Architecture is a strange mixture of
persistence and flux, an amalgamation of elements -- some that have been
around for over 5,000 years and others that were (re)invented
yesterday. The fact that these elements change independently of each
other, according to different cycles and economies, and for different
reasons, turns each building into a complex collage of the archaic and
the current, the site-specific and the standard, mechanical smoothness
and the spontaneous. Only by looking at the elements under a wide lens
can we recognize the cultural preferences, forgotten symbolism,
technological advances, mutations triggered by intensifying global
exchange, climatic adaptions, political calculations, regulatory
requirements, new digital regimes, and, somewhere in the mix -- the
ideas of the architect that constitute the practice of architecture
today.
A collection of these essential elements into 15 books in a package launched at the 2014 Venice Biennale that allows us to look through
a microscope at the real fundamentals of our buildings and see again
the essential design techniques used by any architect, anywhere,
anytime.
