e-archidoct: intellectual systems and materiality: January 2009

RE-STABLISHING WHERE WE STAND

Dear e-archidoct students

First of all, I would like to wish you a happy New Year with lots of creativity and professional success alongside good health and world peace!

I am sorry to have to moan at a time of festivities but to my disappointment seven out of nine of you have subscribed with the Blog I have organised for our course and none of you has responded to the two tasks I set back in November with deadlines on 10 and 20 December respectively. As I am informed our course has to be completed by the end of February. I am afraid that with such delayed and slow pace we will be unable to meet any expectations of a reasonable standard.

I will circulate this same note on the blog and re-invite you all to join. For the ones who are already subscribers in the Blog please do not bother.

I am expecting your immediate response.

Best regards,

Dr Maria Voyatzaki

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FIRST COURSE WORK

Please find the introductions of the first two books of the bibliography of the first lecture at:

http://rapidshare.com/files/173021063/1.pdf
http://rapidshare.com/files/173024617/2.pdf

We will have to decide how to go about the bibliography. As I explained in my last email what we are doing (Scanning and uploading books) is not the best solution. Either your institution will buy the books I can indicate for the course as soon as possible or you will have to find your own sources for each lecture in agreement with me. Let us discuss on the blog which way you want to go.

Thursday 29 January 2009

Intellectual System
A intellectual system consists of specific values. These values form the core of the intellectual system. All other matters like material, technique, human being etc. are derived from these values.

Materiality
Materiality is defined currently as "that which constitutes the 'matter' of something: opposed to formality; the quality of being material; material aspect or character; mere outwardness or externality." (1) Materiality can be conceived as the way how material is handled; a intellectual debate about material, often paired with values.

(1) Oxford English Dictionary

Saturday 24 January 2009

Dear professor Maria Voyatzaki,

I want to study the " Intellectual system": premodern era, as you suggest me .
Now I'm preparing the filling of the table you sent us.

Best wishes,
Ioana Urdea

Friday 16 January 2009

Dear Professor,

I am sorry for not being in time with the work for this course. This e-school is all new to us and it takes time to get used to it.

I would like to choose the post modern intellectual system to work on, but I’m not sure I understood what this supposes.

Best Regards,

Katia Moldoveanu

Here are some thoughts about “intellectual system” and “materiality”.

Intellectual system

An “intellectual system” can be seen as a set of values and reference points which are specific for a certain period or cultural movement.

Behind any architectural work there is a conception, with its own principles and rules.

In other words, an “intellectual system” can be considered as what lies beyond the material form of every item.

Materiality

“Materiality” has often been understood as “materials”, as W. Richards noticed in the introduction of his book. He also thinks of “architecture” as the “material art”, or in other words, the art of building. His idea is to present the materials from the history and ideas (that stand on the basis of material) perspective.

Still, an architectural item is made of values (theoretic form) and building materials (material form). Any of them can not exist without the other, their synthesis giving birth to the every architectural item.

Wednesday 7 January 2009

About the table

Dear Professor,

I have read the first lecture of your course and the articles on the blog and I would like to chose

The Democracy Standardization – The Modern Era, from the table published, to study at your course. I'm not very sure where to complete the table, with my option of Intellectual System so I would like to know if this choice is correct.

Thank you and kind regards,

Roland Vasiliu

Friday 2 January 2009

Bibliography

About the Bibliography

Dear Professor Dr. Maria Voyatzaki

I would like to inform you that unfortunately I don’t have the books you mentioned on the blog, and it would be extremely useful to download it from your blog.

Thank you for your understanding.

Kind regards,
ioana Urdea

RE-ESTABLISHING WHERE WE STAND

Intellectual Systems and the Materiality of Architecture. Lecture 1

Architecture, as the art of blending culture with feeling (senses), manifests itself through materials by virtue of values that are always strongly related to the way each era in the history of humanity perceives the human both as body and as a mentality. Building materials and construction techniques act as mediators for this blending. The primary material on which architects work with is not so much the material aspect of the form but its ideas and meaning.

Architectural materiality is not about the technical aspect of the realisation of a form but much more profoundly, it is about the manifestation of the philosophical background of architecture. Building materials and construction techniques contain architectural ideas which are embedded within them, controlling their proper choice and their contribution to structuring a form.

Intellectual systems and the Materiality of Architecture. Introduction.

What is the choice of materials and techniques chosen to serve the materialisation of form founded on? Why have certain materials and techniques been employed in some intellectual systems more than others? How is this choice related to the concept of the architect?
How are the values of an intellectual system encompassed in the choice of architects for materials and techniques to materialise their ideas and transform them into built form consistent to these values?

The first lecture of this course intends to offer different than the usual appreciations of architecture and its materiality. The materiality of architecture will not be seen in terms of the perfection of its technical detailing, the innovation of assembling parts, the tactility of materials and the aesthetics of the construction.

In the study life of an architect, architectural education has often served as the medium of familiarising an individual to create architecture ‘in the style of’ in a perpetual attempt to constructively and creatively ‘copy’ the architecture one appreciates. Students of architecture but even practising architects see architecture as a set of stylistic idioms of a certain era. There is often a misunderstanding between appreciating stylistic idioms that correspond to an intellectual system and appreciating what has actually given rise to these stylistic idioms. The same way a brick is not just a brick but what we can actualyl form with it. To paraphrase Luis Kahn an arch, or a pilotis is nothing in itself but exists to serve a certain purpose. Not only a practical, functional and operational purpose, but a meaningful purpose associated with the architect’s intellectual background when conceiving an idea and in an effort to translate it into built form.

Limited discussion and often non-existent associations are drawn to the roots or rather the socio-economic and cultural generators of architecture, the context in which it emerges. One can naively attribute to buildings the choice of materials and techniques deployed to availability and affordability. However, at a second glance materials and techniques are the media that ‘translate and transcribe’ ideas, values and principles (as these characterise an intellectual system) into built form.

To give an example one can bring to mind some of the principles of the Modern Movement such as equity, democracy, standardisation, internationalisation. Le Corbusier engraved this period with his invention of the modular, a human being with metric characteristics that determined the rational, undoubted measurements of a dwelling. Repetition to achieve the same dimensions could be easily achieved with concrete frames. Along the same line, reinforced concrete by nature a material with no connotations to a specific geographic area could serve to better express the architecture that could fit in any place on Earth, alluding to the International Style of the period. Even at an urban scale the creation of the uninterrupted landscape could be achieved with buildings elevated from the ground floor through pilotis easily built with concrete frames.

The attached article is an overview of the relationship between the attestations of the human body and the materiality of architecture.

The attached table is only a start. After answering to my last email and after reading the article, you are kindly asked to choose the intellectual system on which you will work. There is nine of you, which means that two of you will be working on the same intellectual system i.e. Deconstruction and only one will be working alone on one intellectual system. On a first-come-first-served basis you will choose your period. Once you see that two other students have already chosen before you your first choice you will have to opt out for a second choice. The two students and I will prepare the material for the respective lecture that corresponds to the chosen period. You are asked to start filling in the gaps of the table and submit it to the Blog for us to see.

For start you will have to read the Introduction by two books to help you respond to the questions posed in my last email:

• Ford Edward The Details of Modern Architecture, Volume 2, 1928 to 1988, The MIT Press, MIT 1998
• Weston Richard, Materials, Form and Architecture, London, Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2003

In case these books are not available in your library we will have to scan the introductions and put on them the Blog. Please confirm who has not got them in their library so that we can make them available to you.

Looking forward to further working with you.

Awaiting your responses to the assignments set as soon as possible. Let us assume that the hand in of the first part of the work will be 10 December and we will have another collective session on 20 December. Meanwhile please do not hesitate to contact me.

Maria Voyatzaki

e-archidoct: intellectual systems and materiality