Qualitative methodologies

Qualitative methodologies of coming into being  - Goethe, the Bauhaus school under Gropius and Design methodology. (2007)  Jonathan Crinion 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in his later life, lived in Weimar where he died in 1832. George Eliot, the English writer called him “Germany’s greatest man of letters and the last true polymath to walk the earth.”(1) It was during his time in Weimar that Goethe saw scientific research had begun to focus on the quantitative aspects of things and proposed a new methodology of qualitative Science. Goethe felt that visual perception was the door to understanding organic form. (2)

 Almost one hundred years later and also in the city of Weimar, Walter Gropius, an architect, founded the Bauhaus school (1919-1933). His goal was to create a new way of teaching design that would allow artists to work with industry. He saw the new way forward as a melding of Science and Art. Goethe is often referenced in writings about the Bauhaus and it becomes apparent that under Gropius the Bauhaus applied Goethe’s ideas to an education wherein the traditional arts and crafts would develop into a merging of science and art. The Bauhaus had a short and tumultuous history lasting only fourteen years, however the impact of the design thinking that developed during this period formed the basis of a design methodology that remains one of the foundations of contemporary design.

 The Bauhaus was formed at the point in history where the world was making the transition from craft based industries to mechanised production. Gropius understood that simply mechanising craft based designs was inappropriate for mechanised production and sought a new design gestalt.

 One of the major themes of the early Bauhaus was what was seen to be regular laws governing spatial composition. ‘ In order to discover such laws, intuition had to be combined with mathematics, real with transcendental laws; a constant interchange was needed between the individual and the cosmos.’ (3)

 Like the world of contemporary science, design has strayed from its once holistic way of thinking. The current process of conceiving products and systems in isolation from the whole plays a strong role in thecurrent destruction of the earth, as these creations are seen as something separate from the whole.

The following essay compares some of Goethe’s ideas with those of the Bauhaus and contemporary design.

Ur-Phenomenon

 David Seamon in his book Goethe’s Way of Science describes Goethe’s idea of an ‘ur-phenomenon’ as the basic archetypal pattern or process of a thing,… ‘The essential core of a thing that makes it what it is’. (4)  Today phenomenology has come to mean the act of experiencing some phenomenon as it would appear to our senses. At this instance in time we can allow ourselves to experience the essential attributes that our senses intercept. In contemporary design many of the products we surround ourselves with have completely lost sight of the ur-phenomenon. Designers today unquestioningly focus on computer-generated form at the expense of content and wholeness. Reinstating the phenomenological core in the creative process of design is key to Earth’s future. While Goethe applied his ur-phenomenon to plants that exist, it is also possible to apply this thinking to things that do not exist but are to be brought into being and given form. A basic example of this notion might be the common electric cloths dryer, born out of the notion of convenience and now perceived to be a necessity in modern homes around the world. While we are now examining these phenomena in retrospect it is possible for the sake of this example to imagine the moment of conception. The ur-phenomenon is thus ‘removing the remaining water from damp clothes’ which have been washed. When considered from the archetypal point of view it is not hard to see that a piece of cord, tied between two trees, would suffice to provide a means to dry cloths in the sun and wind. The massive energy and material process needed to create electric cloths dryer and to operate it seems absurd by comparison. While the cord between trees may not be the only solution, restyling the large metal box with an electric heating coil inside is very far away from a solution. As we shall see later, the loss of this basic ability of the designer to see archetypes and luxuries perceived as necessities are together part of a global problem of needless product proliferation. In addition, understanding the forces that allowed us to stray so far from the ur-phenomenon could provide valuable enlightenment to a planet seeking to regain its balance.

