“Image and Word: Two Worlds of Knowing”

Pre-architecture students must take courses that center on written discourse and others on the manipulation of materials visually. These classes play out in separate environments typically, in which different languages are used for communication and which result in contrasting conceptual processes. Each course engages in varied cognitive activities and separate enterprises. In this, they reflect the tension between the visual and the written, the narrative and the objective. This experimental design workshop supported by a major university grant created a parallel intense learning environment and engaged students in an examination of the dichotomies between the visual and the written, the juncture between visual culture and its relationship to written communication in the discipline of architecture. The teaching proceeded with a variety of different scenarios, each of which introduced reading, writing, and design at different stages in the process and in varied relationships. Regardless of the scenario, and the variations were many, a dialectic between reading, writing/word and the design process/image began with a proposition—intriguing questions which led to other questions establishing relationships through conceptual activities. John Berger implies in The Sense of Sight that image and words comprise disciplines that rule their own domains and their relationship “is never quite settled.” Irrespective of whether image/word emerged as the main theme or subtheme of this class, the notion that society, according to many scholars and social observers is undergoing a shift from written forms of information and knowledge to material being disseminated mainly through visual images is of critical importance. Marshall McCluhan’s statement in the 1960s, “the medium is the message” is becoming more true over time. To say the alphabet is being replaced by the image is perhaps an overstatement, but unarguably we are in a changed place. The relationships of words, images, and social meaning provided a provocative subject for examination. This experimental design studio wedded two different teaching pedagogies to explore the relationship between two conceptual tools and ways of knowing—image and word. The collaboration between students and faculty created an intense learning community exploring together an intriguing and rich subject relevant to the world they inhabit as well as the design process most basic to the architectural profession.