ARCH5012 – ISSUES IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

LECTURER - PROF.DR.AYSU AKALIN

2020-2021 Fall

SUN AND LIGHTNING

THE VISIBILITY OF RADIANCE
(BY LARS SPUYBROEK)

PRESENTED BY
MUSTAFA DALLI
208355209
What Is Visibility? Visibility matches... with what we see at this moment.

When things exist to be visible, the structure of the Things are born in the arena of presence, without any
visible must coincide with that of existence. backstage, basement or any other space behind the
curtain – they acquire the status of image long before
reaching our consciousness.

A thing does not “have” properties; a whole does not

“have” parts.

CIRCLE
&
ROUND

Gilles Deleuze (URL 2)

1925-1995
(URL 1)
How do external visibility and internal structure coincide?
What Is Visibility?
■ What is visibility? Spuybroek begins his article with this question. And he gives the following
answer to this question."visibility matches with what we can see, which at least connects what we
see at this moment with that of the next, what we don’t see yet." Spuybroek believes Visibility is a
given phenomenon. And he argues that in order to talk about the concept of visibility, we need to
look at the act of being and the concepts of existence -giving-visibility must be handled together.
And he says that the things we see, the concept of existence of objects, are formed much before
visibility, that is, the concept of existence is formed before visibility in a way. And draws attention
to the concept of radiance. And he says that the concept of visibility is created from within, sent
out, dispersed, and more importantly, "given" as he said at the beginning. On the other hand, he
draws attention to the distinction Gilles Deleuze made earlier between the circle and the round.
And he argues that the circle does not have a thickness and its midpoint is important, on the
other hand, the parts that make up the round and the belonging of these parts are important.
What Is Visibility? The circle does not rotate; it stands.

stillness and radiance

"Everything
changes and
nothing remains
Plátōn (URL 4) still. "
B.C 428/7 OR 424/3 –
B.C 348/7)

“We never cross

(URL 3) the same river
If there is a thickness to things that defines twice.”
their reality, it must be the thickness of &
radiance.
“Everything
the circle doesn’t rotate horizontally; it stands vertically. Heraclitus (URL 5) flows.”
B.C 535/B.C 475
What Is Visibility?
■ Spuybroek tries to explain the controversies he mentions by referring to the circle dance.
Because, the circle dance is a viable model to explain the concept of belonging, because it
touches upon many of belonging’s aspects. It explaines the confusion between the whole and the
parts, the one and the many and more importantly, between movement and standstill. He refers
to the energetic movement of those involved in the dance and the motion of the circle itself, and
says that this is the whole purpose of being a circle. He argues that the circle does not turn, it
stands. And he says that the circle stops, is motionless but still spreads outward and changes.
And here by entering the concept of deviation, more precisely, the concepts of change and
fluency. It tries to explain the concepts of circle and change. Referring to the "everything changes"
aphorisms of Heraclitus and Plato, he thinks that the radiance that spreads in a circular fashion,
in other words, the concept of visibility changes after a point.
Sun & Ekphanestaton “…the sun was not merely equated with light; its light
was also equated with the gift.”

“..we recognize the sun as a model of generosity in our own age.”

Beauty as gift: a diagram of the gift’s transformation into beauty via “charis,”
depicting generosity on the left and radiance on the right.(Spuybroek, 2014).
(URL 6) …in explaining the transformation of the gift into the Greek notion of
In modern eyes, the sun is either charis, mostly translated as “grace,” and again from charis into
viewed as the machine of visibility, the beauty: multiple hands radiating from the object, linking gentility,
external source that illuminates all warmth and kindness with the shininess of gold and adornment. The
things on earth, or, at best, as a ancient Greeks were obsessed with beauty and grace, of course,
metaphor for radiance. and invariably associated them with shining, gleaming or glowing.
Sun & Ekphanestaton
■ And in this part of his work, in the chapter "Sun and Ekphanestaton", he focuses on the Sun,
which is a physical manifestation of the concepts of brightness, visibility, and curvature that I
mentioned earlier. For the sun; He is referring to the greatest and most historical representative
of visibility, radiance and existence. And especially it talks about being the purest representative
of gifting culture. And from this point on, he tries to explain these concepts by emphasizing the
concept of "Gifting Culture" and emphasizing gifting culture - Ancient Greek culture. Because in
the ancient Greek culture, radiance, sublimity and elegance were related to the sun and divinity.
Sun & Ekphanestaton
” gift cycle is embodied by three stages… These three
stages are, “the three obligations: giving, receiving and
returning
The three-step procedure of gift-giving (left) and its representation
in the Three Graces (right) (Spuybroek, 2014).
The goddess Aglaea stands for the stage of giving,
Euphrosyne for receiving and Thalia for returning.
Beauty turns things into miniature versions of the sun.
Ekphanestaton means beauty is
more than appearance, though, or
rather, it means beauty is the
appearance of the more.
We do not see things because the sun
illuminates them at some specific hour at some
specific place; we see them because they are
“of” the sun, or better – to put it in terms of gift
theory – because they are an “inalienable” part
of the sun.
Sun & Ekphanestaton
■ First, a slide ago I explained the relationship between Günei and the act of giving, grace, that
Spuybroek mentioned. In this part, I would like to mention the concepts of "gifting culture" and
"Ekphanestaton" which are related to beauty. Marcel Mauss mentions that the "gifting circle" has
three stages: giving, receiving and returning. It speaks of the received, the given and the cyclical
form of this. And he associates these concepts with 3 goddesses, Thalia- Agalea- Euphrosyne in
Greek mythology.The goddess Aglaea stands for the stage of giving, Euphrosyne for receiving and
Thalia for returning. Here he talks about Ekphanestaton and the concepts of beauty. He talks
about the concepts of beauty and grace, let's be together, that the concept of elegance is an
operational form of beauty. Spuybroek mentions that the relationship of Gift Culture - 3
goddesses and grace. He also talks about the fact that giving is operatively sublime, graceful and
beautiful, and that the sun is also the pure representative of this sublime gifting circle, that is,
beauty.
Lightning and Epiphany
Lightning is the icon of the
linear model, the sun that
of the cyclical model.

The differentiation between

the father and son is always
of a structural nature. Zeus
personifies the purely
vertical: pure authority
reflected by pure awe, and
when we meet him..

ZEUS ( URL 7) APOLLO (URL 8)

Lightning, however, is consistently white, invariably strikes from above and always breaks through the
darkness (even in daytime when storm clouds have gathered), by turning the invisible visible in a flash.
Lightning and Epiphany
■ In this section, he refers to the story of Zeus and his attack on his son Apollo with lightning, and
he deals with lightning. He examines the linear progression of the lightning with the arrow of
Apollo and the round shape of the Sun through the previously mentioned discussions of round-
gift culture-elegance and beauty. And he discusses the aggressive and sudden appearance of
lightning and the Sun's illumination with a longer and circular form, that is, with an inner
radiance, over the concepts I have just mentioned.
Lightning and Epiphany
Simply put, a straight line does one thing at a time,
while a curve does two.
(URL 9)
Circularity, in contrast, combines such a
vertical axis with a second axis
perpendicular to it, which has values
that vary between close and far.
But, the circle is not just about limiting the extremes, which it
does at its periphery.
(URL 10)
A straight line can decrease or increase a value, but only by
going in opposite directions on the same line; a curve (in our
specific case of the cycle, a circle) can decrease and
increase values simultaneously.
Lightning and Epiphany
■ Afterwards, he discusses the concepts of straight line and curvature through the Lightning and
the Sun. A straight line can decrease or increase a value, but only by going in opposite directions
on the same line; He says that a curve (a circle or a circle) can be decreased and increased at
the same time. If you increase one value while decreasing the other, the line bends downward
and conversely, when you increase both values, it bends upward. And he argues that by lowering
the initial value and again decreasing or increasing the other, causing a curvature up or down
respectively, the whole process can be repeated.
Lightning and Epiphany an epiphany that …“the motto of all effective realism.”

Something similar occurs with the notion of insight,

which – when considered as a seeing-through –
seems to refer to pure verticalism only, to a flash of
lightning, while the seeing-more refers to the cyclic
nature of the sun. Both forms of insight we should
classify as an epiphany, a word that is almost the
identical twin of ekphanestaton.

(URL 11) (URL 6)

“Epiphany” originally meant a manifestation of the divinity.
Though “epiphany,” similarly to ekphanestaton, has its
etymological roots in the concept of “shining forth.”
(URL 12)
Lightning and Epiphany
■ In the last part, the concepts of "Epiphany" "Revelation" and "Manifestation" are included. He
talks about the relationship between both concepts and visibility. He says that the concept of
Epiphany means a manifestation of divinity. And he says that the concept of "manifestation"
exists in a radiant form, just like the Sun. On the other hand, he argues that the concept of
"Revelation" appeared suddenly like a lightning bolt, like Zeus's attack on his son. He argues that
the concept of "Manifestation" never arises out of nowhere and out of sight. On the other hand,
he says that the concept of "Revelation" is in a completely different order, that it is basically
invisible and needs a violent shape (like lightning) to show itself. And finally, to summarize briefly,
Spuybroek in this study; He mentions that visibility exists in a radiant way, figuratively, and that
the Sun is in this context the purest representative of visibility, sublimity, and generosity. And
while the concept of "Revelation" appears suddenly like the thunder of Zeus and comes out of
nothing and invisible, he mentions that the concept of Manifestation is a concept that appears
slowly and radiantly, just like the Sun, and has a generous return.
References
 Sun and Lightning The Visibility of Radiance, Spuybroek, L., . Brouwer, L. Spuybroek, S. van Tuinen (eds.) The
War of Appearances: Transparency, Opacity, Radiance (Rotterdam: V2_Publishing, 2016).
 Charis and Radiance: TheOntological Dimensions of Beauty, Spuybroek, L. (2014), In S. Van Tuinen
(ed.), Giving and Taking: Antidotes to a Culture of Greed. Rotterdam: V2_Publishing. pp. 119–49.

URL References
 URL 1 - https://fidelissecurity.com/threatgeek/network-security/holistic-visibility/
 URL 2 - https://oggito.com/icerikler/gilles-deleuze-dil-nedir/47595
 URL 3 - https://www.uuframingham.org/events/sacred-circle-dance-7/
 URL 4 - https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platon
 URL 5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus
 URL 6 - https://www.freepik.es/vector-premium/chica-problemas-piel-facial-causa-prevencion_10109306.htm
 URL 7 - https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/844987948815211929/
 URL 8 - https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/570198002813720552/
 URL 9 - https://www.subjectcoach.com/tutorials/math/topic/math-definitions-letter-c/chapter/curved-line
 URL 10 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-major_and_semi-minor_axes
 URL 11 - https://pngtree.com/free-png-vectors/sparkle
 URL 12 - https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/27584616452270447/