#theoryofarchitecture

[sargalexandre]

La légende de la piscine - 1977 #remkoolhaas #architecture #Berlin #theoryofarchitecture #photography (à Badeschiff Berlin) https://www.instagram.com/p/B06TBs-AZx2/?igshid=fhamal7xp6fv

[sargalexandre]

De l’îlot à la barre dans un dualisme platonicien #TheoryOfArchitecture #architecture #landscape #photography https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tgQztgCwm/?igshid=1vvp6h7yy6qm0

[sargalexandre]

De l’îlot à la barre dans un dualisme platonicien #TheoryOfArchitecture #architecture #landscape #photography https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tgQztgCwm/?igshid=1vvp6h7yy6qm0

[concipio-tektura]

Crash course in Theory of Architecture #coursecertificates #week1 #chedscholarship #theoryofarchitecture #continueeducation #learningstudio #concipiotektura #letrato https://www.instagram.com/p/Bwv6crVHku4/?igshid=1pd2y77w3bcmm

[trashbridges-blog]

Technē as Poiesis

Parcell (2012, 24) explains that the word architect comes from the Greek architekton – a combination of archi, meaning chief, and tekton, meaning builder. A tekton, in turn, is a practitioner of technē. Technē was not a dogmatic doctrine, but a concept that evolved with Greek culture over time. McEwen differentiates between the meaning of technē in Homeric or preclassical, and Aristotelian periods. The word hylē meant, “in Homeric usage and even later, forest or woodland, or, more specifically, wood or timber” (McEewen 1993, 49). McEwewn explains that the specific meaning of hylē as ‘forest timber’ indicates a conception of the nature of wood as a material with specific intrinsic properties which remained when the timber was crafted into an artifact. He thus writes that, “In preclassical Greece, hylē, as forest timber, or firewood, was part of a divine and deathless physis” (McEewen 1993, 51). McEwen’s translation of the preclassical Greek word physis is subtle. He first clarifies that it refers to “boundless nature… different from nature as the quality of experience” (McEewen 1993, 14) and goes on to describe its meaning in preclassical times as “physis (nature, the lived world) interchangeable with the notion of genesis (generation, emergence, being born)” (McEewen 1993, 18). The physis in hylē was thus reborn in the process of the tekton (craftsman) creating an artifact of utility to humans. It was due to this ability to be reborn that McEwen describes physis as “deathless” (McEewen 1993, 51).

With reference to the preclassical notion of technē, Parcell analyzes which activities were included within the scope of technē and which were not, and concludes that the concept of technē hinged on the specific relationship of the tekton to the materials that they used. He explains that, “Technē did not include agriculture. A farmer releases the earth's natural fertility, whereas an artisan shapes natural substance into a different form for human use” (Parcell 2012, 22). Parcell reinforces the role of material in technē specifying that, “Each technē was defined by its specific source material (e.g., leather) and/or its specific end products” (2012, 23). The ability of a tekton to transform a material into a form that it would not assume of its own accord, the act of “transforming nature into artifice” (Parcell 2012, 26), was considered to be a supernatural phenomenon. However, the importance of the tekton’s direct engagement with materials was not confined to the supernatural realm, but had significant implications for the way worked was carried out: “An artisan either harvested and prepared the material himself or inquired to understand its source: how the timber had been harvested and cured, or where a piece of stone had been situated in the quarry” (Parcell 2012, 26).

The coming together of the practical and the supernatural aspects of material engagement in technē is seen in the conception of the work of the tekton as a ritual sacrifice of their materials. When this notional sacrifice of the materials was performed correctly, it would give the materials artificial form while preserving their physis – “their original life force… [Therefore] the archaic artisan was not a creator but a transformer who turned something into something else” (Parcell 2012, 27). Though the tekton’s work transformed “nature into artifice” their activities were not seen as separate from natural processes.  Parcell cites Aristotle’s belief that “that the processes of technē extend and imitate the processes of nature” (Parcell 2012, 27) which in turn locates the tekton’s work between the processes which precede and follow it. The implication of this is that the realm of technē is not restricted to the one-time transformation of materials into artifacts by the tekton.  Technē involves the transformation for materials over time both by natural processes and by the tekton: “poiesis” (Parcell 2012, 28). This perpetual transformation and re-transformation of materials is associated with the immortality of the gods and contrasted with the mortality of humans by McEwen (1993, 57). The connection between technē and the immortality of gods is illustrated by McEwen through his discussion of how the carved statues of the god Daedalus were ritually bound with rope to highlight that they could come to life because of the physis of the material retained in the statue, while simultaneously preventing them from doing so.

McEwen characterizes technē not as problem-solving but as “knowledge-as-skill” (1993, 59) as he argues that preclassical Greeks had no formal notion of problem-solving and problems were viewed as “aporia, without escape… unmeasured, or immeasurable… [and] the basic precondition for artifice” (1993, 59). Tackling aporia through technē therefore had to involve the application of skill through direct material engagement. Materials in preclassical technē were therefore not static, but animated, and were considered to be dynamic and active agents in the making process.

  References  

McEewen, Indra Kagis. 1993. Socrates' Ancestor.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Parcell, Stephen. 2012. Four Historical  Definitions of Architecture. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's  University Press.

[ethicsandarchitecture]

2000 July: Jencks' Theory of Evolution, an Overview of 20th Century Architecture

At the start of the twenty-first century, Charles Jencks gives a personal, perceptive and provocative summary of the architecture of the twentieth.

[alcastilloo]

THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE Inspired by the bright and playful art Architecture of Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid. My Model Represents a conceptual terms of Fluidity, Velocity and Lightness of Architectural Design.