Specific's generic eventuate.

02 Feb, 2025

The generic is type, so by a shared sameness. The specific is instance, alike but unique. The generic is, the specific becomes. And the specific is the generic become, all things proceeding directly from some type to inevitable instance, each of these things then particular things.

There isn't much between the general and the special. What is between them though is of the greatest importance, and seems not naturally within the purview of the professional, with its shared body of knowledge and modes of practice. That beyond the general towards the special is a quality by definition beyond the shared, that is particular and unique.

The special is often expected of the architect, and above all by the architect themselves; it is expected of the architect to husband the special with general tools, and to husband the general to its greatest, so special, effect.

It would be a mistake to imagine the acts of the architect concerned more with the special than the general. The opposite is usually true, and in that is opportunity.

The generic by seeming paradox is rather more random than the specific, and more amenable to design. The paradox is only so without the recognition of generic and specific as being along the same continuum, of the specific as the generic become, of the two being in fact the same thing separated only in time. The general becomes so within a broad framework, the special becomes so within that same framework further limited by the generation. The special thus engendered is never more nor less than instance of a type.

The generic is no longer as soon as it comes to be. It is, then it’s not. Each brick has its place and path. The meaningful quality of what it becomes though, the specific-eventuate of each instance of type, is in the seed & essence of the general.

The best of the general contains within it the potential multitude of all possible specials, thus beyond and superior to any special, possessed of greater potential and possibility, offering above all opportunity. And the worst of the general contains and constrains all of the same. In good type may be infinite potential iterative instance, each iteration in its turn obviating the old potentials, facilitating the new, in constant recursive redundancy and refreshment.

In good type may the general be designed not to be specific, but rather to become it.

In good type may be not necessarily good but appropriate instance - flavoured to taste, meet to a need, refined to form's finest counterform or formed to particular function.