Tuesday, August 31, 2010

architecture is


architecture is useful emptiness.

architecture is the physical and implied limits of emptiness. architecture is something i am in but not touching.
i could touch it, if i wanted to. there's something there to stop my fingers moving through the emptiness... but architecture is only useful in the space it does not itself occupy.
unlike so many others, utility seems to me like the only metric to compare these remainders left by different architecture. of course, there are other things that go into it. there are lots of things to consider and a lot of decisions to be made. architects don't make architecture, they make decisions; but ultimately the only thing all architecture has in common is utility. ultimately, all architecture has to do is function the way that is expected.

architecture is a body of knowledge. it's a process of how to make decisions; how to solve problems, how to make or adapt a place to use. it's a ubiquitous extension of human evolution. it's a tool. we make it to provide us with what we can't provide for ourselves. where there are or used to be people, there is or was architecture. people will bring architecture to where they will be. it's in this association and necessity that i find the rest of what architecture is or means. through use architecture becomes tied to the more interesting matters of life. those who did not make the decisions about what it should be like are the ones that use it figuratively or definitively. they create architecture out of poche.

without use, architecture is empty of meaning or significance.


obligatory image: