ARCHDESIGN ‘14 : Current Trends in Architectural Design and Methodologies

The Aesthetics symptoms of architectural form: the case of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
by Richard Meier

Nancy Al Assaf and Saleem M. Dahabreh, PhD.

Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Department of Architecture, University of Jordan

Abstract
This paper investigates the aesthetics of architectural form by addressing ‘when’ this form becomes
aesthetically distinctive. The theoretical foundation of this paper is based on Nelson Goodman’s
exemplification, density and repleteness as necessary symptoms for any form to function as a work of art.
The aim is to introduce this philosophical view to architecture in order to understand how the aesthetics of
architectural forms can be inferred from these three symptoms. To pursue this aim, this paper looks at
Richard Meier’s Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art where besides its architectural function, the
design of the museum with its formal language is considered a work of art in itself. Through morphological
analysis and analytical drawings the three symptoms of aesthetics are investigated within the form of the
building and identified. The paper concluded that architectural work is aesthetically pleasing when formal
design language is syntactically dense, its content is semantically dense, and the design process is replete.
The findings of this research encourage a rational understanding of the aesthetic judgment in architecture
and provide a major asset in architectural pedagogy. Therefore, when students and instructors go through it,
students’ right to develop their own aesthetics is preserved.

Keywords: Architectural design, Aesthetics, Goodman’s symptoms of aesthetics, Formal language, Richard
Meier

Introduction
‘Nearly everything that encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in,
is a building; the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic
appeal.’ (Pevsner, 1948, Introduction p: xix)

From Vitruvius to the present, the key aspect of architectural design theories is the distinction between
a building and architecture. Building is a practical translation of functional and socioeconomic aspects into
a material or physical structures (Winters, 2002; Hendrix, 2012). Transcending the corporeality of a
building, architecture is concerned with the intellectual activity of creating a distinctive artistic form
(Pevsner, 1945; Norberg-Schulz, 1965). Accordingly, it’s the ‘art of form’ (Robinson, 1908) and the ‘form
of knowledge’ (Tschumi, 1996). Thus, the discussion of architectural form, the result of the intellect and the
source of aesthetics, has to be extended beyond the material dimension to include Langer’s (1967) concept
of ‘logical form’. Logical form is defined as the knowledge of how a built form is structured and designed.
In view of this, the aesthetics of architectural form is understood in terms of the autonomous creative
process whereby the architect organizes his/her work according to a set of unique organizational principles
(Stiny and Gips, 1978).
Taking the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art by Richard Meier (1987-1995) as a case study,
this paper investigates when the architectural form becomes aesthetically distinctive. Focusing attention on
the existence of form is not enough to characterize the aesthetics of artwork because many things have form
in some sense. Therefore, the theory of ‘Symptoms of Aesthetics’ which was formulated by the American
philosopher Nelson Goodman (1976) is used as a theoretical foundation for this paper. The intention is to
bring this philosophical view to architecture in order to establish a theoretical framework for the aesthetic
judgment of architectural forms. This research has a recognizable value in architectural theories, because
the contemporary struggle of architectural theories today is to turn architecture to itself by concentrating on
the autonomous formal operations and their artistic dimensions (Tafuri, 1969; Hays, 1998). Moreover, this
research plays an important role in architectural pedagogy, because it's become increasingly difficult to
ignore the lack of aesthetic understanding in design studios where instructors superimpose their aesthetic
preferences without explanations. As a consequence, students lose their attachment to their projects unless
they share the same aesthetic preferences with their instructor (Cho, 2011). Thus, this research aims to
encourage a process of aesthetic education with an explanation in design studios.

Methodology
To comprehend the aesthetics symptoms of architectural form, Richard Meier’s Barcelona Museum of
Contemporary Art (1987-1995) is examined as a case study. Meier’s architectural practice has a clear set of
spatial themes and organizational principles (Deamer, 2001; Meier, 2003; Dahabreh; 2006; Dahabreh;
2013). Through the syntactic logic of form, Meier aimed to create distinctive architectural atmosphere, at
the same time he understands architecture as a totality because he didn’t ignore the pragmatic dimension of
buildings (Dahabreh, 2006). The museum is selected because it’s one of Meier’s masterful manipulations
of form and space; it’s a work of modern art in itself. According to Richard Meier (2011) in his
conversation with Renny Logan:
‘[A]rt and architecture are complementary in the better museums of the world; the whole
experience is made richer through a balanced dialogue between the two. […] The boundaries
between architecture and art have been blurred. [Thus] MACBA’s form and configuration were
imagined primarily as a flexible response to the scale and light requirements of contemporary
art’.

Although the notion of form or logical form addresses the intellectual dimension of how the abstract
becomes real, investigating the aesthetics of this organizational structure can be approached through
studying the corporeal form. According to Eisenman (1999) the surface or the perceptible form is generated
by a deeper conceptual level through specific transformations. However, Eisenman borrowed Chomsky‘s
‘trace theory’ (1976) whereby the deep structure of a sentence can be interpreted through traces from the
surface structure via a ‘process of abstraction’. Accordingly, the idea of ‘less deep’ deep structure invites
an implied reading of the intellectual form through an interplay between the explicit and the implicit
(Gandelsonas and Morton, 1980). Thus, the corporeal form is understood as an ‘indexical structure’ that
has visual cues or traces to externalize what the architect has conceived (Eisenman, 1999; Isenstadt, 2001).
Herein, the systematic investigation of the perceptible form is classified as architectural morphology that
uncovers the underlying organizing principles (Dahabreh, 2006). Through relational and constructive
morphology the organizational principles that govern the overall form of the museum are synchronically
and diachronically investigated in 2-D drawings and 3-D axonometric diagrams. The favor of axonometric
diagram lies in its ability to convey measurable or objective information in comparison with the distortion
created in perspective through vanishing points (Somol, 1999).

Architectural design and Aesthetics

The notion of architecture exceeds the mere process of buildings, it’s not limited to material presence
or practical restrictions. Any architectural solution requires a theoretical base to integrate knowledge and
support its systematic intent (Norberg-Schulz, 1965; Hillier, 2007). Along with the theoretical base,
architecture has to express meaning; it can communicate formal, intellectual, spiritual or expressionistic
ideas (Hendrix, 2012). As a consequence, Architecture function like a language, because architectural
forms are governed by rules that structure the building’s physical vocabularies and the relations between
them into a meaningful form. Norberg-Schulz (1965, p: 184) defines the ‘formal language’ of architecture
as ‘all the elements, relations and structures which form a meaningful system’. Therefore, architectural
design is an intentional activity that aims to actualize abstract ideas, at least in part, into a built form which
is occupied by bodily experiences of spatial relationships (Peponis, Lycourioti and Mari, 2002). In addition
to the theoretical, meaningful and intellectual dimensions that architecture adds to building, it also adds an
artistic dimension. Pevsner (1945) maintains that ‘the term architecture applies only to buildings designed
with a view to aesthetic appeal’‖, Winters (2002) points out that architecture ‘requires a conception of its
works which contains utility as a substratum of the aesthetic appreciation of them’.
In view of the fact that architectural design can be understood as a verb to indicate activity or process
or as a noun to indicate product or artifact (Dahabreh, 2006), architecture can be aesthetically approached
according to the philosophical dimension of the intellectual form or the psychological dimension of the
sensible or corporal form (Davis, 1990; Davis, 2002; Stecker,2010). The psychological dimension follows
the ‘functionalist approach’ of aesthetics which aims to evaluate art according to its ability to provide
pleasurable aesthetic experience without being intentionally approached as art. Yet the philosophical
dimension follows the ‘procedural approach’ of aesthetics which aims to describe art as a reflexive activity
through its intentional creative process (Davis, 1990; Davis, 2002). The philosophical approach is the focus
of this paper because it’s directed toward the aesthetics of expressive and formal properties that are created
through the logic of form. In other words, it investigates how the architect comprehends the intellectual
order and transforms it into an architectural form that can be read and conceived by others, moreover, it
investigates the constitutive properties or the symptoms which make that form an artwork.

Symptoms of Aesthetics
Saying that a work of art is what has form and express meaning is not enough. Therefore, Goodman in
Languages of art (first published in 1968) aims to shift the interest of aesthetics study from ‘what is art’ to
‘when is art’ to overcome the philosophical problems about art. He formulated his epistemic views for
aesthetics in terms of five mutually independent conditions or symptoms.
1) Exemplification is the central core of Goodman’s theory because the content of aesthetic forms has
to be presentational or self-referential. Exemplification can be found in two types: literal and metaphoric
exemplification. Literal exemplification labels the physical properties that are possessed by the form
through its inner logic. On the other hand, metaphoric exemplification or expression refers to the cognitive
relations that surpass the physical properties of form. Therefore, through logical relationships, aesthetic
forms can express feelings, concepts or both. Goodman (1976) maintains that ‘a thing can express only
what belongs but did not originally belong’.
2) Syntactic difference is ‘characteristic of nonlinguistic systems, and is one feature distinguishing
sketches from scores and scripts’ (Goodman, 1976, p. 252). Because of the differences in the notational
language of sketches, scores and scripts the linguistic grammar of a music score or a written or a verbal
script defines them, while the sketch is the work itself.
3) Semantic density ‘is characteristic of representation, description, and expression in the arts, and is
one feature differentiating sketches and scripts from scores’ (Goodman, 1976, p. 252). Although score has
only one feasible reading, the meaning of script or sketch can be read, re-read and always enriching.
4) Whereas density offers a never-ending possibilities, repleteness ‘distinguishes the more
representational among semantically dense systems from the more diagrammatic, the less from the more
schematic’ (Goodman, 1976, p. 252). For example, the wave paintings of Hokusai are replete in
comparison to an Electrocardiography (EKG) image. Contrast, density, line thickness, contours and color
all exemplify painting, while on an EKG, only the regularity of patterns and the amplitude of waves are
exemplified (Elgin, 2011) (fig. 1). Thus, in a work of art, every element and property cannot be changed or
substituted because it plays an exemplifcational role.

Figure 1 Comparison between the repleteness of a wave painting by Hokusai and

Electrocardiography EKG
 5) In ‘Ways of Worldmaking‘ (1978), Goodman identifies ‘multiple and complex reference’ as a fifth
symptom. He points out that reference is transmitted via chains consisting of exemplificational and
denotational links.
Nevertheless, for Goodman (1976) these symptoms are not disjunctively necessary‖nor conjunctively
sufficient. In view of this, it may not be necessary for any of them to be present in order to function as a
work of art and even if all the symptoms are present it is not necessary a work of art too. Even though
Goodman considers these symptoms not collectively necessary, recently Catherine Elgin (2011) has argued
that exemplification, density and repleteness are necessary to function as a work of art. She states that
‘what is symptomatic of the aesthetic is exemplificational density and repleteness’. Accordingly, examplars
in aesthetic forms have to be replete and dense, here density indicates both syntactic and semantic density.
‘Exemplars are syntactically dense if and only if between any two items with the capacity
to exemplify in a given system, there can in principle be a third […] Exemplars are semantically
dense if and only if the field of properties available for exemplification by symbols of a given
system is dense. Then between any two such properties there is a third’. (Elgin, 2011, p: 410)

Case study: Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art

Building Description:
The Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, or MACBA)
located within Casa de la Caritat, a previously monastic enclave, in El Raval, an old Gothic quarter in
Barcelona, Spain. The museum was designed by Richard Meier (1988-1995) in order to construct a
rigorous dialogue between the historic urban fabric and the contemporary art. Meier’s architecture is a
formal reinterpretation of rationalism and modernism architecture, many writers refer his works as neo-
crobusian in character.
The museum stands in counterpoint with the historic surrounding as an abstract rectangular white
prism that combined with other geometrical elements (fig. 2, fig. 3). The main entry is located off-center
near the outdoor pedestrian passageway i.e. Paseo which connects the Plaça dels Angels in front of the
museum to the garden behind the museum. The plaza façade is animated by a cut-out hanging plane above
the entrance, a cylinder behind the hanging plane, a three-sided glass box of the ramp-hall and a free-form
top-lit ‘special exhibitions’ gallery set at the eastern end of the façade (fig. 4, fig. 5).
Once past the low porch, the visitors reach a partially transparent cylindrical lobby of the reception.
Through a rotational movement, the visitors move from the entry lobby to a triple-height atrium (fig. 6). In
this atrium, they ascend a vertical ramp and move in extensive glazed view to Plaça dels Angels (fig. 7).
Consequently, the ramp-hall provides a public space of interaction where the boundaries between the
closed galleries inside and the city outside are blurred (fig. 8, fig. 9).
 Figure 2 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art isometrics

Figure 3 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art site plan

Figure 4 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art view from the front

 Figure 5 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art view from the back shows the Paseo

Figure 6 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art triple-height atrium

Figure 7 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art : vertical ramp and the view to Plaça dels
Angels
Figure 8 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art: ground floor plan and second floor plan
 Figure 9 Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art: sectional perspective through the public
eastern wing

The spatial organization of the building relies on programmatic separation between public and private
uses. The private section, in the western side, contains a shop, a loading area and a café in the ground level.
The upper floors host the office spaces over seven levels, a research library and an educational center.
While the public section, in the eastern side, contains the main exhibition spaces distributed over three
levels. From west to east, Meier arranged the functions progressively from the most private to the most
public uses. The main rectangular prism is clad with white enameled-steel panels while the other geometric
additions: planar elements, cylinders and the free-form are finished in white concrete.

The Logic of Form:

The form of the museum was basically conceived as a white rectangular prism with a base of 120 x
400 feet and a height of 77 feet. The overall geometry of the museum is determined by a structural module
of 24 ft x 24 ft regulating the centerlines of the main structures and the circular columns. However, the
same module is shifted by 9 ft to regulate the rectangular columns (fig. 10). These two grids are expressed
in the site plan of the museum in the paving of the plaza and the roof plan where the structural beams are
exposed. Eventually, these modular grids emerge from a basic module of 3 ft x 3 ft regulating the plan (fig.
10). Knowing that the dimension of the cladding panel is also 3 ft x 3 ft, this makes the 3 ft modular system
of the museum a three dimensional organizational system not only a two dimensional one (fig. 11). Beside
the 24 ft module, Meier used the proportional percentage of 1: √2 to locate the center lines of the outer wall
of the museum and the hanging plane above the entrance. Moreover, a golden section proportion is used to
place the transverse wall of the entrance and the center of the entrance rotunda (Dahabreh, 2006) (fig. 10).
Figure 10 Ground floor plan : the underlying organizational system
 Figure 11 Elevations : solid void analysis

Through constructive morphology, the diachronic logic of the museum’s form can be explained as
following:
A generic, rectangular prism is placed on 3 ft module establishing an initial frontality. Analogous to
the medieval streets of Barcelona, the massive mass i.e. generic rectangular prism was cut by pedestrian
way to connect the urban fabric together (fig. 12). Through the Paseo, Meier connected the urban context
that is characterized by tilted intersections with the geometry of the museum. Another transverse axis
defines the entry of the museum and ends with a cylindrical volume, i.e. the entrance rotunda. Accordingly,
the rectangular prism of the building is divided into two wings: an eastern wing with the main exhibition
spaces and a western wing with administrative spaces. On the other hand, the longitudinal axis of the
building splits each wing into two paradoxical zones that are mediated by an open ended corridor on each
floor. At the intersection of the two transverse axes with the longitudinal axis several syntactical centers are
created by subtracting part of the slabs in the public zone of each wing. Syntactical centrality, distinct from
geometric center, refers to a process of spatial configuration that constructs a multi-volumetric space. For
instance, the double-volume outdoor atrium in the western wing and the triple-height indoor atrium in the
eastern wing act as syntactical centers (fig. 13). These centers are readable, visible, easily accessible and
intelligible because they are centers of activity too.
The internal spaces are animated by adding circular columns, rectangular columns, beams, structural
wall and freestanding half walls in addition to the main circulation ramp running parallel to the longitudinal
axis (fig. 14). Moreover, from the outside, a series of formal additions and subtraction takes place. In this
series, pictorial ambiguity is created by using the same dimensions of subtraction in one place as an
addition in another place. The deep dual organization system of public/private and open/closed is not
restricted to the programmatic arrangement of the internal spaces, but it is reflected in the overall
composition or the surface structure of the museum. The private sectors are marked by opaque solid
façade with small fenestrations, while the public sectors are marked by transparent glazed skins animated
by white mullions that reflect the modular system of the overall form. Furthermore, the spatial layers of the
inner space are translated to visual layers in the surface structure by using planar elements and extending
the circulation spines to the outside as balconies (fig. 15) .

Figure 12 Constructive morphology : 1-3

Figure 13 Constructive morphology : 4-6

Figure 14 Constructive morphology : 7-9

 Figure 15 Constructive morphology : 10-11

The Aesthetics Symptoms of Form

The discussion of the symptoms of aesthetics for architectural forms has to inspect if the exemplars are
dense and replete. Therefore, this section explores the form of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
according to three interrelated aspects: exemplification, semantic and syntactic density and repleteness:
First, exemplification: using the basic architectural elements of line, plane and mass Meier created a
composition of juxtaposed platonic forms. Accordingly, the form of the museum refers to itself and
exemplifies its own logic. In view of this, the content of form is internalized within itself and exists
independent of any other visual reference in the world. Literal exemplification or, in architecture, spatial
theme presents a meronomic relation, or relation between the elements and the whole that unifies the
architectural composition (Saft, 2002; Borillo and Goulette, 2004). In the museum, Meier created the
theme of abstractness by manipulating an abstracted geometry of white forms in order to achieve spatial
richness. Whiteness of form, perpendicular axes on spatial layers, spatial interlocks and visual cues that
trace the design logic, all of them, shift focus from the design elements themselves to the relation between
them. Therefore, the theme of abstractness is emphasized and the theme of universality is also created
because the interest exceeds the perceptible structure to the implied deep structure i.e. universal principles
as proportions and modules. Meier also constructed the theme of tension, controlled dramatic quality
between opposing forces, in the museum. According to Arnheim (1974) tension can be produced in a work
of art through object deformations and transformations, through occlusion or overlapping elements, through
contrast or duality, and, finally, through directed tension of gradual changes in size, shape or color of the
design elements. In view of this, tension is created by Meier through the deformed free form, subtractions
and sliced transformations in both masses and planes, the overlapped elements in the front façade and the
dualities of open/closed, solid/void, curve/straight and volume /plane. Furthermore, the theme of
phenomenal transparency as an optical phenomena, which discussed first by Row and Slutzky (1982), is
achieved because the shared portions of seemingly overlapping elements in the successive spatial layers
stimulate the perception to understand their spatial relation and establish a spatial depth according to
figure/ground relations. In addition to the themes of abstractness, universality, tension and phenomenal
transparency, the theme of ‘promenade architecturale’, formulated by Le Corbusier as an approach of
setting the itinerary for a building, plays a major role in structuring the form of the museum. Moving in two
perpendicular axes around syntactical centers, multiple means of circulations, hierarchy of spaces and
different spatial layers generate a series of unfolding views, visual rhythms of forms and itinerary of
transformational realities between dualities. Besides these themes, the form of the museum expresses
several motifs such as ambiguity, dynamism and excitement.
Second, density: according to the previous discussion the multiple spatial themes and motifs make the
content of the museum’s form semantic density. It possesses several spatial meanings and the architectural
narrative always enriches by gaining different impressions and new appreciations with each move. On the
other hand, the syntactic density allows for new possibilities in architectural form in which there is no pre-
defined list of characters but infinite possible ones structured based on operational relations. Therefore, it
distinguishes the architectural formal language through integrating transformational rules that operate on a
generic element and comprise a group of that element. In a discrete notational system, like the museum,
syntactic density is understood through a process of figuration whereby the ‘elements of the character class
can be systematically mapped on to individual elements of the compliance class’ (Bafna, 2005, p: 270). In
view of this, in the museum, the window fenestrations on the solid façade, the rectangular pattern of
mullions on the glazed façade, the internal volumes, the circular elements, the horizontal planes, the
vertical planes and the beams vary in size, proportion and characteristics. According to applied
transformational rules such as translation, rotation, reflection, stretch, scale, bending and deformation these
elements are animated (fig. 15). Thus, the architectural form of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art is
syntactic density as Meier constructed a field of alternatives that can be mapped to a compliance class.

