Mapping Inter and Transdisciplinary Relationships in Architecture: A First Approach to a Dictionary under Construction

Abstract

This paper serves as part of the groundwork for the creation of a transdisciplinary dictionary of architecture that will be the result of inter and transdisciplinary research. The body of dictionary entries will be determined through the mapping of interrelating disciplines and concepts that emerge during said research. The aim is to create a dictionary whose entries derive from the scope of architecture as a discipline, some that may be not well defined in architecture but have full meanings in other disciplines. Or, even, define a hybrid disciplinary scope. As a first approach, the main entries – architecture and music, architecture and mathematics, architecture, music and mathematics, architecture and cosmology, architecture and dance, and architecture and cinema – incorporate secondary entries – harmony, matter and sound, full/void, organism and notation – for on the one hand these secondary entries present themselves as independent subjects (thought resulting from the main) and on the other they present themselves as paradigmatic representative concepts of a given conceptual context. It would also be of interest to see which concepts are the basis of each discipline and also those which, while not forming the basis, are essential to a discipline’s operationality. The discussion is focused in the context of history, the varying disciplinary interpretations, the differing implications those disciplinary interpretations have in the context of architecture, and the differing conceptual interpretations. The entries also make reference to important authors and studies in each specific case. Within the context of the dictionary idea, the paper also aims to be a showcase and motive for debate on architecture in general, and architecture in contemporaneity in particular.

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