We know what a ‘Gothic City’ is, but we can’t say where it is because it doesn’t exist. It’s common constituents (Specifics) allow us to find its essence (Abstraction). We have generated the ‘idea’ Gothic City, just as we have elaborated the idea ‘table’ based on our perception and experience of all the tables we encountered during our lifetime.

The more concrete experience we have, the richer, deeper and more complex the abstract idea we generate will be.

Abstraction and Specificity are a dialectic unity where the general and the particular, permanence and change, and the unique and the diverse interact to form the whole.

Artistic tendencies that respond only to the general, universal, ideal (abstract); discard the individual, the specific person with their needs and their potential. Conceptually, the International Style followed this tendency. In Malevich’s White on White all that is specific is eliminated; it is the perfection of the non-existence.

On the other hand, works that only aim to satisfy the particular, the individual, ignore the common constituents of a culture, and are left standing on their own in a vacuum.

Would architecture be at its best when the dialectic forces of Specificity and Abstraction are in balance?