Home » Business & Work » Business

Baroque (design style)

Ranked #70,022 in Business & Work, #699,099 overall | Donates to Squidoo Charity Fund

Introduction

"All manner of thing shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ And the fire and the rose are one." -- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding


The Baroque Style has been popular at certain times in history.

It is characterized by a complex elaboration of features, and a complicated enfolding of the functional space.

It is now typical of much modern technology, which revels in excessive complexity.

At the surface level, this design style can be found in many widely used software products, including Microsoft Office. (See Fake Steve Jobs Regarding our new software programs.)

At a deeper level, this design style is found in emerging software and business architectures.

New Table of Contents

  1. Quotes
  2. Random Images
  3. Aspects of the Baroque
  4. Folding Space
  5. Unfolding Space
  6. Baroque and Neo-Baroque Music
  7. Athanasius Kircher on Amazon
  8. Lewis Mumford on Baroque Planners
  9. The Gordian Knot
  10. Argument from Design
  11. New Guestbook

Quotes

Speech by US Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Washington, D.C., Monday, September 29, 2008
When it comes to procurement, for the better part of five decades, the trend has gone towards lower numbers as technology gains made each system more capable. In recent years these platforms have grown ever more baroque, ever more costly, are taking longer to build, and are being fielded in ever dwindling quantities.

Random Images

Loading

Aspects of the Baroque

vote here ...

compiled by Philip Mitchell
reproduced by kind permission

1

Vote Up
Vote Down

Picturesque

A blending of the picturesque (the wild, the unexpected, the fantastic) with Renaissance formalism.0 points

2

Vote Up
Vote Down

Energy

A stress on movement, energy, and realism0 points

3

Vote Up
Vote Down

Discord

Discord and suspension is set within a heightened, rhetorical emphasis0 points

4

Vote Up
Vote Down

Asymmetry

Its use of asymmetry, rough form, and obscurity could sometimes lead to an emphasis on the grotesque and the contorted0 points

5

Vote Up
Vote Down

Metaphysical

The practice of the metaphysical conceit, a strong, unexpected analogy between two objects intended to enlighten both the reason and the emotions0 points

6

Vote Up
Vote Down

Analytical

Tends to focus on the analytical, psychological, and commonplace.0 points

7

Vote Up
Vote Down

Love and Death

Often absorbed with thoughts of love, death, and religious devotion.0 points

Folding Space

The Baroque View of the World

After the Middle Ages comes the Baroque. Knowledge divided into compartments, systems divided into layers and folds, diplomacy becomes a formal game, elevation of intimacy and secrecy.

There is a Baroque view of the world, and the entities and processes it contains. One of the primary sources for this view is Leibniz, whose monads can be compared with objects or components.

This leads to a topological way of understanding a variety of business and system questions.

This also links to a view of Internet as Labyrinth.
Loading

Unfolding Space

Chapter 6: What is an Event?
Extract from Deleuze "The Fold"
TIME, QUESTION, FOLD
Book review of Deleuze "The Fold" by Andrew Benjamin
The Archeology of the Computer Assemblage
Review of Künzel by Geert Lovink.
And if the Global Were Small and Non-Coherent?
Article on Method, Complexity and the Baroque by John Law, Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University (pdf 2003)
An Interview with Fernando del Paso
There are, according to Eugenio d'Ors, more than twenty different kinds of baroque style. The simplest definition of baroque is a style that tries to saturate space by abusing curves to the point of hyperbole, and you will agree with me that Coatlicue, the Aztec goddess, is indeed baroque. As for my own "barroquismo," it's influenced by Rabelais and Joyce (who, by the way, isn't exactly a baroque writer, but at the time isn't far from one), and by more contemporary figures like Gunter Grass, Lezama Lima, and Carpentier.
A Meaning of Baroque in terms of Space Syntax
Subtitle: Finding a "Bridge" between Cosmology and Practicality in Cities. By Tsuyoshi Kigawa1, Kyung W. Seo and Masao Furuyama. JAABE : Vol. 5 (2006) , No. 2 pp.269-276 (abstract only)
Kyoto: A morphological cycle between a city of rituals and a city of games
The purpose of this paper is to investigate a city of grid and search for a definition of a compact city in a point of a view of Space Syntax Methodology. By Tsuyoshi Kigawa and Masao Furuyama (pdf 2005)
The Baroque as Infinite Sets
While the baroque is a particular historical period or world which demonstrates some of these characteristics, it is also a recurring period in cyclical process which manifests such a creative destruction woven of infinite play.
The World is Bound With Secret Knots
The Life and Works of Athanasius Kircher
Readings on the Baroque
compiled by William Egginton

Baroque and Neo-Baroque Music

Some of this music may not sound particularly baroque - especially the Boulez - but it is connected to the baroque ideology of folding, layering, knots, complexity.
Loading

Athanasius Kircher on Amazon

Loading

Lewis Mumford on Baroque Planners

'Louis Mumford, an unsympathetic critic of all baroque planners, suggests that the spirit of such work excluded a sense of time, which proved to be detrimental to their ideal of "uniformity and standardization".' The Russian City between Tradition and Modernity, 1850-1900

'In The City in History (1961), Mumford calls the Plan [of Chicago] the fullest example of twentieth-century "baroque planning," a set of ideas with "no concern for the neighborhood as an integral unit, no regard for family housing, no sufficient conception of the ordering of business and industry themselves as a necessary part of any larger achievement of urban order".' Encyclopedia of Chicago: Heritage

'Baroque planners tacitly assumed that their order was eternal. They not merely regimented space but they sought to congeal time. Their ruthlessness in clearing out the old was equalled only by their stubbornness in opposing the new: for only one order could harmonize with their kind of plan - namely more of their own.' Lewis Mumford, City in History.

The Gordian Knot

... a popular book title ...

Loading

Argument from Design

And belief in the order and intricacy of the world continues into the Romantic era ...
Loading

New Guestbook

submit
  • Reply
    Jun 23, 2011 @ 10:33 pm | delete
    When i tend not to uncover almost any change concerning Islam in addition to Islamic fundamentalists. I do believe faith would be the origin, in addition to on the origin fundamentalism evolves to be a deadly stalk. In the event most of us take out fundamentalism in addition to hold faith, then one time or maybe a different fundamentalism will probably mature all over again. I need to claim of which mainly because many liberals generally shield Islam in addition to responsibility fundamentalists intended for developing complications. Although Islam per se oppresses women of all ages. Islam per se isn't going to make it possible for democracy and it also violates people proper rights.New Jordans
  • Reply
    puranroy Dec 22, 2010 @ 12:06 pm | delete
    You have done an awesome research man.
    Keep up the good work

    Schedule
Show All

by

RichardVeryard

Writer: systems thinking for demanding change.

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags