This conference may hold interest in this discussion?
http://www.creativityandcognition09.org/
Kara Pecknold, MAA Design
Researcher + Instructor
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Designer
Olivelife Creative
+1 (604) 720 7393
On Jul 20, 2009, at 11:10 AM, Charles Burnette wrote:
> Cameron,
> I have rarely read a response that contained so biased a view of
> creativity or architects or that reflected so little understanding
> of the issues I sought to address. I will read your references but
> for now here are my immediate reactions to your discussion of them.
>
>> Though the argument is not robustly put forward, it
>> worth considering Chet Bower's claim that such per-
>> sonality types, and the whole notion of 'individual
>> creatives' to which Western liberal education remains
>> committed, are perhaps a lot of the reason why our
>> societies are currently so unsustainable. His (easily
>> caricaturable) counter is to suggest that we need to
>> educate for more humble forms of collaborative cognition
>> (e.g., learning from and with your elders and others,
>> rather than unquestioningly striving to demolish what
>> they have evolved so that it can be replaced with your
>> own project(ion).)
>> http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx01401/
>> http://tinyurl.com/mk6daz
>>
> This seems to reflect a narrow and old fashioned reaction to the
> "individual creative" as someone who destroys rather than
> reinterprets or advances what exists. The correlates of creativity
> are being discussed not old resentments. More humble forms of
> collaborative communication (committee work for example) often leads
> to mediocre results without good creative group dynamics that evoke
> correlates not unlike those Mackinnon uncovered. Groups have
> personalities too.
>> Another version of the same argument is the late
>> Neil Postman's _Teaching as a Conserving Activity_
>> http://tinyurl.com/lzemdy
>> If the world (of entertainment for example) is spend-
>> ing all its time convincing us that we are creative
>> individuals, it is the dialectical duty of education
>> to critically teach the reverse; that all design is
>> redesign for example:
>> http://www.designaddict.com/essais/michl.html
>
> I am not aware that the world of entertainment spends all its time
> convincing us that we are creative individuals. Thankfully a great
> deal of it strengthens our understanding of our foibles and
> possibilities for good and evil. A design that is not a redesign:
> The Segway Personal Transporter is not a redesign of any previous
> form of transportation unless you consider roller skates in its
> league.
>>
>> In this context, the following sounds like a new
>> pathology to be included in the next DSM:
>> Architect Personality Disorder (what Deyan Sudjic
>> calls 'The Edifice Complex').
>>> "If I were to summarize what is most generally characteristic of the
>>> creative architect as we have seen him (sic), it is his high level
>>> of
>>> effective intelligence, his openness to experience, his freedom from
>>> petty constraints, and impoverishing inhibitions, his aesthetic
>>> sensitivity, his cognitive flexibility, his independence of thought
>>> and action, his high level of energy, his unquestioning commitment
>>> to
>>> creative endeavor, and his unceasing striving for creative solutions
>>> to the ever more difficult architectural problems he constantly sets
>>> for himself". end quote
>
> I would say that the edifice complex has roots beyond the architect.
> If is his business to create the best edifice he can imagine, one
> that enriches culture and society as well as the individual
> occupant. If Mackinnon's summary describes a personality disorder or
> pathology please describe your version of an ordered personality
> without a pathology.
>
> Have you ever taught a design studio? Do you have any idea what is
> involved?
>
> Charles
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