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The Idea Program

The Appearance of Things

"This is not a pipe, but a drawing of a pipe," "This is not a pipe but a sentence saying this is not a pipe." "The sentence ‘this is not a pipe’ is not a pipe,"

Michel Foucault, This is not a Pipe.

How do your read a design drawing?
By what it looks like.
A personal interpretation of marks on paper.
There is no other way.
In the Industrial Age, truth was absolute.
What I see is what I see.
Drawing the appearance of buildings allows superfluous details to be added.
Form follows function plus some more.

In the Information Age, there is no truth.
The act of perceiving changes what is being perceived.
Ask an eye-witness.
I think what I see is what I think I see.
The map is not the territory.
The menu is not the food.
The building is not the drawing.
What a building looks like is not based upon what we see, it is based upon what we think.
Believing is seeing!
Form fits function.
There is no more.
Beyond the Electronic Drawing Board goes beyond appearance for appearance sake.
Cash in the sacred cow.


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