Tectonic Thinking after the Industrial Revolution

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Tectonic Thinkingafter theIndustrial Revolution

• Robert Pirsig, Zen the Art of Motorcycle
  Maintenance
• Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture
• Lars Spuybroek, The Architecture of Continuity
• Richard Sennett, The Craftsman
• Ed Ford, The Details of Modern Architecture, Vol.
  1
• Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism

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• ... Eduard Sekler defined the tectonic as a
  certain expressivity

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• Expression (ik-SPRESH'uhn) n. Definition --n.
• 1. The act of expressing, conveying, or
  representing in words, art, music, or movement.
• Express (ik-SPRES') tr.v. Definition --tr.v.
  -pressed, -pressing, -presses.
• 4. To make a representation of depict.
• 5. To represent by a sign or symbol symbolize.
• American Heritage Dictionary Online

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• ... Eduard Sekler defined the tectonic as a
  certain expressivity arising from the statical
  resistance of constructional form in such a way
  that the resultant form could not be accounted
  for in terms of structure and construction alone.

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Aesthetics

• From Websters Online Dictionary
• 1.a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature
  of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation
  and appreciation of beauty
• 2.a particular theory or conception of beauty or
  art
• Beauty
• derived from the Greek Word for sensory
  perception
• skin deep
• in the eye of the beholder
• classical beauty expresses order and clarity

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Dualities

• Art ltgt Nature
• Art ltgt Science
• Art ltgt Fine Arts
• Art as expressing
• Artist-centered, receivers attitude is irrelevant
• Art as pleasing
• Viewer-centered, receivers attitude is some form
  of sensory pleasure
• Art as moving
• In the lives of the receivers hearts and minds
• Art as revealing
• Discloses something about reality, enlightening

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Reality
Pirsig, Robert M Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle
Maintenance
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Quality
Pirsig, Robert M Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle
Maintenance
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Zen 2 Peace of Mind

• Assembly of Japanese bicycle require great
  peace of mind. Technology presumes there's just
  one right way to do things and there never is.
  And when you presume there's just one right way
  to do things, of course the instructions begin
  and end exclusively with the rotisserie. But if
  you have to choose among an infinite number of
  ways to put it together then the relation of the
  machine to you, and the relation of the machine
  and you to the rest of the world, has to be
  considered, because the selection from among many
  choices, the art of the work is just as dependent
  upon your own mind and spirit as it is upon the
  material of the machine. That's why you need the
  peace of mind.

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Zen 3 Harmony

• Sometime look at a novice workman or a bad
  workman and compare his expression with that of a
  craftsman whose work you know is excellent and
  you'll see the difference. The craftsman isn't
  ever following a single line of instruction. He's
  making decisions as he goes along. For that
  reason he'll be absorbed and attentive to what
  he's doing even though he doesn't deliberately
  contrive this. His motions and the machine are in
  a kind of harmony. He isn't following any set of
  written instructions because the nature of the
  material at hand determines his thoughts and
  motions, which simultaneously change the nature
  of the material at hand. The material and his
  thoughts are changing together in a progression
  of changes until his mind's at rest at the same
  time the material's right.

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Zen 4 Transcendance

• All that talk about technology and art is part
  of a pattern that seems to have emerged from my
  own life. It represents transcendence from
  something I think a lot of others may be trying
  to transcend. Well, it isn't just art and
  technology. It's a kind of non-coalescence
  between reason and feeling. What's wrong with
  technology, is that it's not connected in any
  real way with matters of the spirit and of the
  heart. And so it does blind, ugly things quite by
  accident and gets hated for that. .. the
  ugliness is being noticed more and more and
  people are asking if we must always suffer
  spiritually and esthetically in order to satisfy
  material needs... It can't be solved by rational
  means because the rationality itself is the
  source of the problem.

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Zen 5 Technology

• The ugliness the Sutherlands were fleeing is
  not inherent in technology. It only seemed that
  way to them because it's so hard to isolate what
  it is with technology that's so ugly. But
  technology is simply the making of things and the
  making of things can't by its own nature be ugly
  or there would be no possibility for beauty in
  the arts, which also include the making of
  things. Actually a root word of technology,
  technikos, originally meant "art." The ancient
  Greeks never separated art from manufacture in
  their minds, and so never developed separate
  words for them. Neither is the ugliness inherent
  in the materials of modern technology - a
  statement you sometimes hear. Mass-produced
  plastics and synthetics aren't in themselves bad.
  They've just acquired bad associations.

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Zen 6 Technology

• But, the real ugliness of modern technology
  isn't found in any material or shape or act or
  product. These are just the objects in which the
  low Quality appears to reside. It's our habit of
  assigning Quality to subjects or objects that
  gives this impression. The real ugliness is not
  the result of any objects of technology. Nor is
  it, if one follows Phaedrus' metaphysics, the
  result of any subjects of technology, the people
  who produce it or the people who use it. Quality,
  or its absence, doesn't reside in either the
  subject or the object. The real ugliness lies in
  the relationship between the people who produce
  the technology and the things they produce, which
  results in a similar relationship between the
  people who use the technology and the things they
  use.

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Zen 7 Fusion

• It is this identity that is the basis of
  craftsmanship in all the technical arts. And it
  is this identity that modern, dualistically
  conceived technology lacks.
• The creator of it feels no particular sense of
  identity with it.
• The owner of it feels no particular sense of
  identity with it.
• The user of it feels no particular sense of
  identity with it.
• The way to solve the conflict between human
  values and technological needs is not to run away
  from technology. That's impossible. The way to
  resolve the conflict is to break down the
  barriers of dualistic thought that prevent a real
  understanding of what technology is--not an
  exploitation of nature, but a fusion of nature
  and the human spirit into a new kind of creation
  that transcends both.

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Historical Tectonic Attitudes

• Vitruvius Firmness, Commodity Delight
• Pugin no features of a building which are not
  there for convenience, construction or
  proprietyall ornament should consist in the
  essential construction
• Ruskins Architectural Deceits 1) suggestion of
  a mode of structure other than the true one, 2)
  painting of surfaces to represent some other
  material and 3) use of cast or machine made
  ornaments of any kind.
• Nervi ... marvelous possibilities cannot be
  fully developed if the three fundamental factors
  of any construction the architectural concept,
  the structural analysis and the correct solution
  to the problems of execution.
• Konstantinidis Good architecture starts always
  with efficient construction.
• Pjer Feld The use of a given material should
  never happen by choice or calculation but only
  through intuition and desire.
• Billington Efficiency, Economy Elegance

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A4229 Studies in Tectonic Culture,Kenneth
Frampton

• The tectonic suggests itself today as a
  critical strategy largely because of the current
  tendency to commodify architectural form. It has
  to be conceded that this concern largely arises
  out of a reaction to Robert Venturi's concept of
  the "decorated shed." In this regard, it may be
  seen as a response to the fashion for reducing
  architecture to a spectacular expendable mise en
  scene. This amortizable scenographic approach has
  accompanied the general dissolution of references
  in the late modern world. With the possible
  exception of applied science, the precepts
  governing many discourses today have become
  rather both incommunicative and unstable.

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Cecil Balmond, 2002

• To my mind the answers lie deep in
  configuration. As we are made of patterns, both
  random and regular, both physical and emotional,
  probing the archetypes of pattern is important -
  in its recognition and resonance we may find an
  element of beauty. In the past , beauty was
  conditioned by aspects of purity, fixed
  symmetries and pared minimal structure being
  accepted as norms. . Now that the world is being
  accepted as not simple, the complex and oblique
  and the intertwining of logic gain favor. Reason
  itself is finally being understood as nascent
  structure, non-linear and dependent on feedback
  procedures. Beauty may lie in the actual
  processes of engagement and be more abstract that
  the aesthetic of objecthood. Ultimately it may
  really be a constructive process.

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Richard Sennett, 2008

• The architect Renzo Piano explains his own
  working procedure thus You start by sketching,
  then you do a drawing, then you make a model, and
  then you go to reality-you go to the site-and
  then you go back to drawing. You build up a kind
  of circularity between drawing and making and
  then back again. About repetition and practice
  Piano observes, This is very typical of the
  craftsman's approach. You think and you do at the
  same time. You draw and you make. Drawing ... Is
  revisited. You do it, you redo it, and you redo
  it again.

