Poetic expression in architecture

Abstract

A common element of twentieth century thought has been the analysis of each phenomenon to its internal logic, the reduction of everything to bare essentials. What has evolved is a notion, to some extent shared by all of us, that in a world which seems almost incomprehensible we can regain meaning by stripping away the superfluous and revealing the essential. What has been pushed aside in this mind-cleaning frenzy is that other side of human nature, the speculative, imaginative side, a side no less important than the definitive and rational one. My purpose in this thesis is to use poetry--that is, poetic verse--as a model for relearning the expression of architectural ideas in ways that will encourage people to speculate and to form imaginative connections. The study is in two parts: an essay and a design of a library for Barnard College.