In class recently, we have discussed Borgmann’s view on architecture as cultural information, specifically through the Freiburg Minster in Germany. Borgmann relates how the building of architecture, the reading of books and the playing of music are similar actions in that they are all ‘cultural information’ that connect one to reality through signs and help a person to ‘realize’ information in one way or another. Yet, for the most part, Borgmann focuses on how building is different from reading and playing. The main distinction between these actions is that building relies heavily on ‘contingency,’ or more loosely, ‘chance,’ in its creative process. A piece of architecture is not just the realization or fulfillment of the blueprint for that building, for example, because oftentimes, the blueprints (or the ideas behind them) do not match up exactly with the finished product: the building. Borgmann uses the Minster as his example. In 1200, when the initial blueprints were being created in Freiburg, the plan was to build a specifically Romanesque-style church. Taking over 300 years to finish, the Freiburg Minster turned out to be not just Romanesque, but a beautiful mix of Romanesque and Gothic in its style. Thus, the blueprint for this church changed many times, and none of these plans represent specifically the building that stands in Freiburg today. Indeed, building is not just a realization of a blueprint or an idea but a realization of a mix of blueprints and ideas. Furthermore, Borgmann contends that this mix of blueprints and ideas was put together by chance (and not, purposefully, by people). Contingency plays a key role in building, and this contingency is very obvious when one studies the building of the Freiburg Minster.
What I thought was very interesting about Borgmann’s discussion on building was his analysis of contingency. First, Borgmann examines how contingency is defined. Is it simply a matter of chance, having no purpose or meaning? For Borgmann, contingency is more than just chance, and it can have meaning, especially when it comes to building. The link, then, between chance and meaning, Borgmann assumes, must be grace or contingency as divine (an act of God, so to speak). This mixture of chance and meaning can be seen in the Freiburg Minster. Though not a single person planned the church to be what it has become, the Minster, in its melange of Gothic and Romanesque styles, has much meaning as a sign of cultural information. This meaning is ambiguous as well, and it can change with different people, times and places. Who could have the idea for such an incredible entity of embodied cultural information that means something different to every person and time? Only something or someone divine, Borgmann implies. I think this is a really beautiful explanation of the meaning and splendor of the Freiburg Minster and, indeed, all buildings everywhere. I, too, can see God at work in his Plan for these buildings.
Yet, being the Devil’s advocate, I have to ask: must there be a necessary connector between chance and meaning? Obviously, no one planned for the Freiburg Minster to be a Gothic/Romanesque mixture; it just happened that way, by chance. Yet it does have meaning to different people in different times and places. Why must there be a divine explanation for this meaning? Couldn’t the meaning just come from the human consciousness adapting to the changes they’ve made to the building overtime and from people searching for a purpose in these changes? Could it be that, for lack of a better explanation, Borgmann just decided that grace had to be the glue between chance and meaning? Again, I believe one can see God's plan in the building of things, but I can see where others would have an issue with Borgmann’s use of the ‘necessary divine’ here.
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