on Versioning: Connubial Reciprocities

Initial Reading Notes:

-surface and space are reciprocal and codependent entities

-reconciling between rationalist and empirical ideologies

-rational is about resolution, determinacy and exactitude

-empirical forms expressions and structural mechanics

-the reconciliation is embodied by taking the formal and structural effects of empirical product and approaching with the rational through precision

Syntax: Polyglotomy and multiple effects

-Renaissance and Baroque used poche to articulate solidity between a building's interior and exterior spaces

-facade is objectified, architects seek a formal purity to paste onto the mass of the building

-le Corbusier and the advent of modern architecture opens spatial condition and thins out the poche line that separates the mass of the building from surroundings; open plan

-surface is the essence of a building's formal and tectonic expression

-example: the manipulation of brick work and the formal construction of a brick wall can -express the load bearing qualities of brick in a new way

-new forms and surfaces are derived through this exploration of surface that critically questions the potential of materials which have just become materials as part of a palette of building construction choices

-Kahn manipulates bricks in an exacting way to create patterns that are independent of the brick function of serving in the structural system of the building

-Dieste does the opposite with concrete, but with similar approach, through exacting of concrete forms, he ties the form and structure together; the interior of the building is created by the shell that makes up the exterior surfaces

-skin and structure are interdependent and related

Synopsis:

     The essence of this post was to identify and clarify the processes behind which the construction and structure of a form has an inextricable relationship with the spaces and surfaces that they create, or ought to. Ponce de Leon and Tehrani emphasize and recognize works of architecture that demonstrate a deep understanding of materials and its implication on the tectonics of a building, and manipulating the material and its incorporation into a building's structural formwork to achieve a conscious effect relating the nature of the material, and its visual or experiential perception. For example, the implication of using the column orders to express the loading diagram of a building in the form of the physical structure is overturned by the trading in of new elements that do not represent strength or load bearing qualities, revealing a fallacy or deception in the structural expression. This leads to the exploration of a logical expression of surface through the character of the material of which it consists; this intimate relationship, once understood, invokes a deep and truthful understanding of the capability of materials, and how they can create the surface of a building, which in turn affects the space that it encloses or touches.