INVISIBLE TECTONICS

Anastasia Karandinou

Topic: Tectonics as metaphor

Abstract:
In this paper we will look into the relation between tectonics
- the construction, the materials and the technologies - and
the notion of invisible or immaterial.
In recent architectural discourse there is growing interest
about tectonics, materiality, construction and technologies, in
relation to the users (and the builders - in the broader sense)
experience, and perception of space. Books such as J.Hills
Immaterial architecture, O.Boumans The invisible in architecture, K.L.Thomas Material matters, Scott Browns
et al. Un-Volumetric architecture, recently published, show
increasing interest in the interface of materiality or tectonics.
Based on these recent investigations, we look into three aspects of the relation between tectonics and immateriality,
related to the three apsects of tectonics: (1)construction,
(2)materials and (3)technologies.
(1) The building is not only the activities it choreographs
or implies, as a finished object. It is also the procedures and
events that it causes, or supports, implies, uses, in order to
be created; the place where its materials come from, the way
they are produced, the groups of people that are involved
in their production and transportation, are also part of the
building. The whole network of procedures involves events
that are activated, (or at least re-enforced or promoted) by
the design of the building.
These things are probably invisible in the outcome. Traces of
the procedures might be there, but these are not necessarily
readable by the user of the place. In this sense, the meaning
is not what the building says or represents, but what it does
- and what kind of social, political or economical procedures
it involves.
(2) The increasing interest in materiality has to do with a shift
towards the experience of the space by all the senses; not
only the visual. The visual is, and has probably always been
- within the western civilisation - the primary sense. In recent
architectural examples, though, other senses seem to be intentionaly designed as the main element on which the narrative of the place is based. The materiality is not overpowered
by the form; it creates effect and atmospheres, it navigates

the user by activating his touch, smell or aural sense. The material can also be active (or interactive) itself; the designer has
the possibility not only to chose an existing material, but also
to design one with the specific characteristics and behaviours
he requires.
(3) Contemporary technologies blur the physical and the virtual. Apart from virtual or iconic spaces and cities, contemporary simple or more sofisticated technologies are applied to
real spaces. They create, thus, hybrid conditions that enrich
the users experience. The virtual elements shift the way the
user perceives the environment, the boundaries of the space
and his self within it. The electromagnetic weather (as J.Hill
calls it) shifts the perception of the homes boundaries, of the
boundary between the stable, controlled, and the other, the
unknown and unpredictable. These invisible aspects of contemporary spaces, define equally to the physical ones - territories, connections and edges.
Full Paper:
Invisible tectonics
In this paper we will look into the relation between the tectonics the construction, the materials, and the technologies
and the notion of invisible or immaterial.
We have noticed that there is an increasing interest, within
architectural discourse, about the notion of the invisible or
immaterial. Within the last few years, several books and essays deal with these notions and their relation to architecture,
in various ways. The way they use the term invisible is not
consistent and it does not always refer to the same things or
conditions. It is rather being used in order to discuss a range
of issues related to architectural thought and production.
Through the study of the relevant texts, we figure out that
notions such as the invisible are being used in order to describe issues closely related to the materiality and the tectonics of the building, questioned, though, under a particular
perspective.
We will try, thus, to approach the aspects of the tectonics that
are questioned through the notion of invisible and we will also

investigate the reasons for this increased interest in relation

to the contemporary conditions.
We argue that these approaches deal with the materiality
and the tectonics of the building questioning issues related
to the perception and the experience of it, and as we will
later see in detail - are mainly concerned with three particular
themes:
(1)
Construction; the events and procedures involved in
the making of the building,
(2)
Materials; the senses activated by its materiality (not
only the visual),
(3)
Technologies; the hybrid spatialities created by contemporary technologies.
We will look, thus, into the way these approaches relate the
notion of the invisible with particular issues of the tectonics
of the building.
Non-visual_ (re)appearing
Arguments, in relation to the theme of the immaterial, have
been made in many recent books, and most of them emerge
out of a critique to the formalistic approach to architecture.
Some of these books are J.Hills (2006) Immaterial architecture, D.Scott Brown, et al. (2006) Contemporary public
space: Un-volumetric architecture, K.L.Thomas (2006) Material matters: Architecture and material practice, O.Bouman
and R.Van Toorns (1994) The invisible in architecture, and
A.Barbaras (2007) Invisible architecture: Experiencing spaces
through the sense of smell. 1