 The Bauhaus offers a pedagogical model that could perhaps form the basis of this enlightenment. One of the first teachers that Gropius appointed to the Bauhaus was the painter and art theoretician Johannes Itten. Itten’s approach was to first introduce students to basic materials and colours and his classes often started with breathing exercises to relax his students before seeking to create ‘direction and order out of flow’. Itten believed that the principles and criteria that were central to the study of materials and natural objects were contrast, form and rhythm. ‘Itten’s teaching was also aimed at the inner being; students were to find their own rhythm and develop a well-tuned personality.’ (5 ) 

 Itten introduced a process whereby materials were introduced progressively one by one and then eventually explored together. By studying natural forms and also working first with a single material, such as a single sheet of paper, the students could experience what the ‘material paper’ wanted to be, rather than imposing a preconceived idea upon the paper. In this way, before designing useful objects, the students became familiar with the abilities and attributes of materials so that they could gain a profound understanding of a material’s capabilities and apply them correctly to useful objects.

 In 1921 Itten wrote: ‘ I have a thistle before me. My motorial nerves experience a lacerated, spasmodic movement pointedness of its form movement and my spirit sees its essence. I experience a thistle.’(6) 

 Itten’s ideas together with those of other teachers such as George Muche, a painter who introduced a vegetarian diet to the school and Gertrud Grunow who taught ‘Harmonization’ developed the ur-phenomenon of design from which products would evolve. Gertrud  Grunow’s course in Harmonization was specifically focused on awakening the senses to what they already know . She believed that by finding ones inner rhythm she would be able to open the ‘paths to the discovery of natural elementary forms, and at the same time seek to create inner order in the individual.’ She went on to say that:

‘When seeking new forms, we must allow these to be reborn in us from the totality of experience, from the oneness of nature and intellect‘ (7)

 Grunow’s work also included the relationship of colour and sound with form that inspired Gropius to the extent that he incorporated this thinking into the whole of the Bauhaus teaching. In 1923 he wrote an essay in the Bauhaus introductory brochure wherein he sought to define the nature of the teaching at the Bauhaus based on a new harmonization of thinking: 

 ’A new statics of the horizontal is beginning to develop which seeks to counteract gravity through counterbalance. The symmetry of compositional elements…diminishes as a logical consequence of the new teaching of equilibrium, which transforms the lifeless uniformity of mutually corresponding parts into unsymmetrical but rhythmic balance.’ (8)

Differences/Relates

 Henri Bortoft, a Physist and author of the ‘Wholeness of nature – Goethe’s way of Seeing’ describes Goethe’s ‘ur-phenomenon’ way of seeing plants by using the analogy of a flowing stream. (9) The point at which the observer stands represents the present and up stream is the past.  In the present, the plant appears as a whole, and in order to understand how it came into being as a whole we must travel up stream into the past as it were. In this way, as we travel from this upstream perspective to the present, we are able to experience the plant coming into being. In the present we experience the plant in its wholeness.

Continuing with this line of thinking Bortoft cited, at one of his Schumacher lectures, a wonderful example of how the whole comes into presence in the parts by asking ” How do you know what you are writing until you have finished writing it?” It is only upon completion that we are able to experience the whole in the present’. In comparison, design is the act of creating in which the result is that which is created. Therefore that which has been created becomes what we experience in the physical world at the moment of conception. It is the creative process, which has brought into being that which is material- not the material assembling itself. Design creativity requires the assimilation of disparate ideas brought forward in part, from embodied knowledge through a complex mental process in which seemingly unrelated phenomena can become a whole with a new meaning. There are many different possible outcomes dependant upon the environment in which the creative act occurs. The moment that there is a unitary consolidation of a phenomenon there is the conception of a whole. The whole may not have materialised in its physical form at this point; however, the  ’seed of the idea now exists’. With this seed now existing in the designer’s mind the process of coming into being begins. Unlike the plant, which always exists in its various cyclic forms, a concept materialises as a new entity but there is a time lapse before it manifests itself in the physical form. It could be argued that the physical form only comes into being in the present, to use Bortoft’s analogy to the stream; however the moment of conception and the physical form are one in the same and so they both occur in the present. This suggests that Bortoft’s notion of present is in fact multidimensional. Bortoft says ‘ The act of distinction’ is a unitary act which (differences/relates). The slash between the words is significant in that it implies inseparability. Design creativity is the momentary revelation in which the interrelationship of the whole presents itself and allows a design concept to emerge. From that point a refinement process occurs in which the whole is refined into being. Often the design process can evolve up stream along various tributaries and at each confluence where two streams meet, a new idea comes into being simultaneously with other meetings. With each meeting embodied knowledge and environmental influences are tested and the concept evolves until it reaches the main stream and comes into being. Unlike the plant, which is immobile, the designed object begins its journey out to sea to become part of the greater whole as it is distributed globally. This is perhaps an opportunity for Bortoft to extend his analogy, in which he focuses only on one small portion of a stream, which is in fact part of the greater whole. Bortoft’s present is not the whole but rather only the (limited) present and suggests implications for scientific thinking to be expanded. Creativity utilises this notion in the physical form by allowing, as in the example of a bottle filled with water.  We see the whole which can then go upstream where we can distinguish the differences/relates by removing the water from the bottle / the bottle from the water.  The plastic water bottle designed by Ross Lovegrove is an interesting example of this phenomenon in that the quality of water becomes reflected in the container that holds the water in the shape that it is, but could not be without the container. In the upstream position the water is formless and the container is as yet to be conceived. Bortoft’s distinguishes/relates is at this point still downstream and the form has not found away to contain the formless water. This coming into being of the water bottle happens in parallel to other designers creating other water bottles. Craig Holdrege in his work on plants points out that plants of the same species can come into presence in very different wholes.

