a re-figuration of the traditional motifs but as a re-embodiment of the emotional experiences of traditional building. Their conceptualization of tradition addresses Wittgenstein’s criticism that the fixation of a meaning is a kind of idealization that converts things into frozen mental images. Yet, as Husserl suggested, anything more ideal 187 isparchitecture.com means more remote and independent from its audiences; idealization is subject to mere objectification. The concern then is not the object-like presence of the traditionally built environment, but the sentimental contact with it however so conceived. As Merleau-Ponty suggested, our direct bodily (and sentimental) involvement with things is always provisional, indeterminate, and open-ended [37]. Merleau-Ponty’s idea could be interpreted to mean that the appearances of traditional forms are fixed to a particular time when they are constructed. However, the sentimental connections are renewable; they can be re-collected and re-embodied through new materials and forms specific to the present time. In doing so, they hold out the promise of new architectural configurations derived from traditional architecture. As such, the B2 House can be taken as an example of how tradition can play an inventive role in an alternative modernity. endnotes [1] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. P. M. S. Hacker and J. Schulte (West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2009), §117. [2] Joseph Rykwert, The Necessity of Artifice (New York: Rizzoli, 1982). See also David Leatherbarrow, The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) and Nathaniel Coleman, Utopias and Architecture (London and New York: Routledge, 2005). [3] Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1968). [4] Ibid. [5] Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §43. [6] Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, Vol. 1 (International Library of Philosophy, trans. J. N. Findlay (Oxon: Routledge, 2001). [7] July 16, 2015, “Complete,” Dictionary.com, http://www.dictionary.com/ browse/complete?s=t [8] Paul Ricoeur, “The Later Wittgenstein and the Later Husserl on Language,” Ricoeur Studies 5, no. 1 (2014). [9] Ibid. [10] Arendt, Between Past and Future. [11] Máire Eithne O’Neill, “Corporeal Experience: A Haptic Way of Knowing,” Journal of Architectural Education 55, no. 1 (2001): 3-12. See also David Seamon, “Body-Subject, Time-Space Routines, and Place Ballets,” in The Human Experience of Space and Place, ed. Anne Buttimer and David Seamon (London: Croom Helm, 1980), 157-158. AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017 188 DE M IR EL [12] Giuliana Bruno, Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (New York: Verso, 2002). [13] Michael Barry, Figurative Art in Medieval Islam: And the Riddle of Bihzad of Herat (1465-1535) (Spain: JCG, 2005). [14] Robert Hillenbrand, “The Uses of Space in Timurid Painting,” in Timurid Art and Culture: Iran and Central Asia in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Lisa Golombek and Maria Subtelny (Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992), 76-102. [15] Paul Rodaway, Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place (London: Routledge, 1994). [16] William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). [17] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Book, 1968), pp. 217-51. [18] Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the Philosophical Investigations (New York: Harper and Row, 1965). [19] Ricoeur, “The Later Wittgenstein and the Later Husserl on Language,” 28-48. [20] Le Corbusier, Journey to the East, trans. Ivan Zaknic (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2007). See also Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, trans. F. Etchells (New York: Dover Publications Inc, 1986). [21] Bruno, Atlas of Emotion. [22] David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). [23] Alois Riegl, Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament, trans. Evelyn Kain (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). [24] Benjamin R. Tilghman, Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Aesthetics: The View from Eternity (London: Macmillan, 1991). [25] Tansel Korkmaz, “B2 House: Both Strange and Familiar,” Domus, last modified February 24, 2005, http://www.domusweb.it/en/ architecture/2005/02/24/b2-house.html. [26] Jerry H. Gill, “Language and Reality: Whitehead, Wittgenstein, and the Analytic,” Process Studies 43, no. 1 (2004): 59-67. [27] David Trotter, “Sterescopy: Modernism and the Haptic,” Critical Quarterly 46, no. 4 (2004): 38-58. [28] Riegl, Problems of Style. [29] David Leatherbarrow, Uncommon Ground: Architecture, Technology and 189 isparchitecture.com Topography (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000), 173. [30] O’Neill, “Corporeal Experience,” 157-158. [31] “Han Tumertekin Söyleşi,” Arkitera, accessed May 1, 2009, http://www.arkitera.com/v1/diyalog/hantumertekin/soylesi/html. [32] Ricoeur, “The Later Wittgenstein and the Later Husserl on Language,” 28-48. [33] Nicholas F. Gier, Wittgenstein and Phenomenology: A Comparative Study of the Later Wittgenstein, Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981). [34] Önder Küçükerman, Turkish House: In Search of Spatial Identity (Istanbul: Touring and Automobile Association of Turkey, 1996). [35] Cengiz Bektaş, Türk Evi (Istanbul: Yem Yayın, 2016). [36] Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories. [37] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). AP . vol 2 . No 2 . 2017