In “The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics,” Park talks about metalanguages used for talking about the ‘instructions’ for architecture and I found that cybernetics itself can be described as a metalanguage. Cybernetics, and similarly, systemics are constantly evolving conceptual languages of regulation and control which give us an understanding of hierarchic systems of which there is an input and an output. The idea of a building acting both as an input and output in collaboration with man (“on the one hand serving them and on the other controlling their behavior” was also interesting and also reminding me of the kitten example Wiener gave of roles being reversed and two entities mutually existing. We often think of buildings serving us, but to think that our surroundings are actually acting as more of a controller is compelling, yet not a new idea. Gaudi’s Parc Guell does this, though as Park mentions, it evokes specifically contrived emotive responses and feedback.
09.25.2014