 The environment in which the plant finds itself is part of the whole and influences that whole. Holdereg points out that ‘the plant reveals or embodies it’s environmental context’ It is not surprising then that Lovegrove’s bottle is a disposable plastic bottle rather than the wonderful reusable glass bottle it could be – the plastic disposable bottle is a reflection of the environment/ambiance in which the bottle was brought into being. A sailboat utilises changes in the amount of sail it has up in order to respond to weather conditions. In light winds and flat water the boat will have full sail up but as the wind increases it will be necessary to reduce the sail in order to keep the boat upright. In this way the sailboat reveals its environmental context. This process is a creative act that was programmed into the sailboat’s design in the creative stage of its development. The fact that yacht construction involves diabolical pollution renders this otherwise massively useful concept an incomplete whole.

 Craig Holdrege says “As a means to understand the parts ‘the same organ can present itself in different forms but all is Proteus. One organ in manifold forms and out of one form creates all forms.” (10)

Bortoft further encapsulates this idea with his statement ‘multiplicity in unity’ and uses the Hologram as an example. A hologram is used as an example because it is a particular type of image, which is captured three dimensionally using two or more lasers. The unique attribute of the picture is that every part contains the whole picture. Bortoft utilizes this feature to illustrate that the whole is indivisible. A comparative analogy, which leads us to design thinking, is similar. When you look out a window, you see the view. If you place a piece of cardboard over the window and make thousands of rectangular holes in the cardboard you will see the same view through each hole. The view is the whole and every eye sees the same view. The holes in the cardboard can be very large to the point that they become one or they can become infinitely small till there is no material to remove and they become one. However, with both the hologram and the window, the view will be slightly different. It is not true that each piece is identical or each hole has the same view. Like the Proteus there are minute differences that are all part of the whole but each has come into being in a slightly different manner due, in this instance, to the view angle which will overlap the information of other views but each will differ slightly on the periphery. Paul Klee, a teacher at the Bauhaus explored a similar idea in 1923 when he  wrote, ”All paths converge in the eye and, converted into form at their meeting point, lead to the synthesis of outer sight and inner seeing.  From this meeting-point, manual entities form which are totally different from the optical image of an object and yet, from the point of view of totality, do not contradict it.” (11)

 In contemporary design thought, the notion of whole is often embodied by the French word ‘ambiance’ which implies the feeling or mood of an environment. The object plays a role in creating the environment of which it is a part. It is the designer’s role to imagine the ambiance when bringing some creation into being as the ambiance and creation are in fact one and cannot exist without the other. A failing of contemporary design is that the consideration of ambiance is left out as creations come into being that are incomplete, having been conceived in isolation; or as Bortoft would say ‘ They are counterfeit wholes’. This process of conceiving products and systems in isolation from the whole plays a strong role in the current destruction of the earth as these creations are seen as something separate from the whole or ambiance.

