An Approach to Architectural Form through the Complexity Theories

By Kutay Karabağ
submitted as a part of the requirements of ARCH 527
05th.01.2006

“What we call ‘forms’. Whether they are natural or artificial, are only the
visible trading posts of integrating and disintegrating forces mutating at
low rates of speed.”1
Frederick Kiesler

In this paper, I will develop a discussion on the position of digital architecture2 and the
way it copes with the architectural form under the light of modern chaos and complexity
theories. In order to do this, I will begin with investigating the paradigm shift in art and
architecture that seems to be occurring through the vast use of digital technology. I will
try to demonstrate some earlier examples and efforts questioning this paradigm shift in
modern avant-garde. Finally, I will try to explain the contribution of the modern chaos
and complexity theories and of course the development of computer for a new approach
to the design of artistic and architectural form.
There is a large domain of discussions on form, yet I will not go into the ramifications of
these discussions, neither try to develop a definition about form. On this point I will
begin with accepting the general assumptions of Wilhelm Worringer and Henri Focillon,
possessing an immense and abstract designation considering form as continuity in time.
But I will try to lucidify the continuity of form, approaching it from the point of view of
modern chaos and complexity theories supported by digital technologies.
I wish to start with a rough assumption about the modernist world view of abstraction. In
his famous work Wilhelm Worringer stresses man’s “urge of abstraction” and signifies
that empathy with an artwork can only be structured through this urge of abstraction.3
What Worringer defines as “urge of abstraction”, and discusses on an abstract basis, can

1
Kiesler, Frederick. "On Correalism and Biotechnique: A Definition and Test of a New Approach to
Building Design", Architectural Record 86, no. 9, September 1939, p. 60.
2
The term ‘digital architecture’ here is not used for a certain meaning nor indicating a determined body of
architects or architectures. My intention is to recall all the activity investigating the potential of the digital
technologies as an important parameter in the field of architecture and particularly in relation to the
architectural form.
3
Worringer, Wilhelm. Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style. New York:
International University Press, 1967, pp. 3-25.

1
be described as an inherit reaction for understanding the object in general, from the point
of view that I will try to construct about the abstractionist view of modernity. Aesthetic
enjoyment, as defined by Worringer, occurs by constructing an empathy with the object,
an operation which necessitates an activity. This process, for Worringer, can be
understood as the combination of objective and subjective factors. Abstraction is
necessary for grasping the objective qualities. And empathy, in Worringer’s terms,
requires a self-relation with the object, or in other words, there has to be something
related with the inner self of the being and the object for empathy to occur.4
Seeing abstraction in this way, as an inherited desire of man for understanding or
grasping what he senses, modernism can be identified as the utmost point of a history of
processing knowledge. From the very beginning, man tries to understand what is going
on in the exterior world of his inner self. Trying to understand such a complexity without
any introductory knowledge is a very hard task for even an intelligent creature. Man
copes with this difficulty by splitting what he senses into pieces, and trying to understand
the whole piece by piece. Sometimes it is more effective to understand the pieces and
then combine this information to get the whole picture, and sometimes there is a single
important piece of information as the essence of the whole picture.
“… the urge of abstraction is the outcome of a great unrest inspired in
man by the phenomena of the outside world; …” 5
Hence, it is possible to see abstraction in general, as a strategy for comprehending what is
happening outside. Usually the human senses are able to sense much more than the
human being can comprehend. Turning back again to my rough assumption on
abstraction, it is possible to say that, human beings have produced knowledge employing
this strategy of abstraction, consisting of tactics such as, splitting into fragments, figuring
out the essence and neglecting the details. Gestalt principles constitute a systematically
formulated set of these tactics. Through the careful use of these tactics, knowledge has
been produced and accumulated one on another. Critical points in the history of
knowledge, such as Renaissance, Enlightenment and Kant’s categorization of sciences
can be seen as the final successive stations in the path of the accumulation and
categorization of knowledge in this conventional way. As human beings produced and
accumulated knowledge, they have also developed certain ways of structuring and
categorizing it. My assumption is that, modernity have provided the utmost point in
utilizing these tactics to produce, gather and manage the knowledge, which have been
accumulated too much for a long history.
After the industrial revolution and with the beginning of mass-production in various
fields, Modernism has reached the final point in a rational and reductionist world view.
Mass-production, standardization, and efficiency were some of the tools and methods
offered by modern ideology. These tools and methods have been applied in various fields
and in various parts of the world, as the function of a highly systematic and rational
worldview.
As the mass-production and standardization were spreading to various parts of the order
of the practical life, notions such as simplicity, pure geometry and abstraction became the
4
Ibid, pp. 3-25.
5
Ibid, p. 15.

2
mainstream theoretical framework in the fields of art and architecture. Modern art have
became an art of highly abstract forms of pure geometry.
Aside this mainstream approach in art and architecture, there are many exceptional
examples, some of them by very popular names of modernism, that can be interpreted as
researches for other ways of looking to the world than the rational and reductionist
worldview of modernism. On the one hand modernism had been running forward through
the path of rationale, and on the other, modern avant-garde had been questioning the
alternative ways of looking. Avant-garde approach includes various intentions and tools
mainly located around a closer relation with the organic forms, which modernism had
estranged itself probably for the requirements of its production technologies.6 Avant-
garde styles such as Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism and Futurism can be assumed to be
offering alternative ways of looking to the world.
Hence, the way modernism, or international style looked to the world was efficient in a
way to understand and handle certain things. Yet as the number of interrelations between
categories, series and pieces of knowledge increase drastically, the current way of
understanding and categorizing knowledge became insufficient. Avant-garde in
modernism looked for other understandings, other readings of the modern era, and as a
ramification of this; other visualities to see and perceive the form. Modern avant-garde
styles had developed their own way of looking to the form.
The primary reason for modern avant-garde necessitating a distinct way of looking and
expressing was their intensive effort for underlying other factors that are hidden behind
the forms and objects, than the ones revealed by modernity. The rationalist and
reductionist worldview of modernity, the furthest point in abstraction and standardization,
cannot handle and manage certain kind of information. This is both true as a worldview
and also its implications are valid in art and architecture.
Parallel to this search of distinctive ways of looking and perceiving the world, alternative
geometries for the Euclidean geometry was also popular in the modern avant-garde
circles, since geometric constitution and perception is very important in the sense of
human visuality. As Theo Van Doesborg’s below statement indicates, an important
attempt was also about enforcing the limits of three dimensions and researching about
other dimensions and geometrical systems.
“In architecture’s next phase of development the ground-plan must
disappear completely. The two-dimensional spatial composition fixed in a
ground-plan will be replaced by an exact constructional calculation – a
calculation by means of which the supporting capacity is restricted to the
simplest but strongest supporting points. For this purpose Euclidean
mathematics will be of no further use – but with the aid of calculation that

6
The idea of approaching the modern avant-garde as a distinctive path opposing the international style, and
searching on the possibilities of organic forms and other experimental aims, is mainly based on a series of
lectures for ARCH 527 course by Zeynep Mennan performed in Department of Architecture in METU in
Fall 2005.
A collection of images as an iconography selected with a similar intention described here can be seen in the
book; Migayrou, Frédéric and Zeynep Mennan (eds.). Architectures Non Standard. Paris: Centre
Pompidou, 2003.

3
 is non-Euclidean and takes into account the four dimensions everything
will be very easy.”7
It is probably not a coincidence that modern avant-garde had been seeking for new
geometries and mathematics for basing a new way of looking and understanding the
world on, simultaneously with certain scientific developments nourishing these efforts.
Certain discoveries realized in 17th and 18th centuries, have begun to find fields of
application in the late 19th and early 20th century. In this sense, Zeynep Mennan explains
some of these scientific developments as follows;
The opposition remains unresolved until the discovery of other
geometries, in other words, the recognition that the so-called natural and
abstract forms may not have a common geometric ground. Non-Euclidean
geometry, named after its proposition to Euclid’s famous fifth postulate,
owed it’s initial formulations to Gauss, Lobachevsky and Bolyai, as early
as in the first decades of the 19th century. Later in 1867, Riemann
formulated still another alternative to Euclid’s system, a geometry as “the
study of manifolds of any number of dimensions and of any curvature,
using differential geometry as the measure of this curvature.”” 8
Development of differential calculus and curved geometries were important for a new
perception of space and conceptual counterpart of these mathematical developments in
art came forth as efforts of representation of the notion of time. Time had meant
dynamism and motion against the timeless and static qualities of modernity. Mennan
continues;
“The challenge that these alternative non-Euclidean geometries
represented was the possibility of surfaces or spaces with variable
curvature, on which a figure could not be moved without being affected by
changes in its own shape and properties, thus invalidating the Euclidean
assumption of indeformability of figures in movement, that is, the positing
of an absolute unchanging form.9 The fallibility of Euclid meant then also
the fallibility of the Kantian a-priori categories of space and time without
which perception cannot occur. This first refutation of mathematical
axioms would mean a turn from the absolute to the relative nature of
truths, as pronounced in Poincare’s conventionalist view of the axioms,
stating that geometric axioms are neither synthetic a priori, nor
empirical, but conventions.” 10

7
Proposition 9: 1924 Theo van Doesburg: Towards a plastic architecture. Quoted from;
Bury, Mark. “Notes on the Non Standard: numerical and architectural production tomorrow” in Migayrou,
Frédéric and Zeynep Mennan (eds.). Architectures Non Standard. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2003, pp. 54-57.
8
English original of: Mennan, Zeynep. “Des Formes Non Standard: Un ‘Gestalt Switch’ .”, Migayrou,
Frédéric and Zeynep Mennan (eds.). Architectures Non Standard. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2003, pp. 37-38.
Original footnote: Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in
Modern Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. (Henderson, op. cit, 5)
9
Original footnote: Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in
Modern Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. (Ibid., 6)
10
Ibid, pp. 37-38.

4
With the introduction of time and motion, a certain quality of dynamism had been
reflected in some of the works of modern avant-garde. I will demonstrate three examples
in order to create an idea of depiction of time in the paintings. Figure 1 displays Umberto
Boccioni’s famous painting, “Dynamism of a Soccer Player” from 1913. Boccioni had
overlapped various interpretations or perceptions of forms of bodily movements of a
soccer player in time. Figure 2 is the Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1912 work titled ‘Nude
on a Staircase’, which has a very similar approach for understanding or depicting the
forms of bodily movement, whereas with a separate interpretation style. Final example is
Figure 3, which is a painting by Giacomo Balla from 1912; Dynamism of a Dog on a
Leash. Possessing the same intention with the previous two, Balla’s work is less
interpretive and more like a photograph exposed for a long time, overlapping the ghost-
like motion traces of the object. These three examples from the very same period exhibit
how the notions of time and motion affected deeply the artists of modern avant-garde.
A further example can be Antonio Gaudi, whom Lars Spuybroek, leader of NOX
Architectural Studio, calls as the first computer architect;
“(Mentioning about one of his projects) … It is in a sense like Gaudí's
studies, when he was calculating the exact curves of the Sagrada Familia
in Barcelona by hanging small sandbags from chains. In his studies, the
floor plan of that church was on the ceiling of his studio. By suspending
chains from that floor plan and interconnecting them he was not just
calculating the form of their curves, but also a form that could be
implemented in masonry. This makes Gaudí the first computer
architect.”11
In this sense, Le Corbusier’s, (who is one of the great figures of the international style but
not very far from the avant-garde either), appreciation of Gaudi as a great artist is also
noteworthy.12 Le Corbusier celebrates Gaudi’s work, indicating that it will be criticized
unconsciously for being out of the fashion of his time. Furthermore, as Mark Burry
informs us Le Corbusier had employed similar techniques in Ronchamp, years later his
visit to Sagrada Familia.13 Using the technique mentioned above, namely suspending
chains, Gaudi had been able to create complex curves that were not calculated or
represented before the differential mathematics. Differential mathematics was known in
the time of Gaudi, yet it was impossible to make, alter and modify the necessary
calculations for the design process of the form of the building continuously by hand.
Instead he devised a technique to physically create the curve and then copy it to the
required surface and material. He did this, since he did not want to give up from his
complex curvatures for the sake of Euclidean curves.

