Ladovsky turned to the most fundamental concepts of architecture as a spatial art that cannot be reduced to civil engineering. Space, its finiteness and infinity, the clarity of its perception by people, the calmness and tension of the form, its dynamics reflecting modern history – these are the points and nodes around which the new architectural propaedeutics was formed, which is still relevant today. The system of rationalism is most fully and in great detail revealed in the works of S.O. Khan–Magomedov3.
The same 20s and 30s of the last century saw the birth of fruitful and integral concepts: the one by Nikolai Ladovsky in architecture and pedagogy, and the other by Aleksei Losev in aesthetics and philosophy. Architectural propaedeutics is dynamic and open to new syntheses with philosophical thought. Our task is to show how abstract thought can nourish concrete aesthetics, dialectical philosophy can become a generator of principles for architectural pedagogy, and, perhaps more importantly, to produce an emerging branch of the new architectural aesthetics based not on manifesto negations of past experience, but on the powerful message of the all-unity of Vladimir Solovyov and the supreme synthesis of Aleksei Losev.
Principles of dialectical philosophy of A. F. Losev
Aleksei Losev’s philosophy amazes with a combination of depth of thought, simplicity and complexity, consistency and a minimum of special terms, integrity and completeness, boldness and academicism. In a brief digression, it is impossible to summarize and reveal the philosopher’s dialectical system in any way completely. Therefore, I will focus on those of its principles that have particularly influenced the development of the proposed dialectic of architectural morphogenesis.
Let’s highlight three such principles:
• Reconciliation of opposites in synthesis
• Expression of the whole in its parts
• Presentation of meaning in form
The principle of synthesis is one of Losev’s key methodological guidelines, a kind of intrinsic logical leitmotif. Losev’s entire philosophy and aesthetics can be called a synthetic one that builds an objective picture of existence as the highest synthesis. This approach opposes formal logic and binary thinking, which fix any semantic oppositions and do not seek their reconciliation in synthesis. So, the concept of «contrast» in the generally accepted compositional propaedeutics for designers and architects is binary, it means a juxtaposition of any parts or qualities of a form. In this point of view, integrity is revealed as a dyad, in which there is no unification of thesis and antithesis.
Let’s look at it in details on the example of the specific geometric science. Any category of geometry, starting from a point, is both an abstract mathematical concept, and a verbally logical, and illustratively visual one. If the visual image of an octahedron is a certain combination of images of a square and a circle, then this is simultaneously beautiful in both logical and visual respects. If the dialectical construction shows the movement of categories and beauty in their semantic formation, then both visual and material geometry will be a cast, reflection and expression of this movement and this beauty. The geometric concept becomes the point of intersection of logic and aesthetics.
Thus, a single semantic root is found that unites philosophical thought and architectural and aesthetic pursuit.