무명의 특성

Quality without a name 또는 QWAN. 크리스토퍼 알렉산더가 1979년 저서 The timeless way of building에서 설명하는 개념.

설명

좋은 건축물과 나쁜 건축물 사이에는 객관적 차이가 존재한다.

We have been taught that there is no objective difference between good buildings and bad, good towns and bad. The fact is that the difference between a good building and a bad building, between a good town and a bad town, is an objective matter. It is the difference between health and sickness, wholeness and divided-ness, self-maintenance and self-destruction. In a world which is healthy, whole, alive, and self-maintaining, people themselves can be alive and self-creating. In a world which is unwhole and self-destroying, people cannot be alive: they will inevitably themselves be self-destroying, and miserable.¹

내적 모순으로부터의 자유로움

It is a subtle kind of freedom from inner contradictions. A system has this quality when it is at one with itself; it lacks it when it is divided. It has it when it is true to its own inner forces; lacks it when it is untrue to its own inner forces. It has it when it is at peace with itself; and lacks it when it is at war with itself. You already know this quality. The feeling for it is the most primitive feeling which an animal or a man can have.¹

물리학과 화학의 세계관으로 인한 선입견

But to grasp it fully you must overcome the prejudice of physics which tells us that all things are equally alive and real…. An atom is so simple that there is never any question whether it is true to its own nature…. And because physics has concentrated on very simple systems, like atoms, we have been led to believe that what something “is,” is an entirely separate question from what it “ought to be”(Is-ought problem); and that science and ethics can’t be mixed.¹

이름을 붙일 수 없는 이유

Alive:

The word which we most often use to talk about the quality without a name is the word “alive.” … But the very beauty of the word “alive” is just its weakness…. And yet this is a metaphor. Literally, we know that plants and animals are alive, and fire and music are not alive. If we are pressed to explain why we call one fire alive and another dead, then we are at a loss. The metaphor makes us believe that we have found a word to grasp the quality without a name. But we can only use the word to name the quality, when we already understand the quality.¹

Whole:

Another word we often use to talk about the quality without a name is “whole.” A thing is whole according to how free it is of inner contradictions…. But the word “whole” is too enclosed. It suggests closure, containment, finiteness…. But a lung is whole, only so long as it is breathing oxygen from the air outside the organism; a person is whole only so long as he is a member of some human group; a town is whole only so long as it is in balance with the surrounding countryside.¹

Comfortable:

Another facet of the quality which has no name is caught by the word “comfortable.” … Places which are comfortable are comfortable because they have no inner contradictions, because there is no little restlessness disturbing them…. Yet the word “comfortable” is easy to misuse, and has too many other meanings. There are kinds of comfort which stultify and deaden too. It is too easy to use the word for situations which have no life in them because they are too sheltered.¹

Free:

A word which overcomes the lack of openness in the words “whole” and “comfortable,” is the word “free.” The quality without a name is never calculated, never perfect; that subtle balance of forces only happens when the ideas and images are left behind; and created with abandon…. And yet, of course, this freedom can be too theatrical: a pose, a form, a manner. A building which has a “free” form - a shape without roots in the forces or materials it is made of - is like a man whose gestures have no roots in his own nature. Its shape is borrowed, artificial, forced, contrived, made to copy outside images, not generated by the forces inside. That kind of so-called freedom is opposite to the quality which has no name.¹

Exact:

A word which helps restore the balance is the word “exact.” The word “exact” helps to counterbalance the impression of other words like “comfortable” and “free.” … And, yes, of course, the word “exact” does nor describe it properly. It has on sense of freedom in it; and it is too reminiscent of those other things which are exact in an entirely different sense…. If I cut a square of cardboard, and make it perfectly exact…. The meaning of the word “exact” which I use here is almost opposite. A thing which has the quality without a name never fits any image exactly. What is exact is its adaptation to the forces which are in it.¹

Egoless:

A word which goes much deeper than the word “exact” is “egoless.” … And yes, although the old bench and its carving may be egoless, this word is also not quite right. It does not mean, for instance, that the man who made it left his own person out of it. It was part of his person that he liked the bench, and wanted to carve hearts in it. Perhaps he made it for his favorite girl. It is perfectly possible to make a thing which has the quality which has no name, and still let it reflect your personality.[1]

Eternal:

A last word which can help to catch the quality without a name is the word “eternal.” Al things and people and places which have the quality without a name, reach into the realm of the eternal…. And yet, like all the other words, this word confuses more than it explains. It hints at a religious quality. The hint is accurate…. And yet … it is not mysterious. It is above all ordinary. What makes it eternal is its ordinariness. The word “eternal” cannot capture that.¹

Words are too broad, too vague, or too large:

Imagine the quality without a name as a point, and each of the words which we have tried as an ellipse. Each ellipse includes this point. But each ellipse also covers many other meanings, which are distant from this point. Since every word is always an ellipse like this - then every word will always be too broad, too vague, too large in scope to refer only and exactly to the quality which is the point. No word can ever catch the quality without a name because the quality is too particular, and words too broad.¹

The quality of life

Places which have this quality, invite this quality to come to life in us. And when we have this quality in us, we tend to make it come to life in towns and buildings which we help to build. It is a self-supporting, self-maintaining, generating quality. It is the quality of life. And we must seek it, for our own sakes, in our surroundings, simply in order that we can ourselves become alive. That is the central scientific fact in all that follows.²

QWAN, patterns of events, patterns of space

The quality without a name in us, our liveliness, our thirst for life, depends directly on the patterns in the world, and the extent to which they have this quality themselves. Patterns which live, release this quality in us. But they release this quality in us, essentially because they have it in themselves.³

Footnotes

Chapter 2, The timeless way of building ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰
Chapter 3 “Being alive”, The timeless way of building ↩
Chapter 6 “Patterns which are alive”, The timeless way of building ↩