The tectonics of the aerial: Enric Miralles and the vicissitudes of the climatic

Abstract

Much has been written about the fragmentary, diffuse and atmospheric character of the architecture of Enric Miralles. But what happens when this architecture is confronted with the vicissitudes of the climatic? That defining moment in which the demand of environmental conditioning forces to define a boundary between the inside and the outside of a building, transforming architecture’s qualities from fragmentary into compact, from diffuse into sharp, from atmospheric into volumetric. One of the most defining aspects of Miralles’ oeuvre is then overtly shown: the tectonics of the aerial, under which architecture is never aimed at being enclosed.