lines and linearity

scenario: A child (who is too short) cannot see himself in the mirror until his mother props him up. This metaphor, used by Jacques Lacan to explain his mirror stage theory, is used by Ingraham to describe the relationship of architecture to both the human body and psyche. Until the boy is able to see himself in the mirror, he has neither knowledge of his own image or a sense of himself as "other" sited in the world. Only by being propped up is he put in the appropriate time (the time it takes light to travel between his eyes and the mirror) and space (the physical distance between the boy and the mirror) to understand these complex relationships. According to Ingraham, architecture is the prop that allows the mind to perceive the body.

"One might say that the architect tries to supply the insufficiency of the fragmented whole - the self and the body - by sketching the scaffolding as a web to keep us forever propped upright in front of our own image. Or, rather, the architect tries to hold us, using the force of lines, at the moment of meconnaissance, the mis-recognition that inaugurates our belief in the possibility of space and inhabitation."

Ingraham contrasts this view with one that spawned from the humanistic thought that man is inescapably separate from the world, but able to understand it through representation. Representation, however, necessitates translation, "connection and adequation," which are linear processes which assume that "mimesis (imitation of the world) is possible."

The problem here is that the world is always viewed through a frame (physical, psychological, cultural, etc.) that belies the notion that there is a linear connection between the perceiver and the perceived. Speaking architecturally, the line can be thought of as "lines of passage and division, the 'threshold' or boundary condition. . ." A more sophisticated view of threshold and boundary, reveal that a line is wholly inadequate to describe these conditions that can and should be engaged, not merely passed through.

Therein lies the fundamental difficulty with linear constructs. A line is without dimension and cannot be defined - it is a descriptor or an "apparatus." It is in the morphing ("bastardization) of pure, dimensionless lines into pairs that space is created. This is similar to the morphing of pure geometries into "impure" shapes, while still maintaining the essence of the original (a shape that maintains the roundness of a circle).



A pure line can only be passed through, but not engaged in the direction of its defining characterstic (its linearity) until it is morphed into two lines (It is a wonder then, that while walls are typically drawn as two lines, the thought of inhabiting the space within is not more common).