Riassunto esame Metodologia del Progetto, prof. Bacchini, articolo consigliato The Ontology of Architecture in Japan, Mciver Lopes

The ontology of architecture in Japan

This is the plan view detail of Ise Jingu. In the right part, there is the current sanctuary, or goshoden, and in the left part, an empty site of the new goshoden, called kodenchi. This last part will be completed in 2013.

Ontology and culture

Philosophers have, for a long time, studied the theory of art in culturally different contexts. The last target was and is the definition of an ontology of art. What is often asked is what makes a material object a work of art. It is also important to understand the ontological mechanisms that lead the individual to appreciate a work.

Mechanisms of artistic appreciation

Nelson Goodman observes that while some artwork can be falsified (paintings), others cannot be (poems). Seconds are, according to Goodman, single-instance works or token events, while the first are multiple-instance works and can be copied. Though his ontology of art is not shared, he seeks to define his practices of artistic appreciation.

A phenomenon is culturally invariant if you cannot learn anything new about it when you look at it in another cultural context. Perhaps the practices of artistic appreciation are cultural invariants and therefore it is also the ontology that implies. Art forms are, however, far from being cultural invariants and even for transcultural studies on the ontology of art, in fact, it is important that they are like this.

Ontology of art

There are basically two positions on the ontology of art:

• Existence of multiple ontologies for which there is not an ontological category that contains all the artistic manifestations. Artwork is divided into groups to facilitate artistic appreciation and classification even in different cultural contexts.
• Presence of a single ontology. All the artistic works belong to a single ontological category. The work of the artist is the production of a token, "the act of the artist to specify an appreciation focus," as David Davies defines. It is a vehicle for transmission and expression of artistic content that can consist of an object, a performance. The vehicle itself is the manifestation of the work of the artist. Different forms of art differ only because they have a transmission vehicle that differs. Davies' monism allows cultural variance: the vehicle can change in different cultural contexts; it can also change the viewer's comprehension methodology belonging to different cultural contexts.

Shikinen Sengu

Ise Jingu is one of the most important and visited Shintoist temples, consecrated to Amaterasu Omikami, goddess of the sun. From the archaeological evidence, it was determined that it was founded in the 5th-6th century AD. Its importance is such that every Japanese, at least once in his life, must visit it on pilgrimage. The peculiarity of this and of many other Japanese temples (about 30) is t