The Matter of Matter

摘要

For anyone struck by the cinema of Armenian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov, Gilles Deleuze's contention that his Sayat Nova (1969) represents "ponderous matter roused by the spirit"1 is an instructive prelude to the material and immaterial conditions of architecture explored by Antoine Picon in The Materiality of Architecture. Paradjanov's arresting iconostatic tableaux vivants can serve as resonant analogues for three key propositions that frame Picon's argument: that an enduring motif crossing the history of architecture is the desire to animate or mobilise matter; that the animation of matter is practiced through ornamentation or decor; and that ornament constitutes a kind of language, conveying and expressing meaning.