Structure as Architectural Poetics

Abstract

Getting contemporary architects to look back at the shaping value of architectural structure is one of the key objectives of this reflection on the different between building and composing in relation to the theory of the project. The structure does not embody a simple relationship between technique and construction, but rather mediates between the space and the site, intensifying the site and building the space. Structural clarity leads to degrees of freedom in the formal solution. It also enables the possibility of including complexity and mediation of what is real to avoid schematic idealism and self-centered formalism.

By linking construction and representation, the structure allows sensing the form, and, as an architectural instrument, avoids today's clumsy superimposing of a significant enclosure over a functional, technologically effective diagram. The structure supports the architectural ideal by conferring a disciplinary basis for project development, since it sets off tectonic control and constructive logic with mobility and lability of what is formal. This is an entirely coherent resource for executive procedures in practice, as a poetic expression of materials, elements and techniques that confer visibility to the constructive features of a project.