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Lars Spuybroek, 2008

• Similarly for Spuybroek, the inherently
  empathetic nature of materiality is the basis for
  a politics of the object, enacted through the
  material logics of architecture, which are
  understood as continuous with those of the world.
  It is the "burning surfaces" of space, he
  concludes, that "make us catch fire. That is true
  continuity.
• from the foreword by Detlef Mertens

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Form Findingvs.Form Making
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Functionality

• "It is the pervading law of all things organic
  and inorganic, Of all things physical and
  metaphysical, Of all things human and all
  things super-human, Of all true
  manifestations of the head, Of the heart, of
  the soul, That the life is recognizable in
  its expression, That form ever follows
  function. This is the law.
• Louis Sullivan

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Expression

• ... Eduard Sekler defined the tectonic as a
  certain expressivity arising from the statical
  resistance of constructional form in such a way
  that the resultant form could not be accounted
  for in terms of structure and construction alone.

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Rationality

• These notes are about the process of design
  the process of inventing physical things which
  display a new physical order, organization, form,
  in response to function.
• every design problem begins with an effort to
  achieve fitness between two entities the form in
  question and its context. The form is the
  solution to the problem the context defines the
  problem.
• Christopher Alexander

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Efficiency

• Efficiency depends on the trinity of material,
  shape and the process of making. The lighter that
  constructions have to be, the more critical the
  balance between these three.
• Adriaan Beukers

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Nature
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Minimal Architecture

• Tomorrows architecture will again be minimal
  architecture, an architecture of the self-forming
  and self-optimization processes suggested by
  human beings. This must be seen as part of the
  new developing ecological system of the people
  who have densely and peacefully settled the
  surface of the earth. It ia an architecture that
  respects genuine traditions and the multiplicity
  of forms in animate and inanimate nature.
• Frei Otto

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• Membranes
• The structural membrane acts also as the
  weathershield

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• Cable Nets
• A separate grid of structural cables supports a
  nonstructural weathershield

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• Arches, Vaults Shells
• Arch and vault constructions use little material
  and small mass when the form is generated by the
  inverted catenary, or for shells, the inverted
  net.

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Informal by Cecil Balmond

• the informal steps in easily, a sudden twist or
  turn, a branching, and the unexpected happens -
  the edge of chance shows its face
• Delight, surprise, ambiguity are typical
  responses ideas clash in the informal and
  strange juxtapositions take place. Overlaps
  occur. Instead of regular, formally controlled
  measures, there are varying rhythms and wayward
  impulses.
• Uniformity is broken and balance is interrupted.
  The demand for Order! in the regimental senses is
  ignored the big picture is something else.

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U.Penn Blogosphere by metamechanicForm and Space
are dead. (I am emulating Nietzsche here)
Forms and Algorithms is a pre-requisite to Cecil
Balmonds studio. . why are architect students
learning VB and C in the realm of SmartGeometry,
Generative Components, and Rhino scripting, why
so rigourous? Well its the end of this Form and
Space obsession of architecture. I am sure this
isn't Balmonds intention, but thanks to the
rebels against the cube, Form and Space are done.
Here is the quick history1. Modern
architecture oblished sic ornament and
abstracted the basics forms for us (Adolf Loos,
De Stijl)2. Space became free flowing (FLW,
Mies)3. Then all the straight forward basic
principles failed on many levels, urban planning,
meaning, etc... 4. Po-mo, Italian Rationalism
but within a context of the varnacular ic,
Michael Graves, Corb's brutalism and Ronchamp,
Robert A.M. Stern historical crap, Archigrams fun
overly technolica sicl conceptions, Archizooms
presentation of full force modernity as an
apocalyptic situation5. Semiotics, writing
cities, etc...importing linguistics and social
sciences (Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, etc...)
so that architecture may form a language6.
Deconstruction...importing a philosophy to
deconstruct the language of architecture
(Derrida, Deleuze)7. Situationism and
Events...importing hedonistic temporal duration
cinematic experience architecture crap (Debord,
cinematic application of Bergson)8.
Existenialism sic, Power, and
Dwellin...Heideger, Foucalt, etc...9.
Blobs....10. Ribbons...11. High-Tech as style
and justified by Sustainability12. Gehry
Technoligies sic ....capable of making
extremely complicated forms affordable and
buildable via Catia platform based Digital
Project13. Forms and Algorithms...I know you're
saying how can you end it with a class you're
taking. trust me its the end, and Forms and
Algorithms is just another Brick in the Wall.
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U.Penn Blogosphere by metamechanic
see the cycle. clarity via scientific analysis
rebelled against via artistic concepts, just to
become scientific again... you're thinking, won't
architects resort to rebelling again....what do
you propose? I have one answer for you...CAS's
and Emergence....complex adaptive systems and
emergence, a combo of phase transititions sic
in physics, cellular automata, economics
realization that their objects of study are
agents of irrational behavior. in the world of
architecture this means our forms and spaces
evolve themselves via genetic rules and the
enviroment sic. So why would Form and Space be
dead? well, emergence and CAS's exclude the
designer from the design of forms and space. the
designer designs the rules and lets it
fly.Conclusion the study of form and space in
itself is dead, we've covered all the bases so
let us move on to more important
things...please! Form and Space should be taught
like English 101 i.e. this is a cube, cubes are
useful for this, this is a blob, historically
applicable as this...but no need in wasting hours
of studio time justify Form and Space... with
that said I love my Forms and Algorithms class, i
intend to use to exclude me from design decisions
unless of course I want to make one, but I really
don't feel like justifing sic form and space
anymore, its so damn elementary.
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A Final Thought

• In theory, there is no difference between
  theory and practice, but in practice there is.
• Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut, 19531994

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Zen 8

• When this transcendence occurs in such events as
  the first airplane flight across the ocean or the
  first footstep on the moon, a kind of public
  recognition of the transcendent nature of
  technology occurs. But this transcendence should
  also occur at the individual level, on a personal
  basis, in one's own life, in a less dramatic way.

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Zen 9

• Such personal transcendence of conflicts with
  technology doesn't have to involve motorcycles,
  of course. It can be at a level as simple as
  sharpening a kitchen knife or sewing a dress or
  mending a broken chair.

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A.W. Pugin

• 76 page book entitled Principles of Pointed or
  Christian Architecture
• Two great rules of design
• there should be no features of a building which
  are not there for convenience, construction or
  propriety
• ...all ornament should consist in the essential
  construction of the building. In pure
  architecture, the smallest detail should have
  meaning or purpose.
• Rational Building Monolithic Construction

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John Ruskin The Seven Lamps of Architecture

• The Lamp of Truth
• Architectural Deceits
• 1st The suggestion of a mode of structure or
  support, other than the true one......
• 2nd The painting of surfaces to represent some
  other material than that of which they actually
  consist.....
• 3rd The use of cast or machine made ornaments of
  any kind.

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Pier Luigi Nervi, 1961

• the unlimited possibilities of design offered
  by scientific theories of construction, the
  executions made possible by new building
  materials and current techniques, and the
  architectural themes growing ever greater and
  more complex as dictated by our social and
  economic developments, open horizons of
  unprecedented possibilities of construction as
  compared to what humanity has achieved from
  prehistoric times to the present.
• Nevertheless these marvelous possibilities cannot
  be fully developed if the three fundamental
  factors of any construction the architectural
  concept, the structural analysis and the correct
  solution to the problems of execution do not
  proceed in close collaboration having as its aim
  the sole and unique goal of arriving at a
  proposed result combining functionality, solidity
  and beauty.

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Aris Konstantinidis, Architecture, 1964

• Good architecture starts always with efficient
  construction. Without construction there is no
  architecture. Construction embodies material and
  its use according to its properties, that is to
  say, stone imposes a different method of
  construction from iron or concrete.

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Sigurd Lewerentz St. Peters

• The column itself is not what it at first appears
  to be split in two from top to bottom, its twin
  cross-trees which are not symmetrical carry
  at their extremities yet further beams which are
  also split into pairs. Upon these beams stand
  steel struts to support the metal ribs that
  support the brick vaults at both springing and
  ridgelines alternately. Then again, these ribs to
  the vaults are neither horizontal nor do they run
  parallel but expand and contract as they run from
  wall to wall. Lewerentz speaks of the vaults as a
  recall of the ancient symbol of the heavens, but
  here his treatment of them is strangely moving
  and insinuates into the mind a closer analogy to
  the rhythm of breathing the rise and fall, the
  interlocking of expansion and contraction.

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Pjer Feld, 1983

• The use of a given material should never happen
  by choice or calculation, but only through
  intuition and desire.
• The calculated column expresses nothing more
  than a particular number . . . In a world that is
  determined by calculation, material loses all
  capacity for the expression of constructive
  thought.
• For the young architect each material is a
  measurement of strength. To apply the material to
  its ultimate capacity is natural for youth. The
  expression of this inherent force complements a
  natural vitality. The material's sensation
  carries its conviction and the energy of youth
  attains a structural perfection.