A Method Proposal For Mapping the Patterns of Originality in Design: ‘Raymond Williams and the ‘Keywords’’

Abstract

way to show its possible and numerous outcomes, this study can only suggest another perspective to benefit from these keywords that will also shift our mindsets around them. In this manner, it tries to reveal the patterns of keywords by visualizing Williams’ textual research into a visual narrative. Although this narrative is realized around the concept of originality, it is generatively adaptable to other concepts as well. The study ends with an extended version of Williams’ vocabulary, showing that this vocabulary can diversify, update and expand with descendent vocabularies inspired by Williams. As with all the history of concepts, it is never final nor fixed. As these paths extend, we will find new ways of connecting and understanding the concepts and their transforming history reflected in our ways of thinking today. One perspective is built on a myth of originality, a common idea of original being that there is a genius behind the work of art who is free from all the cultural and social conventions and contextual or intellectual conversations. This mythification appears as a continuum in history. Throughout history, the prevailing forces in architectural ideologies try to “naturalize” the cultural constructs of architecture to justify and rationalize it through mythification(Silvetti, 2000, 275). So, exposing these mythical constructions means cracking and resolving the meaningful readings that lie hidden in them. The second perspective is that architecture emerges from a discourse that builds on itself and its techniques; its resources are everywhere. Jorge Silvetti (2000) mentions in The Beauty of the Shadows that the idea that architecture is a language built upon itself, with the ability to transform itself through form, its materials, comment, and ‘criticism from within’. We refer to, allude, interpret, comment, criticize, remake, revise, collect, and curate existing projects. We use different forms of copying to transform our ideas into a language of architecture. Sometimes the copy itself can be an original as an Ise Grand Shrine. In some cases, the unbuilt works can greatly influence, such as OMA’s Parc de La Villette or Loos’s Baker House. Sometimes an anonymous work can be subject to originality. All we need is to find a fertile way to unveil the beauty of the shadows.