The house finds that although not every sketch differs from the last, they always change. Although lacking the elegance of a sixteenth-century sonnet, the monkeys had, in practice, produced something more valuable than they had in theory: a new outcome. Within five pages the monkeys had soiled their typewriters. In 2003, an experiment put the theory to the test. Although it is the least probable outcome, with enough time, it is as possible as the most likely outcome. With each hour, the image takes shape not in the space of the page but in the duration of time.ġ,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters are said to eventually, almost definitely, produce literature rivalling Shakespeare. It pursues a sketch that cannot yet be seen. No single drawing or combination of them contains what the house is looking for. Whereas scaled orthography values completion, the sketch knows only repetition. What kind of entry? The house discovers another question with each turn of the page. What kind of nice roof? A roof forming an entry. What kind of courtyard house? A courtyard house with a nice roof.
They existed all along, waiting to be made real. Each one is a house it had already known: long houses, stepped houses, curved houses, simple houses, complex houses. Within this space, it sees nothing but possibilities. Robin Evans was right the architect is ‘never working directly with the object of their thought.’Ī house begins from a blank page. The last page grants only a glimpse into the way to go. For the first 287 pages, it did not know what it was looking for. With each repetition of the loop, the house searches for itself. 288 sketches precede the design of a house.