to
our
readers
to
our
readers
Belief is the acceptance of a truth despite its lack of evidence. Embedded in the term is a suppressed uncertainty; a willingness to act within a value system whose complete encompassing ‘logic’ requires it to always remain outside ourselves. Consciously or subconsciously, a belief is enacted externally. It is an answer, or rather, it is a substitute for an unanswerable question. “You believe what you treat as true according to your actions.”1
This volume of : explores the role of Phenomenology and Parametricism as two architectural beliefs with deep and contested histories. Both architectural beliefs produce values with which architects evaluate knowledge, space and the world around us. They validate actions. They equally provide systems to balance our decisions against. The first camp bases itself on subjective and poetic experiences. The second on a quantifiable metric. Both are dogmatically applied onto our disciplinary methods and the objects we produce.
We find the beliefs vacuous. We find their connotations convoluted. Yet their mere mention triggers heated wrangle among zealots of each camp. We aim with this volume to bring into focus their operations, histories, and critiques, to tease out the roles and influences each has in architecture today.
Judgement, not the object, is at stake.