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Architecture Tectonics Lecture Notes

This document provides an overview of architectural tectonics and its history as a concept. It defines tectonics as deriving from Greek words meaning "the act of making" and discusses its emergence in Prussia in the late 1700s through significant texts like Botticher's "The Tectonics of the Hellenes" and Semper's "The Four Elements of Architecture." Semper distinguished between light, assembled "tectonic" construction and heavy "stereotomic" construction like stone. The document then examines Kenneth Frampton's work on tectonic culture and the differences between expressionist vs rationalist approaches. A number of architectural projects are provided as examples.

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Andrew Kurniawan
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144 views3 pages

Architecture Tectonics Lecture Notes

This document provides an overview of architectural tectonics and its history as a concept. It defines tectonics as deriving from Greek words meaning "the act of making" and discusses its emergence in Prussia in the late 1700s through significant texts like Botticher's "The Tectonics of the Hellenes" and Semper's "The Four Elements of Architecture." Semper distinguished between light, assembled "tectonic" construction and heavy "stereotomic" construction like stone. The document then examines Kenneth Frampton's work on tectonic culture and the differences between expressionist vs rationalist approaches. A number of architectural projects are provided as examples.

Uploaded by

Andrew Kurniawan
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Week 4 Tectonics Old School

ABPL 90117 21st Century Architecture


Dr AnnMarie Brennan

Lecture Notes

Marc-Antione Laugier, Frontispiece


His ‘Primitive hut’, 1753.

Questions:
What are architectural tectonics?
What is the history of this concept within architectural discourse?

Tectonic derives from Greek techne and tekton.

Tekton = originally translated as carpenter, evolved into


architekton= master builder.

Techne = the “act of making that is driven by both a predetermined goal and the existing knowledge
necessary to achieve that goal.”

Underlying concepts of tectonics came about in the late 1700s, Prussia.

Significant texts:

Karl Botticher, The Tectonic of the Hellenes, 1843-52.

Gottfried Semper, The Four Elements of Architecture 1851


Two types of construction –
1.Frame or Tectonic - “the study of lightweight assembled components of
architecture”
individual parts assembled
I.e wood, steel, bamboo
2. Stereotomics - “the study of the heavy mass components.”
“telluric”, compressive mass, cutting, carving
Brick, concrete, stone

The transition from a stereotomic -based architecture to one based on a series of joints is what
constitutes architecture.

Semper’s Four Elements of the first domestic house:


1. Hearth
2. Earthwork
3. Framework
4. Cladding

What are the ontological differences between the tectonic and stereotomic?

Gottfried Semper, Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts, 1860


- Example of the Carribbean hut
- Semper - emphasis on the joint, the knot is the first joint

Marc-Antione Laugier, Essay on Architecture, (1755)


Frontispiece to his “the Primitive Hut”
Called for the simplification of architecture, primitivism

Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture. The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and
Twentieth Century Architecture.

Frampton on tectonics:
- Expressionist versus Rationalist
- Form and Content
- Ideal and Rational
- Ontological (what a structure IS) and Representational (what a structure LOOKS
LIKE, what it symbolizes)
- Tectonic system versus cladding, astylistic
- Rearguard vs. avant-garde
- Kernform (core form) versus Kunstform (art form) or decorative cladding
- Heavy stereotomics versus light tectonics

Projects:
Lecture 1

Frederick Schinkel, Altes Museum, Berlin 1824 - 28

August Perret, Theatre des Champs Elysees, c. 1911

August Perret, Musee des Travaux Publics, [ Public Works], Paris, 1936-1946

Louis Kahn, Exeter Library, New Hamphire, 1965

Yoshijima House in Takayama, Japan (1881)

Louis Kahn, Esherick House, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 1961.

Louis Kahn, Salk Institute. LA Jolla, CA

Eero Saarinen, TWA Terminal, NY


Eladio Dieste, The Church of Atlantida, Uruguay

Mies van Der Rohe, 800 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago

Herzog & de Meuron, Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY 2012

Herzog & de Meuron, Goetz Art Gallery, Munich Germany, 1996


https://www.archdaily.com/257447/video-goetz-gallery-building-by-herzog-de-meuron

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