Third, repleteness: in architecture, repleteness occurs when the character in the character class carries
a significant inscription that cannot be changed with an alternative (Bafna, 2005). Repleteness of
architectural forms, in other words, means the design elements and the character of each element, which
emerges from defined transformational rules, cannot be substituted or eliminated because they have
exemplifcational roles. Consequently, through understanding the constructive morphology of the museum
and its relation to the exemplified themes and motifs, the formal configuration of the museum follows the
logic of concretizing them into a corporeal form. This logic is regulated by a rigorous organizational
system making the location of the design elements and the overall configuration replete, too. As a result,
the repleteness of the museum’s form emerges from the exemplifcational roles of the design elements and
characters that follow a deep structure of syntactic and configurational relations.
Overall, the form of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art is aesthetically pleasing because it’s an
autonomous form that exemplifies itself relying on a dense content of abstract spatial themes and motifs.
This content is actualized through a formal language that carries syntactic density. Eventually, the whole
design process, of how that architect moved from the abstract dimension i.e. conception to the real
dimension i.e. perception, is replete.
Figure 15 process of figuration
Conclusions
In this paper, the aesthetics of architectural form was discussed in terms of Goodman’s symptoms of
exemplification, density and repleteness in order to explain when this form becomes aesthetically
distinctive. This discussion suggested that understanding the aesthetic judgment of architectural form is not
a subjective judgment of the final product. Therefore, understanding these symptoms within the
philosophical framework of procedural aesthetics, as the knowledge and the intension of the process of
artistic creation, is important to develop an objective judgment. By viewing architecture as an intellectual
activity of how the final form came to be in its corporeality, this philosophical framework was incorporated
with architectural theories.
Through the morphological analysis of Meier’s Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, this paper
has shown that Goodman’s three symptoms of aesthetics, exemplification, density and repleteness,
provided a rational judgment for architectural design. This judgment examined the entire design process; it
addressed the interaction between the logic of form and the abstract spatial themes and motifs. In other
words, it investigates the narrative of becoming or the transition of the abstract to a physical reality i.e.
concrete architectural form and the internal consistency of that form. Accordingly, how the architectural
form exemplifies itself, the semantic density of its content, the syntactic density of its formal language and
the repleteness of the design process is what makes any architectural form aesthetically distinctive.
This research contributes to architectural design theories and architectural pedagogy by extending the
understanding of aesthetics to focus attention on the operation of form-making. Accordingly, architectural
students can develop their own aesthetics instead of imitating others’ aesthetic preferences through
constructing a dense semantic dimension, developing a dense formal language and moving logically from
the abstract to the real.

Photograph credits: Illustration credits: Plans and elevations were redrawn by the authors based on
Meier’s original drawings
Photographs are from Roben PB Architectural photography, http://www.rubenpb.com/.

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