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Arts & Communication Nebula rasa: The diaphanous in architectural design

problems and questions must be kept on-hand, as it were. interpretation becomes unstable and fluid. If we follow
They must be cognitively and affectively present in a way Mukařovský’s thinking to the end, we see that any element
that is accessible, yet not dominant. Their influence must in a drawing can be foregrounded or may collapse the
be felt, but the creative gesture of designing or thinking entire configuration of foreground and background.
further must not be hampered by them. Pallasmaa Diaphaneity as a visual characteristic enables each element
described how he likes to “dwell” in the “plasticity of the in the drawing to acquire added depth and to submerge
idea” and therefore works with layered drawings that bear and emerge from the texture of the drawing, allowing for
traces of the past. The presence of multiple layers makes the a seamless foregrounding of elements. Its blurriness and
plasticity of an idea tangible and accessible. All the phases indistinction suggest potentials and ideas, yet in a way that
of the creative process (conception, insight, evaluation) are becomes never fully determined, keeping the creative play
as they were present in the drawing. active and moving. All this, as Pallasmaa already noted has

Acutely, architectural theorist Marco Frascari described a thoroughly material dimension:
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architectural thought as “sedimentation.” The many topics “The pure expression of ink may be found in the energetic
involved in developing an architectural idea require time splash, while gypsum’s truth lingers in the formless mass.
to settle and must be gradually organized in a coherent Like the silhouettes and patterns of mountains, clouds
order. This process is slow and more akin to distillation and and stars, the plastic results are most often irregular and
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precipitation than it is to ceaseless creation. Diaphanous amorphous.”
representation allows for multiple layers of an idea to be Forms and silhouettes materially express themselves.
diffusely present, slowly and dynamically enriching the A few random blots, vague outlines, or indistinct traces
appearances through which an idea appears. Within the suddenly may acquire a possible meaning, emerging from
diaphanous, an architectural idea never appears as either the depth of the surface, becoming form in the process.
monolithic, diagrammatic, one-dimensional, or closed. In diaphanous representations, we encounter a dialectic
Instead, it appears as a suggestion, hint, semblance, of becoming-form (Formwerden) and form-fading
allusion, and even as a playful and gradual unfolding. (Formvergehen). It cannot be emphasized enough that this
To understand the interplay between foreground and process is inherently occurrent. It subverts the neat idea of a
background, we introduce an additional notion, developed static foreground and background, or a static figure-ground
by the Czech literary theorist Jan Mukařovský. He argued order, as well as the idea that drawings are mere carriers
that repeated representation of an object (let’s say a of information. Conversely, diaphanous drawings are
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single word or a visual image) foregrounds it, wresting it inherently open-ended toward a non-conceptual domain.
loose from its context until it acquires an ontologically 5. The work at work, or, the effective
autonomous status. Due to its detachment, such an object present
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becomes strange, uprooted, and fascinating, even alien in its
own right. Once this happens, it appears not as an ordinary Apart from the concepts discussed previously, how can we
object anymore, but it acquires once again individuality, think of diaphaneity as a generative stimulus in its own
fascination, and a phenomenological “depth” that was not right? I propose that we turn to the work of the French
accessible when it was submerged in its surroundings. sinologist and philosopher François Jullien, who compared
Foregrounding an object played a major role in the artistic Western (Greek) and Eastern (Chinese) thinking and
strategy of ostranenie, or “making strange”. That is, creating acutely analyzed the “blind spots” of Western thinking
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an esthetic effect that due to its deliberate strangeness catches in conceptualizing the notion of transformation. One
the attention and causes an instability or perceptual shift. 44 of the topics that Jullien analyzed at length is the theme
The diaphanous space of representation seamlessly of “efficacy,” or “inherent activity” implied throughout
allows for collapsing foreground into the background various areas of Chinese thought.
and the other way around. In this subtle shifting, the Let’s start with an idea that does not fit into the cognitivist
image (i.e., the representational content that appears) paradigm: the dialectic interplay between “springing up”
and what is depicted (it’s broadly Fregean sense) merge and “settling.” As Frascari emphasized, architectural ideas
into one another. When this happens, any clear form of have to settle gradually, thereby “sedimenting” themselves.
Jullien provides an alternative formulation of this idea. Visual
4 Ostranenie (lit. “making-strange”) as literary technique was
first explicitly described in Victor Shklovsky’s 1917 essay representations that are open and seemingly unfinished are
Art as Technique. Mukařovský expands on that notion in not determined completely. Not every element in them is
his discussion of poetic language, which introduces an new finished, unambiguous, or clearly demarcated. As such, the
dynamic in the text. representation remains “at work.” In doing so, it invites new

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2024) 7 https://doi.org/10.36922/ac.1922