Faced with the world of existence, humanity not only perceives it but also, when its current situation becomes invalid, seeks to change the existences rather than relocate. This is because living beings realise their purpose of survival sometimes by ‘invalidating the state of nature’ and sometimes by ‘eliminating the invalidity of their own state against nature'[1]. Just as birds, to survive, either change the state of nature by ‘building nests’ or change their own state against nature by ‘migrating’, humans exhibit the same behaviour. Therefore, nature compels all living beings, along with the human facing it, to design.
Humanity achieves the alteration of the world of existence through three faculties it possesses: the faculties of knowing, acting, and creating. ‘With the activity of knowing, humanity establishes a relationship of knowledge with objects, and the product of this relationship is science and philosophy. With the activity of acting, humanity creates the moral world based on the freedom of will against its natural inclinations and instincts, that is, against its own nature. Like the world of knowledge, the moral world is also a human world. As for the activity of creating: Humanity is a being capable of taking a stance against the forms it encounters in nature. It wants to remedy the deficiency in the forms of nature in order to perfect these forms. Here, the human we call the artist perfects the natural forms of objects by adding imagination to them and creates a supernatural world, a world of humanly perfect forms, the world of art'[2].
Humanity succeeds in changing the world of existence with its three faculties by establishing a socio-cultural world against it, and also by establishing the world of art against both of these with its faculty of creation. Because humanity, unlike other living beings, with its physical-psychic characteristics and the aforementioned three faculties, has freed the skill of designing from being dependent on the purpose of survival.
With the act of designing, humanity, in relation to its fixed place in the life it is positioned in, has succeeded in establishing an artificial environment, a socio-cultural world, through the changes it makes in itself and its surroundings, thus freeing itself from dependence on time and space, from being submissive to nature. In short, the act of designing, which makes humanity superior to other beings, also enables the establishment of a socio-cultural system upon the nature it has transcended and the direction of the flow of life.
While the faculty of creation enabled the establishment of an artificial nature dominant over nature, it also realised a flow of design. If attention is paid to this flow of design, in nature that changes in a certain cycle and tempo, humanity adapts to the aforementioned change in nature through the act of designing, and unlike other living beings, renews each new situation by building upon what the previous situation brought[3]. The renewal of the situation that constantly invalidates designs also necessitates the making of new designs in the future.
Humanity and design constantly develop by changing each other, and this ensures the continuity of the socio-cultural system, which is at least as decisive as nature in life. Therefore, designs are the basic vital dynamics for the renewed progress of the socio-cultural system that establishes the nature-human relationship in favour of humanity. While scientific circles have so far emphasised humanity’s faculty of creation against nature, today they focus more on the importance of the act of designing (technology and industry) within the socio-cultural system.
For this reason, at this stage of history, the act of designing ceases to be a process that is not deemed necessary to define, making it impossible to see completion punctuated by a pleasing sensory result. Subjectivity in design no longer corresponds to arbitrariness but to mastering the following of a defined sequence of operations, that is, mastering the management of a certain process and the designer’s situation of establishing their own system and style.
Faced with the world of existence, humanity not only perceives it but also, when its current situation becomes invalid, seeks to change the existences rather than relocate. This is because living beings realise their purpose of survival sometimes by ‘invalidating the state of nature’ and sometimes by ‘eliminating the invalidity of their own state against nature'[1]. Just as birds, to survive, either change the state of nature by ‘building nests’ or change their own state against nature by ‘migrating’, humans exhibit the same behaviour. Therefore, nature compels all living beings, along with the human facing it, to design.
Humanity achieves the alteration of the world of existence through three faculties it possesses: the faculties of knowing, acting, and creating. ‘With the activity of knowing, humanity establishes a relationship of knowledge with objects, and the product of this relationship is science and philosophy. With the activity of acting, humanity creates the moral world based on the freedom of will against its natural inclinations and instincts, that is, against its own nature. Like the world of knowledge, the moral world is also a human world. As for the activity of creating: Humanity is a being capable of taking a stance against the forms it encounters in nature. It wants to remedy the deficiency in the forms of nature in order to perfect these forms. Here, the human we call the artist perfects the natural forms of objects by adding imagination to them and creates a supernatural world, a world of humanly perfect forms, the world of art'[2].
Humanity succeeds in changing the world of existence with its three faculties by establishing a socio-cultural world against it, and also by establishing the world of art against both of these with its faculty of creation. Because humanity, unlike other living beings, with its physical-psychic characteristics and the aforementioned three faculties, has freed the skill of designing from being dependent on the purpose of survival.
With the act of designing, humanity, in relation to its fixed place in the life it is positioned in, has succeeded in establishing an artificial environment, a socio-cultural world, through the changes it makes in itself and its surroundings, thus freeing itself from dependence on time and space, from being submissive to nature. In short, the act of designing, which makes humanity superior to other beings, also enables the establishment of a socio-cultural system upon the nature it has transcended and the direction of the flow of life.
While the faculty of creation enabled the establishment of an artificial nature dominant over nature, it also realised a flow of design. If attention is paid to this flow of design, in nature that changes in a certain cycle and tempo, humanity adapts to the aforementioned change in nature through the act of designing, and unlike other living beings, renews each new situation by building upon what the previous situation brought[3]. The renewal of the situation that constantly invalidates designs also necessitates the making of new designs in the future.
Humanity and design constantly develop by changing each other, and this ensures the continuity of the socio-cultural system, which is at least as decisive as nature in life. Therefore, designs are the basic vital dynamics for the renewed progress of the socio-cultural system that establishes the nature-human relationship in favour of humanity. While scientific circles have so far emphasised humanity’s faculty of creation against nature, today they focus more on the importance of the act of designing (technology and industry) within the socio-cultural system.
For this reason, at this stage of history, the act of designing ceases to be a process that is not deemed necessary to define, making it impossible to see completion punctuated by a pleasing sensory result. Subjectivity in design no longer corresponds to arbitrariness but to mastering the following of a defined sequence of operations, that is, mastering the management of a certain process and the designer’s situation of establishing their own system and style.
[1] Özkal Barış Öztürk, İmgesel Aritmetik Yöntemiyle Mekan Tasarımı ve Bir Tasarım Örneği, Sanatta Yeterlilik tezi, Sh.1, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi, 2007.
[2] İsmail Tunalı, Felsefe ve Sanat, Sh. 13, Ara Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 1990.
[3] Özkal Barış Öztürk, Sh. 2.
Vera Yürekli
Interior Architect