Reading - Questions - 1

1. The readings refer to tectonics in a variety of settings; tectonic/stereotomic, tectonic/atectonic, topos/typos/tectonic, representation/ontological, rhythm, corporeal metaphor, ethnography, and technology. Briefly define each term and provide an architectural example that embodies the condition.

2. Kenneth Frampton writes that this study of tectonics "seeks to mediate and enrich the priority given to space", what is a dominant trend in Western architecture of today and how does tectonics relate to this trend?

            The trend in western architecture today attempts to extend the human emotion and experience that is built around the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It seems as if the trend is designed to slow people down, and make them think about their surroundings. Although these structures seems to slow time down, they are still a steel structure with some obscure skin. It seems we are building nothing more than decorated sheds rather than creating a duck.

3. "Greek in origin, the term tectonic derives from the work tekton, signifying carpenter or builder". How has the the impact of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and other space-time models altered tectonic etymology?

            Einstein's theory brought about a new ideal of space and how one should experience it. This was extended through architecture, redefining the builder. Being that the builder was redefined through the ideal of space, the architectural concepts were redesigned. Space and proportions had already been thought about for ages before had but his theory seemed to reawaken and extend on that.

4. Vittorio Gregotti states in 1983, "(t)he worst enemy of modern architecture is the idea of space considered solely in terms of its economic and technical exigencies indifferent to the ideas of the site". If the intention of site is to situate human in the cosmos, how then does site infer from a contemporary landscape that has been graded, conditioned, tamed, treated, sculpted, mapped, engineered, essentially re-created by humans?

            Site has become just a space in which a structure is to be built rather than the traditional idea that a site should be part of a building's design. It is now that road less travelled, by which I mean that a site is now designed to take a person from the road to the door of the building rather than an adventure around an area. To have an experience that pulls you from point A to point B, is economic, is the rule that governs our society today.

5. Is architectural tectonics applicable or relevant in a world of global mobilization? State and explain your position.

Architectural tectonics is relevant to an extent in a world of global mobilization. It is designing a way to move things. Global mobilization is the movement of things around the world, whether it is people or objects. In reference to architectural tectonics, we are to build a space in which society moves through, like the tunnel under the English Channel, it is connecting different societies through an experience and structure.