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Franz Kafka in the Design Studio: A Hermeneutic‐Phenomenological Approach to Architectural Design Education
Author(s) -
Hisarligil Beyhan Bolak
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of art and design education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.312
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1476-8070
pISSN - 1476-8062
DOI - 10.1111/j.1476-8070.2012.01764.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , narrative , studio , design studio , design education , reading (process) , visual arts , frame (networking) , aesthetics , hermeneutics , art , sociology , psychology , epistemology , literature , computer science , linguistics , history , philosophy , telecommunications , archaeology
This article demonstrates the outcomes of taking a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to architectural design and discusses the potentials for imaginative reasoning in design education. This study tests the use of literature as a verbal form of art and design and the contribution it can make to imaginative design processes – which are all too often limited by physical constraints. It has been observed that a person reading a novel can choose to suspend their disbelief and become entangled in the events of the book – where they become involved with the art not only subjectively, but also as a form of play. In the words of Hans‐Georg Gadamer: ‘understanding occurs in interpreting’. This study asked design students to read three of Franz Kafka's books – The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle – prior to designing a Franz Kafka museum. The students found themselves drawn into numerous worlds that they were compelled to play along with; and demonstrating the productive role that literature can play in studio design, the students were observed to reconstruct the text and authorial context as a spatio‐temporal frame of reference, in this case a museum, and thus provide museum visitors with a Kafkaesque spatial experience of the narrative world in terms of design.