Original footnote: Henderson, Linda Dalrymple. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in
Modern Art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983. (Ibid., 15)
11
Spuybroek, Lars, http://www.vividvormgeving.nl/vormgeverpagina/spuybroeknrc.htm, 02nd.01.2006,
00:17. This interview with Lars Spuybroek was done by Arjen Mulder and Maaike Post for their book
called 'Book for the electronic arts', published by de balie/V2_Organisation (2000).
12
Quoted from Bury, 2003, p. 55.
Original footnote: Evans, Robin, The projective cast: architecture and its three geometries. Cambridge,
Mass.:MIT Press, 1995, p. 298.
13
Ibid, p. 57.

5
Architects, except a number of examples like Gaudi, usually work with certain
representations of the end-product of architecture. There are probably numberless
methods for design process in architecture, applied by architects, each with its own
subjectivity and interpretation. However, in order to transform the architectural form and
other information to other persons or medium, or even to create the form as a
materialization of the conceptual, architects utilize certain methods of representation.
Orthogonal drawings (including isometric) – where the building is not perceived as
demonstrated –, perspective views – which are highly interpretive and fixed to a certain
point of vision – and 3-dimensional models – which possess the highest level of
abstraction - are the primary ways of representation of architecture. The rules and
standards are strictly determined, discipline of architecture have employed these methods
of representation for thousands of years, without much alteration. Besides these standards
and norms of architectural practice create a high level of abstraction, these methods of
representation are already great abstractions of the end-product. Hence conventional
practice of architecture employs a second degree abstraction, in the materialization
process of the conceptual design of the form. This is what Theo Van Doesborg complains
about and offers a substitute approach denying the ground plan.
Structuring a whole system of abstraction through the history, man is at the same time
aware of certain kinds of knowledge or entity that cannot be abstracted or reduced. Gaudi
did not want to abstract these curvatures into Euclidean curves which are formally not
identical but quite similar. He was aware of the distinction between the two and he was
caring for this distinction, for he believes in the idea that it worth. Similarly, the most
famous ambiguity in painting is certainly Mona Lisa, who has a mysterious meaning in
her face which is never certain, and worth a lot in this sense. Ernest Gombrich’s words on
Mona Lisa provide a clear elucidation of the situation;
"Even in photographs of the picture we experience this strange effect, but
in front of the original in the Paris Louver it is almost uncanny.
Sometimes she seems to mock at us, and then again we seem to catch
something like sadness in her smile." 14
Mona Lisa is not reducable or abstractable in any sense. With all this ambiguity, it is the
complexity which can not be abstracted into something decisive or determinant. It’s
complex form can not be reduced to its fragments. Mona Lisa is a form, existing as a
whole, possessing the potential of various interactions with the viewer, and the result of
its effect can never be predicted.

14
Gombrich, Ernest Hans Josef, The Story of Art. New York: Phaidon, 1995.

6
II

“The new sciences of complexity -- fractals, nonlinear dynamics, the new

cosmology, self-organizing systems - - have brought about the change in
perspective. We have moved from a mechanistic view of the universe to
one that is self-organizing at all levels, from the atom to the galaxy.
Illuminated by the computer, this new world view is paralleled by changes
now occurring in architecture.”15
Charles Jencks
In the above quotation, Charles Jenks notes the relation of complexity theories and the
paradigm shift in architecture triggered by the flashing developments in digital
technologies. Scientifically and theoretically supported by the employment of non-
Euclidean geometries, differential equations, relativity theory, splines and NURBS curves
and other similar developments this paradigm shift in architecture have found its field of
application through the computer, which was probably the lacking ingredient figure in the
investigation of modern avant-garde for pushing the borders and constraints of 3-
dimensional Euclid geometry and the classical space understanding. The position of the
modern avant-garde asking for an inquiry on the borders of Euclidean space, have been
modestly mystified under the effect of industrial requirements of mass-production and
lacking of sufficient scientific and technological support. Modern complexity and chaos
theories, as a unified array, developed almost simultaneously in various disciplines, is the
key factor for locating the essence of this paradigm shift in architecture and its formal
ramifications.
Modern ‘Chaos and complexity theories’ is a body of knowledge explaining the working
principles of complex systems, developed particularly in the 20th century. There are
different theories varying in some points, yet I will not go in the details of these theories
and will handle them as a whole set of theories in this study.16 Many applications exist in
various fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, meteorology, biology, economy,
computation, cosmology and system engineering.
A complex system, understood in the context of chaos and complexity theories, is a
system that could not be analyzed through the classical linear cause-and-effect relations.
Very simply, as the actors in the system and the relations between these actors increase to
a complex level, the system starts to behave differently and the factors that can be
neglected in the classical sciences become potentially effective on the numerous relations
in the system. The system does not work linearly and instead has a self-order of non-
linear multiplicity, differentially related in itself. In this case, the system begins to be
holistic and emergent, namely cannot be abstracted or simplified, and able to emerge
unpredictable behavior or results based on simple changes in details. A complex system
is not reducable in any sense.
15
Jencks, Charles, “The New Paradigm in Architecture – Theory”, in The Architectural Review, February
2003.
16
The pioneer studies generating the modern chaos and complexity theories can be numbered as Darcy
Thompson’s studies on growth and form, Rene Thom’s ‘Theory of Catasthropes’, Benoit B. Mandelbrot’s
‘Theory of Fractals’ and Hans Jemy’s work on ‘Cymatics’.

