Eunoia, a literary approach within architectural practice

February 2013

The title of this article introduces us to the beautiful thoughts of Christian Bök, a Canadian poet. To write “Eunoia”, he restricted himself by the use of only one vowel for each chapter.

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Nevertheless, each chapter transcends a character of its own; chapter ‘a’ the arab world of spices and herbs, chapter ‘e’ the adulterous woman of French nobility, and chapter ‘u’ the violence of a Mongolian warrior. The work of Christian Bök shows that the meaning of a text is not based on the single interpretation of words, but can be derived out of interpreting the text or chapter as a whole. Bök’s poetic work exemplifies the concept of literature and theory in contemporary culture. A culture in which the ever increasing speed of media, the fragmentation of information and a dominant need for visual metaphors are influencing literature and the architectural practice.

 

Mark Proosten

This article was written for Archiprint, volume 01, issue 2.

A pdf version of the article can be found --> Archiprint