Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Eine Plattform für die Wissenschaft: Bauingenieurwesen, Architektur und Urbanistik
Space is the machine, part one: theoretical preliminaries
‘Theoretical Preliminaries’ deals with the most basic of all questions which architectural theory tries to answer: what is architecture, and what are theories, that they can be needed in architecture? In the first chapter, ‘What architecture adds to building’, the key concepts of the book are set out on the way to a definition of architecture. The argument is that in addition to functioning as bodily protection, buildings operate socially in two ways: they constitute the social organisation of everyday life as the spatial configurations of space in which we live and move, and represent social organisation as physical configurations of forms and elements that we see. Both social dimensions of building are therefore configurational in nature, and it is the habit of the human mind to handle configuration unconsciously and intuitively, in much the same way as we handle the grammatical and semantic structures of a language intuitively. Our minds are very effective in handling configuration in this way, but because we do work this way, we find it very difficult to analyse and talk rationally about the configurational aspects of things. Configuration is in general ‘non-discursive’, meaning that we do not know how to talk about it and do not in general talk about it even when we are most actively using it. In vernacular buildings, the configurational, or non-discursive, aspects of space and form are handled exactly like the grammar of language, that is, as an implication of the manipulation of the surface elements, or words and groups of words in the language case, building elements and geometrical coordinations in building. In the vernacular the act of building reproduces cultural given spatial and formal patterns. This is why it seldom seems ‘wrong’. Architecture, in contrast, is the taking into conscious, reflective thought of these non-discursive and configurational aspects of space and form, leading to the exercise of choice within a wide field of possibility, rather than the reduplication of the patterns specific ...
Space is the machine, part one: theoretical preliminaries
‘Theoretical Preliminaries’ deals with the most basic of all questions which architectural theory tries to answer: what is architecture, and what are theories, that they can be needed in architecture? In the first chapter, ‘What architecture adds to building’, the key concepts of the book are set out on the way to a definition of architecture. The argument is that in addition to functioning as bodily protection, buildings operate socially in two ways: they constitute the social organisation of everyday life as the spatial configurations of space in which we live and move, and represent social organisation as physical configurations of forms and elements that we see. Both social dimensions of building are therefore configurational in nature, and it is the habit of the human mind to handle configuration unconsciously and intuitively, in much the same way as we handle the grammatical and semantic structures of a language intuitively. Our minds are very effective in handling configuration in this way, but because we do work this way, we find it very difficult to analyse and talk rationally about the configurational aspects of things. Configuration is in general ‘non-discursive’, meaning that we do not know how to talk about it and do not in general talk about it even when we are most actively using it. In vernacular buildings, the configurational, or non-discursive, aspects of space and form are handled exactly like the grammar of language, that is, as an implication of the manipulation of the surface elements, or words and groups of words in the language case, building elements and geometrical coordinations in building. In the vernacular the act of building reproduces cultural given spatial and formal patterns. This is why it seldom seems ‘wrong’. Architecture, in contrast, is the taking into conscious, reflective thought of these non-discursive and configurational aspects of space and form, leading to the exercise of choice within a wide field of possibility, rather than the reduplication of the patterns specific ...
Space is the machine, part one: theoretical preliminaries
Hillier, B. (Autor:in)
01.01.2007
In: Space is the machine: a configurational theory of architecture. (pp. 1-109). Space Syntax: London, UK. (2007)
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
DDC:
720
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