7
 The linear cause-and-effect metaphor of organization as a machine, the
Newtonian/Cartesian perspective, has supported the development of
modern systems and practices. As this paradigm has reached its limits,
chaos and complexity theory has been guiding evolution of contemporary
thought and practice. This theory of nonlinear systems dynamics spread
through the physical sciences as, increasingly, newly discovered
phenomena could not be explained or predicted with linear models.17
I will not go into the details of chaos and complexity theories, yet I will try to explain
what is important for the paradigm shift in architecture. Theories in architecture usually
like to borrow concepts and explanations form other disciplines. In this sense, for forcing
the limits of Euclid/Newtonian perspective, the geometric and mathematical notions of
complexity have became highly significant. In fact, Newtonian physics can be considered
as an abstraction of quantum physics, since Newtonian physics neglects a number of
factors that are certainly insignificant in worldly scale of space and time. Through the
developments of new geometries, nth-dimension systems, splines instead of curves, and
integral calculus; architecture can force the limits of its classical notions and establish a
new geometrical system of analyzing the form. Through these techniques, architecture
can design relational systems that are not static and singular, but dynamic and multiple.
Self-organization is another key concept developed through the chaos and complexity
theories, trying to explain the inner dynamics of a system which cannot be managed with
determinant rules and power organizations. A self-organizing system can be analyzed
through its inner dynamics and potentials which are continuously under a certain way of
evolution. Such a system can be conducted through designing the macro mechanisms
controlling the inner relations on a higher level. For the point of architecture, design can
be seen as not the design of architectural components, but the design of the general
principles that generate and re-generate these components and construct their
interrelations.
Thus, the transformation of architectural space, or with a more pretentious claim, the
paradigm shift in architecture have been a debate that had begun in the turn of the century
with avant-garde modern and nourished with the complexity theories flowingly. This
shift alters primarily the classical space understanding as a passive container of objects
and events, but instead offers an understanding of an active field of forms and vectors or
relationships of any kind. Instead of Euclid Geometry, more complex and differential
geometries; instead of points and lines, splines and complex curves take place. Resistance
to the physical environment and change leaves itself to an inherit dynamic and evolution.

17
Brodnick, Robert J., and Krafft, Larry J., Chaos and Complexity Theory: Implications For Research and
Planinng in Higher Education. Contributed Paper for Association for Institutional Research 37th Annual
Forum, May 1997, p. 3.

8
III

“Forms are alive in that they are never immobile.”

