Kahn's unmeasurable ina

ina : spirit of life, common ingredient in all living things, which also possess an existence will as a directional force making the cells of a rose want to be a rose.

"A great building, in my opinion, must begin with the unmeasurable, go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasurable. The design, the making of things, is a measurable act. At that point, you are like physical nature itself, because in physical nature everything is measurable - even that which is yet unmeasured, like the most distant stars which we can assume will eventually be measured.

But what is unmeasurable is the psychic spirit. The psyche is expressed by feeling and also thought and I believe will always be unmeasurable. I sense that the psychic existence will calls on nature to make what it wants to be. I think a rose wants to be a rose. Existence will, man, becomes existence, through nature's laws and evolution. The results are always less than the spirit of existence.

In the same way, a building has to start in the unmeasurable aura and go through the measurable to be accomplished. It is the oly way you can build. The only way you can get it into being is through the measurable. You must follow the laws, but in the end, when the building becomes part of living, it evokes unmeasurable qualities. The design involving quantities of brick, method of construction, engineering is ended and the spirit of its existence takes over."

The beginning of any established activity of man is its most wonderful moment. For in it lies all the spirit and resourcefulness from which we must constantly draw our inspirations of present needs.