persons who have handled it along the way. 4

Similarly, the building is not only the activities it choreographs or implies, as a finished object. It is also the procedures and events that it causes, or supports, implies, uses,
in order to be created; the place where its materials come
from, the way they are produced, the groups of people that
are involved in their production and transportation, are also
part of the building. The whole network of procedures involves events that are activated, (or at least re-enforced or
promoted) by the design of the building.
These things are probably invisible in the outcome. Traces of
the procedures might be there, but these are not necessarily
readable by the user of the place. In this sense, the meaning
is not what the building says or represents, but what it does
- and what kind of social, political or economical procedures it
involves in its making. In this sense, the tectonics or the materiality is not only about the behavior, the strength or the form
of the inhabited building itself; they actually affect a much
vaster network that the architect cannot be fully aware of.
We could argue, thus, that the architects decisions have also
ethical and political implications, since the procedures activated depend (to some extend) on his design. A question that
arises is about the ways in which these issues can be creatively
5 incorporated into the designing of a building; or about how
even the consciousness of these issues would possibly inform
its designing.
These invisible aspects of the tectonics have been always
existed; nevertheless, the complexity of the networks activated by the making of a building, the hyper-local effect, the
scale they have, and their unpredictable implications, have
made them faced and studied anew.
Materials_ materiality- senses

These architects and theorists approach the notion of immaterial in several ways, and in different contexts. In some texts
this notion refers to new or non-conventional materialities, in
others to the non-material or non-visual elements that create
places such as sound or smell things that can be handled
by the architect as a designing element or tool. Other studies consider the immaterial as the idea of a building; the
concept related to its form rather than to its materiality 2 ,
while other texts break the dipole of form VS matter, and interpret the things or buildings as a result of exchanging forces.
3 The events, happenings, and the behaviour of the users,
have also been considered as immaterial aspects of a place.
Apart from the events that happen within the designed and
built space, the procedures involved in its making are invisible aspects of the building-construction too; the political and
economical networks, activated by the making of a building,
are invisible in the built outcome - they constitute, though,
events that lead to the making of the building and that the
architects and designers have activated.
Construction_ procedures- social-economical-political networks
An aspect of the materiality or tectonics of a building that is
not visible in the outcome (in the built space) is the social, political and economical networks implicated in its production.
K.L.Thomas, referring to the example of the book, argues
that Like any building, this book is in fact the result of a vast
network of practices. There are conventions of its structure
and of the English language in written form; the designs of
typefaces and the software in which the print is set; the manufacture of papers, glues and inks from which it is constructed.
Behind each of these materials is a complex history of development, extraction, technique, transportation and exchange.
Economies of production regulation of standards and labour
shape this object, as do the lives and contexts of the many

Another issue regarding the way tectonics are considered

within recent texts (referring to the notion of invisible or
immaterial) is the sensuous effect of space. The tectonics
are not regarded only in relation to their function and visual
effect, but also as an element that can create an effect or a
narrative by the way it stimulates any other of the senses.
Recent research, acknowledging that the visual has been
prioritised within the western culture 6 , look into the role
of other senses, and into the way space and our existence
(within it) is perceived through them. 7
Anna Barbara, for example, examines the smell as a placecreating element. In her book Invisible architecture: experiencing places through the sense of smell, she examines the
sense of smell through the cultures and in relation to architecture; in relation to the meaning and experience of the space.
She also questions the reasons for the lack of regard for the
sense of smell in architecture 8, and notices as one, the difficulty in its visual representation.
Constance Classen, in her book Worlds of sense, examines - other than the western ways of prioritising the senses
and experiencing or describing the world through them. An
example of different prioritisation of the senses that she refers to, is the Tzotzil tribe of the Chiapas highlands in Mexico
(descendants of the Mayas) whose cosmology is based upon
amounts of heat. 9
Richard Coyne and Martin Parker, in their paper Sounding
off 10, refer to Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Emile 11 and to the
sense of sound as a means for perceiving ones self, his beingness and relation to others. 12
The materiality of a space defines the sounds produced within
it and also the volume and qualities of the sounds that other
things (like human presence or voice) produce within them.
The sound, thus, although has been considered as an invisible, immaterial element of space is closely related to the

material source that produces it. As Heidegger claims, what

we first perceive are the things themselves, and not the sensation as something abstract: Much closer to us than all sensations are the things themselves. We hear the door shut in
the house and never hear acoustical sensations or even mere
sounds. 13
We could argue, thus, that the sensuous effect or atmosphere of a building is (to some extend) the perception of
its materiality.
Peter Zumpthors thermal baths at Vals, for example, is a
labyrinth of senses, due to the buildings tectonics. The sound,
the smell, the texture, the temperature and the view, are the
elements that create the atmosphere and the narrative of the
place; the materiality stimulates the senses in a particularly
designed way as to consider that it is the invisible sensuous effect that matters rather than the materiality itself. We
could argue, thus, that what is increasingly being studied and
regarded as invisible or immaterial, is actually about a
particular way of dealing with the materiality and tectonics of
the built space and the perception of those.
The study of the visual (as what has been the primary way of
perceiving the world) and the fact that other-than-the-visual
ways of perceiving space (and ourselves within it) have been
increasingly studied, informs also the way of designing. Although the senses have always been the means for exploring
and experiencing the space, in recent design examples they
function as the main designing tool, or as the main element
that releases the narrative of the place.