Henri Focillon18

Reading the paradigm shift in architecture from the point of view of form, in this part I
wish to discuss the digital approach to form. In this sense, the beginning can be on the
required conditions for activity, or for a more actual approach, ‘life’. Complexity theory
offers a hypothesis that the real activity or ‘life’ takes place in the in-between states of
matter. Theoretical biologist Stuart Kaufmann explains as follows:
“The wonderful possibility … is that on many fronts, life evolves toward a
regime that is poised between order and chaos. The evocative phrase that
points to this working hypothesis is this: life exists at the edge of chaos.”19
He states that, one of these in-between states is somewhere about liquid state of water,
since ice is too ordered and the gaseous is too chaotic. “The edge of chaos” is an active
state between order and chaos. His ideas have remembered me the Le Chatelier’s
principle in basic chemistry, which is defined as follows in The Columbia Electronic
Encyclopedia,
“Le Châtelier's principle, chemical principle that states that if a system in
equilibrium is disturbed by changes in determining factors, such as
temperature, pressure, and concentration of components, the system will
tend to shift its equilibrium position so as to counteract the effect of the
disturbance.” 20
Combining these two ideas, it is possible to say that life occurs in the in-between states of
a system, where you are not in equilibrium, but a constant activity “to counteract the
effect of the disturbance” through the equilibrium. The disturbance never stops, since it is
a complex system of multiple agents in interaction. So in this state, the system gains a
continuous dynamism, an activity of continuous motion through the equilibrium, but
never equilibrium. Any activity, so the forms themselves, come into being in this state of
constant activity and transformation.
Such an activity in a system funds a continuous mode of exchange of energy or
information. Turning back to the chemical metaphor, system constantly acts and reacts,
crating and using energy. Forms in a complex system continuously transfer energy or
information to each other, as long as they are in an interactive state. Mark Taylor stresses
that, words ‘movement’ and ‘moment’ come from the same root in Latin; ‘momentum’.21
Moment holds a movement potential and movement occurs in a moment. This argument

18
Focillon, Henry, The Life of Forms in Art. New York: Zone Books, 1992.
19
Kaufmann, Stuart, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and
Complexity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 32.
20
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed., Columbia University Press, 2005. 05.01.2005, 01:51.
21
Taylor, Mark C., The moment of complexity: emerging network culture. Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2001, p. 23.

9
puts notions of time and motion in a critical condition in the complexity theory.
Interrelations between these two notions are so strong and multiple, that their effects on
forms can not be denied. These two concepts are continuous fluid forces, not acting
together, but acting blending into each other and evolving the other. Form can be
assumed under the effects of this couple force, which are the self of the whole activity in
a complex system.
Thus making a comparison between space defined in Cartesian coordinates and space
defined through the tools of differential mathematics; Cartesian space is presumed to be a
passive container of agents and events resulting from the inter-relations of these agents.
Cartesian space is in a neutral equilibrium state in this sense, and opposing with it, space
of vectors and energy transformation is an active one. It is a continuously active space,
near to the point of equilibrium, just on the edge line of equilibrium and not equilibrium,
but never equilibrium. It is like a man standing on the rope and trying to stay in balance,
but never in balance, moving forwards and backwards continuously.
This kind of an energy transfer and continuous activity of multiple agents make the
complex systems holistic. The details can not be neglected in order to understand the
system. The whole can not be reduced to its fragments or components. Ray Kurzweil
cites one of the most accepted theories about the origin of the universe, where he uses the
word ‘emergence’ for process of formation of light, for it is the result of a very tiny,
conventionally neglectable advantage. For the theory, the universe has 10 billion and 1
protons for each 10 billion antiprotons, and the confrontation of these resulted with the
emergence of light.22 Any slight advantage or distinction may be important and create an
unpredictable result in a complex system.
In modern chaos and complexity theories, irreducible character of complex systems is
critical. Through this statement, it is possible to conclude that it is not the way to examine
the pieces in order to understand a complex system. The proposal of complexity in its
place is the investigation of the system as a differential whole. In a complex
mathematical system forms can be defined with differential equations where each
curvature is defined with parameters that are affected by the other curvatures, opposing
Euclidean geometry where each element is statically determined independent from the
external factors.
This is why splines and NURBS curves are important for understanding the forms, re-
considered under the light of modern chaos and complexity theories. I will cite Figure 4
from Greg Lynn, where he compares an Euclidean curve with it’s, in a way,
correspondent constructed with spline geometry.
The degree of the curve depends on the number of its parameters and has no maximum
limit in getting more complex. In Figure 5, to cite from Lynn again, various degrees of
the same curve is demonstrated. Lynn states the substitution of splines instead of lines
and describes splines as follows;
“Unlike lines, splines are vectors defined with direction. These vectors
are suspended from lines with hanging weights similar to the geometry of

22
Kurzweil, Raymond, “Chapter One: The Law of Time and Chaos” in The Age of Spiritual Machines.
New York: Penguin Books, 2000, p. 10.

10
 a catenoidal curve. Yet unlike a catenoidal curve, a spline can
accommodate weights and gravities directed in free space. … Although
the control vertices, hulls and weights are defined in a point-based.
Cartesian space, the splines are not defined as points but flows. The
spline curve is unlike a line or radius in that its shape is not reducable to
exact coordinates. The spline curve flows as a stream between a
constellation of weighted control vertices and any position along this
continous series can only be defined relative to its position in the
sequence.”23
New digital vocabulary of forms employ complex curvatures of varying degrees for
creating forms, resulting in forms holding some kind of a dynamic information. This
information is inherited in the curvature, in the mathematical composition and
geometrical existence of the form itself. Even a simple vector holds the information of
direction and magnitude as a level further than a simple line. What’s more is it holds the
information in relation to the other forms that it is in interaction with. The differential
composition of the form holds the information of the relational effects of the other forms.
Below statement by Jean Molino can be read as an interpretation of factors generating the
composition of the form, as explained in the previous lines.
“Nothing explains the genesis of forms, nothing, that is, except forms
themselves and their encounters with other forms.” 24
The information that a form carries is dynamic, under continuous evolution by other
forms. The weights and distances, namely the parameters of the differentiality is a
parameter in this interactive communication. It is just like a computer – that again proves
why computers are necessary to work with complex geometry – which incessantly
calculates the result of a certain operation with given new parameters. The computer
knows the rules of the operation, but the parameters are emerging through the interaction
of other forms. If the results of the operations accomplished by the computer were plotted
by certain intervals of time, the result would be a complex curve of the degree of
interchanging parameters. For a spontaneous time on the graph, the complex curve holds
both the information from its previous state (vectorial information), and the information
for the next state, additionally the similar information for the other interacting forms,
with a precision due to the definition of the relations.
Actually, Greg Lynn gives an example very similar to this curve-machine calculating
new data continuously.25 He brings up the relational process of a dog chasing a Frisbee.
At the initial time, dog does not know any of the necessary information about the flight of
the Frisbee such as direction, velocity, weight, wind and gravity. However, after the
Frisbee is launched, the dog begins to perform successive operations using any vectorial
information he acquires about both the Frisbee and itself.26 In each new operation, he

23
Lynn, Greg, Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, pp. 21-22.
24
Molino, Jean, “Introduction”, in Focillon, Henry, The Life of Forms in Art. New York: Zone Books,
1992, p. 14.
25
Lynn, 1998, pp. 23-24.
26
It is not clearly known what dog performs in this situation, since we do not know how his brain and
bodily actions work in this sense. I am not insisting about the dog performing certain operations or making

11
uses more accurate or updated data added on the previous data. In each step of new time,
the weight of the past positions increase and the graph of the differential curve become
more explicit. And finally, two distinct differential curves of various degrees meet at a
point, unless any new external parameter alters the curve. To cite from Lynn;
“The path of the dog will inevitably be described by a curved line. The
inflections of this curved line indicate the velocities, directions and timing
of each of the imbricated vectors. This situation cannot be described by a
straight line with endpoints because, mathematically, it is a differential
equation with more than two interacting components. … Curvature is
mode of integrating complex interacting entities into a continuous
form.”27
The capacity and ability of form holding extensive information and transferring it to the
other forms, proves its continuity in time. The complex curvature of the dog’s path
running after the Frisbee can be extended infinitely on both points of, capture time and
initial time as well. The degree of the complexity of the curvature depends on its
definition or literally, dog’s skill, here. It is necessary to note that, such a form holding
various levels of information, and open to interactions by other forms, clearly opposes
Euclid’s fifth postulate of indeformability of figures in movement, which have been
mentioned in the previous part of this paper. Such a form can continuously be deformed
as seen in the differential curvatures.
Working on the continuity of forms, Scottish biologist D’Arcy Thompson have gained
reputation as one of the pioneer figures of modern chaos and complexity theories with his
famous work “On Growth and Form”.28 He compared the morphology of the form of
some animals, insects and plants, by utilizing deformable grids, on which he plotted the
forms of his objects. Through these analysis, Thompson have realized a certain relation,
or in better words, continuation between forms of nature. His work figured out
curvilinear lines when the deformations of the deformable grids are plotted. Going one
step further, Thompson had been able to analyze certain forces acting on the forms of
nature, through the continuity relations, he had observed, between certain creatures.
Gregg Lynn explains what can be concluded as his contribution to the modern chaos and
complexity theories in following lines:
“Rather than thinking of deformation as a subset of the pure, the term
deformation can be understood as a system of regulation and order that
proceeds through the integration and resolution of multiple interacting
forces and fields.”29
As the interaction between the forms does not stop, which is impossible in the terms of
complexity defining space as an active and dynamic entity, every form is certainly
continuous. Looking from this perspective, architectural form could no more be designed

calculations. My intention here is to express that the dog gathers information through its senses and
somehow processes that information resulting with an action of a complex curvature.
27
Ibid, p. 24.
28
Thomson, D’Arcy Wentworth, On Growth and Form. New York: Dover Publications Inc., 1992.
29
Lynn, 1998, p. 26.

12
in the conventional way, since it is impossible to design the form, which is a continuity in
time. Instead some tactics are being developed in order to produce form, as an integral
element of new vocabulary. Instead of designing form, some designers prefer the term
‘selecting form’. In this sense, designer is aware of the continuous wholeness of form, as
understood in the chaos and complexity theories. This awareness is a potential for
analyzing, understanding and reflecting the information inherited in the form itself. In
this way, it will be possible to uncover the flows, vectors, and other dynamical
parameters of forms.
Henceforth, position of the architect and the discipline of architecture have to be
questioned and discussed, concluding with a re-definition, at least, in terms of their
relation with forms. Architecture seems to provide a new position for the architect, who
somehow leaves his position of satisfaction of ‘urge of abstraction”. Instead, architect
becomes an editor or designer of the designing sub-systems. Terms like ‘form selecting’
or ‘form capturing’ have been begun getting used, in order to define the process of
design. Architect becomes the designer of what works on form, either machine or human.
He is the designer of the rules of the game, the level and shape of interactivity, the weight
of the elements and all the other factors. Form production becomes form-selecting from
the continuity of forms. Bernard Cache takes the statement on a closely related basis:
“objects are no longer designed, but calculated” allowing the design of
complex forms with surfaces of variable curvature and laying “the
foundation for a non-standard mode of production.”
Such a questioning seems to be started for a period of time, and going on spreading
through a vast territory. This process will redefine architecture and architects, repeating
again, at least in the sense that their relation with formal constitution. This redefinition
has to produce a new formal vocabulary, examples of which are being applied in various
places of the world, by architects such as Greg Lynn. The new formal vocabulary is very
basically of motion and animation or complexity and curvature, or multiplicity and
interaction, non-linearity and emergence.
“This new spatial and formal paradigm expands visual and plastic
repertoire by producing highly complex gestalten, augmented in
information content, a thickness defying the limits of our perceptual and
mental abilities, and appealing for a similar augmentation of our
faculties.” 30

30
English original of Mennan, Zeynep, “Des Formes Non Standard: Un ‘Gestalt Switch’ .”, in Migayrou,
Frederick and Zeynep Mennan (eds.), 2003, Architectures Non Standard (Paris: Editions du Centre
Pompidou), p. 34.

13
 Figure 1 - Umberto
Boccioni, Dynamism of a
Soccer Player, 1913, Oil
on canvas

Figure 2 – Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a

Staircase, No: 2, 1912, Oil on canvas

Figure 3 – Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a Dog

on a Leash, 1912, Oil on canvas

14
 Original note: An example of
composite curve using the
same logic of regional
definition and tangency …
Each section of the
composite curve is defined
by a fixed radius. The
connection between radial
curve segments occurs at
points of tangency that are
defined by a line connecting
the radii. Perpendicular to
these lines, straight line
segments can be inserted
between the radial curves.

Original note: A similar

curve described using spline
geometry, in which the radii
are replaced by control
vertices with weights and
handles through which the
curved spline flows..

Figure 4 – Two similar curves, one of Euclidian geometry with radius, and other employing splines with weights.
Soruce: Lynn, Greg, “Animate Form”. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, p. 21.

Figure 5 – Same spline curve of varying degress. The first three images are three-degree, seven-degree and two-
degree splines. The fourth image displays a superimposed series of splines sharing the same control vertices with
different degrees of influence. The final image is a mesh surface produced using the splines. Soruce: Lynn, Greg,
“Animate Form”. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998, pp. 24-25.

15
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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