Questions on Ruskin V-l-D and Semper

2) Viollet-le-duc on metaphor and function: Lectures on Architecture, vol.2, trans. Benjamin Bucknall, New York, 1987; 51-100 (Reader): Ruskin on ornament and organism: Stones of Venice, Chapter VI, New York, Peter Fenelon Collier & Son, MCM (vol.2); 152 -181. (Reader)
3) Gottfried Semper, Manuscript 122 and 124, RES (Fall 1982); 8-22. (Reader)

Concerning all three authors:
What is the ontological status of the objects of their analysis (i.e., systems, objects, etc.)?
What are the terms of the analyses?
What do the analyses reveal/produce?

V-l-D: Lect. XII
1) How does V-l-D analyse building material? What is his analysis of iron, and what temperment does it have?

2) What kind of programmatic affect does iron have as a construction material?

3) What value does V-l-D give the term "imitation"? What does the term refer to?

4) What does the term organic mean in the context of this lecture, and what kind of ontology does it have?

Ruskin
1) What is the ontology of labour and is it visible or invisible?

2) What does labour express, and how does it express it in architecture? (And what, therefore, does architecture express?) What role does the term imperfection play here?

3) What, ultimately, is the moral lesson? And how is it related to the ontology of labour?

Semper: Manuscripts 122, and 124
1) What does Semper mean by contrasting exterior order and organic system?

2) In what sense does the design industry precede architecture and determine it?

3) What is a force "exerted on a style?"

4) What does classification mean? What is it based on?

5) Is a wall (Wand/Gewand) an object or an event? (i.e., what was its original ontology?)