 Multiplicity in Unity

 Multiplicity in Unity is a concept that may be considered when evaluating mass production wherein many different manufacturers produce a single concept in parallel. Each manufacturer makes their own distinct product, but with very little difference between them because they embody the same initial concept. The automobile is a good example. The first automobile conceived is conceptually no different than a state of the art automobile today. The many automobiles of today evolved from the same ‘concept/meristem’ but the initial concept of an internal combustion engine mounted in container on four rubber tires with a steering wheel and gear changer has not changed. In other words grow has been impeded as the concept became frozen. Unlike a plant an automobile is not an authentic whole. In fact most manmade objects are not authentic wholes but rather incomplete wholes that take from the earth but give nothing in return. Craig Holdrege produced a diagram showing the evolution of a single plant and hypothesised that each leaf of the completed plant could represent a different branch of homo sapien evolution. (12) Extrapolating this idea we might imagine that the initial concept of the automobile many years ago is the meristem/ internal combustion engine on wheels that evolves into variations of the automobile we have today. It appears that virtually all products fit within this model. Wherever there is an initial concept others will develop from that meristem. A plant’s growth is complete at some point when the leaves have reached maturity over the yearly cycle of the plant wherein it flowers and goes to seed.  Given the diversity of the automobile previously discussed, it is possible that the ambiance/environment the automobile now finds itself in is a context where its ‘leaves’ remain close to the meristem/concept. As the proliferation of new solar car designs which use no fuel whatsoever come into being, and as wholeness manifests itself in complete life cycles perhaps the species will evolve within the present era of environmental consciousness. The branches that are incapable of adapting will simply die, which in this case will be a good thing.

The universe is intrinsically creative as the immediate environment and plants work together to create unique solutions. The idea that we can create universal products begins to lose its credibility as we realise that we must embrace variety and difference and find local solutions. This is the opposite notion to mass production. Selective local specialisation, in which plasticity of environmental differences are acknowledged, can allow objects to take on various forms in relation to their immediate environment. This move from repetitive production to selective specialisation becomes an important transition from globalisation to localisation. In this way the seed of an idea can react to the immediate environment of where it landed and utilise local skills and resources in a cyclic manner that nourishes Earth. This change is a transition back to bespoke solutions; not in a craft sense, but rather in a highly sophisticated manner that allows local selective specialisation on an as needed basis. In parallel a richer life of living with less and in harmony with Earth is a necessary ingredient for humans to live symbiotically with Earth.

References

With appreciation and many thanks to Dr. Brian Goodwin at Schumacher College for his invaluable input and comments towards the preparation of this paper

1) Eliot, George, Middlemarch. Broadview Press, Note by editor of 2004 edition, Gregory Maertz, p. 710 9 (Directed from Wikipedia)

2)  Capra, Fritjof, The Web of Life, A new synthesis of mind and matter, Harper Collins, Great Britain 1996, pgs 21-22

3) Droste, Magdalena, Bauhaus 1919-1933, Taschen GmbH, 2006, pgs, 44

4) Seamon, David & Zajonc, Arthur, Goethe’s Way of Science, State University of New York Press, 1998, pg. 4

 5) Droste, Magdalena, Bauhaus 1919-1933, Taschen GmbH, 2006, pgs,24-30

6) Droste, Magdalena, Bauhaus 1919-1933, Taschen GmbH, 2006, pg, 31 Student drawing by Gunta Stolzl 1920

7) Droste, Magdalena, Bauhaus 1919-1933, Taschen GmbH, 2006, pg. 33

8) Droste, Magdalena, Bauhaus 1919-1933, Taschen GmbH, 2006, pgs. 33-34

9) Bortoft Henri, The Wholeness of Nature, 2007, Cromwell Press, pgs 3-26.