May 2nd, 2026 — Vieux-Montréal
by Marc Kandalaft
John Berger opens his book, Ways of Seeing, with a simple line: “Seeing comes before words.” Perception precedes language. Experience precedes articulation.The Gospel of John opens on a different register: “In the beginning was the Word.” Before the image, before the form, before anything visible — there was intention, thought, logos.
These two statements address different things. Berger speaks of reception — how experience reaches us before we can name it. John speaks of creation — what must precede form. Together, they describe the complete arc of what this reflection is concerned with: a founding intention that translates into form, and acts upon the one who receives it before they can articulate why.
What is meant here by The work of genesis.
Everything we design is ultimately perceived, inhabited, and traversed by other human beings. And wherever there is another human being, there is communication. All communication acts on the inner state of the one who receives it — intended or not. And wherever inner states are concerned, we enter the territory of emotion, and therefore of psychology.
These two statements address different things. Berger speaks of reception — how experience reaches us before we can name it. John speaks of creation — what must precede form. Together, they describe the complete arc of what this reflection is concerned with: a founding intention that translates into form, and acts upon the one who receives it before they can articulate why.
What is meant here by The work of genesis.
Everything we design is ultimately perceived, inhabited, and traversed by other human beings. And wherever there is another human being, there is communication. All communication acts on the inner state of the one who receives it — intended or not. And wherever inner states are concerned, we enter the territory of emotion, and therefore of psychology.
The implications are considerable. The architect, the interior architect, the scenographer, the lighting designer, the sound designer, the perfumer, the product designer, the art director, the graphic designer, the artisan, the curator — each, from their own field, acts on the same object: the inner state of the one who moves through the space. In this sense, all these disciplines are fundamentally disciplines of emotion. Whether or not they recognize it as such.
The question structuring this reflection is therefore this: what becomes possible when all these disciplines cease to succeed one another and begin instead to co-construct — around a shared founding intention, from the origin? Not an additive logic, where each contributor inherits the work of the previous one, but an orchestral logic, where each contributes to an experience none could produce alone.
How far, then, can coherence and quality of experience go?
Vasarely, in his 1955 manifesto, did not claim to have found an answer — he posed a collective question, and wagered it would propagate. It is in that spirit that this reflection is offered. Not as a finished model, but as an open thesis: that striving toward a common intention — despite the inevitable constraints of time, succession, and the internal logic of each discipline — produces experiences of a quality otherwise out of reach.
The question structuring this reflection is therefore this: what becomes possible when all these disciplines cease to succeed one another and begin instead to co-construct — around a shared founding intention, from the origin? Not an additive logic, where each contributor inherits the work of the previous one, but an orchestral logic, where each contributes to an experience none could produce alone.
How far, then, can coherence and quality of experience go?
Vasarely, in his 1955 manifesto, did not claim to have found an answer — he posed a collective question, and wagered it would propagate. It is in that spirit that this reflection is offered. Not as a finished model, but as an open thesis: that striving toward a common intention — despite the inevitable constraints of time, succession, and the internal logic of each discipline — produces experiences of a quality otherwise out of reach.