CHAPTER VII 



ARCHITECTURE IN NATURE AS THE EX- 

 PRESSION OF COOPERATIVE NATURE- 

 ACTION 



Knowledge Expressed in Architectural Terms Architecture and 

 Function Architecture Diversity a Prerequisite to Evolution 

 Reciprocal Relations between the Architecture of the Individual and 

 its Response to its Environment Architectural Values and Cooper- 

 ative Balance The Divergent Architecture and Cooperative Unity 

 of Plant and Animal Life The Compulsion of Established Con- 

 structive Methods. 



I. Knowledge, Expressed in Architectural Terms 



IN nature, form and action, matter and energy, past 

 and future, internal and external, are one and insepa- 

 rable; each is a reciprocal manifestation of the other. 



Hence statics are no more, and no less, significant 

 than dynamics; morphology than physiology; observa-" 

 tion than experiment; history than prophecy. In any 

 case the biologist must interpret all vital action in ar- 

 chitectural terms, or in terms of material things vari- 

 ously distributed in time and space; and all material 

 structures in terms of past or future action. The as- 

 tronomer, chemist, statesman, and philosopher, and the 

 so-called practical man, or layman, are subject to the 

 same mental compulsion. One has no different mental 

 instruments to work with than the other. 



Man's stature, mental and physical, is his formal 

 reaction to his own outer world of nature-action; his 



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