Tectonics in architecture : from the physical to the meta-physical

Abstract

Tectonics in architecture is defined as "the science or art of construction, both in relation to use and artistic design." It refers not just to the "activity of making the materially requisite construction that answers certain needs, but rather to the activity that raises this construction to an art form." It is concerned with the modeling of material to bring the material into presence: from the physical into the meta-physical world. The topic is, in part, a reaction to some contemporary trends in architecture. Part one discusses two current trends perceived to be negative: the effacement of history, both in an architectural and a temporal sense; and the tendency toward scenographic representation. Part two discusses the external references and internal references of buildings. These references are developed in two ways: a building's inter-consciousness and inner-consciousness. The former is concerned with the general circumstances of a building, (physical, social, political, economic), or in Heidegger's terms, the way in which it "gathers the fourfold," and the latter is concerned with the intrinsic properties of a building. The two are completely interdependent, however, this thesis is primarily concerned with a building's inner-consciousness. Part three defines tectonics first by discussing its relation with meta-physics; second by tracing an abbreviated lineage of nineteenth century German practitioners and theorists; third by describing different kinds of tectonic expression and finally by outlining only a few "subjects" of tectonic architecture. Part four examines two examples in detail - the 25bis Rue Franklin Apartment Building by August Perret, and the Richards Medical Research Laboratories by Louis Kahn. These are intended to give concrete examples of some of the issues and subjects discussed previously in the thesis. Tectonics is primarily concerned with the making of architecture in a modem world. Its value is seen as being a partial strategy for an architecture rooted in time and place, as well as an architecture of "depth." In bringing the physical into the meta-physical, tectonics begins to talk of a poetic of construction.