the way we inhabit and perceive spaces. As he claims, although

the immersive virtual reality fascination had taken over for
a while, small devices (fragments of digital display) create
various ways of overlaying the digital and the real. 16 The fusion space produced like that, is, according to W.Mitchell, an
architectural space in which electronic instruments of spatial
and temporal displacement enable new and socially valuable
combinations of people or activities. 17
One of the examples that he gives is that of a young researcher in a library, surrounded by books, connected to the
internet through his portable computer, taking pictures of interesting pages with a digital camera or mobile phone, and
getting guidance through his mobile phone by his supervisor
or colleagues.
What he suggests, thus, is that the challenge is to start thinking like creative fusion chefs to create spaces that satisfy important human needs in effective new ways, and that surprise
and delight us through digitally enabled combinations of the
unexpected. 18
Technologies, thus, either as embedded in the building or
as portable devices (mobile phones, GPS systems, portable
computers, etc.), have been regarded as elements that fuse
into the rest of the physical setting and co-create spatial conditions. The intensities, densities or fields of spatial qualities that they create are not easily mapped or architecturally
represented and in some contexts are regarded as invisible;
the same happens with the connections that they activate and
also the potential ones.
Conclusion

Technologies_ Hybrid spaces

If tectonics is about the physical infrastructure of a place, the
contemporary technologies also do constitute part of them.
By technologies I mean both the ones merged with the conventional construction of the building and also the portable,
mobile, temporal ones. Both kinds of new technologies create spatial qualities and affect the way we perceive spaces and
their interconnections.
The particular nature of the new technologies materiality makes them regarded as invisible or immaterial. The
electromagnetic field, for example, although constructed by
material devices, is not visible in the sense that other elements
of the space are. It does, though, define territories, connections, thresholds and edges. J.Hill, refers to it as electromagnetic weather 14, and he looks particularly into the way that
it defines the place and thresholds of the home. The electromagnetic weathers relation to home-ness is considered
mainly in two ways: The electromagnetic weather enters the
physical home through various devices the new thresholds/
walls/ boundaries and shifts the way the home is connected
to the outside or to the unknown. The electromagnetic
weather, though, can also re-create a homely condition
elsewhere, since the devices that control the electromagnetic
boundaries or thresholds of the home are portable.
Apart from the study of the spatial qualities as what the technologies themselves create, the condition of the new technologies incorporated into the everyday environments and
perceived as such, is an issue recently brought forth. William
Mitchell, in his essay After the revolution_ Instruments of
displacement (in the book Disappearing architecture) 15
argues that the debates about new technologies, the virtual
spaces and their potential or limitations, give their place to
discussions and research about the fusion of the new media in
their physical environment. He focuses, thus, into the hybrid
conditions that appear in the contemporary world and shift

Through these three issues, which emerge out of the study of

the contemporary debates about the notions of immaterial
or invisible, we see in what other ways the tectonics may
be approached or involved in the designing of a place.
The first issue brings forth the procedure of the making of the
building (the stories implicated into that and their invisible
nature), and questions the relation between this aspect of the
tectonics and the concept or narrative of the space itself.
Through the second issue, we see how the tectonics may create a sensuous effect that is experienced as such, and perceived as independent from the element that creates it.
In the third case, we look into how technologys particular
nature is regarded as non-material or invisible. Its materiality is perceived in a less immediate way; either because of the
way it is embedded into the conventional structure of a building or because of its fluidity and temporal character.
Through the recent debates about the theme of the invisible or the immaterial all three aspects of the tectonics
have been challenged, and different ways of perceiving them
have been brought forth.
Through this diversity of concepts related to the invisible aspect of the tectonics, one can still argue that this literature
has sought to identify and investigate those conditions that
are difficult to represent, and to explore the consequences
that these conditions have for the practice of architectural
design.
The issues involved are not necessarily new; architecture has
been always dealing with the boundary between the matter
and the inhabitable space, the solid material and the void, the
relation between solid built elements and the activities they
accommodate or provoke, the experience they provide or
the senses that they activate. Nevertheless, contemporary
conditions, such as the development of new materials and
technologies, the globalized scale of the networks activated
by a building production, the need for sustainable spaces and

cities, the virtual and hybrid environments, and the consequent philosophical debates, have brought forth these notions, under a new perspective.
Bibliography
Barbara, Anna, and Anthony Perliss. Invisible Architecture :
Experiencing Places through the Sense of Smell. Milano: Skira,
2006.
Coyne, R., and M. Parker. Sounding Off: The Place of Voice
in Ubiquitous Digital Media. . In Seeing, Understanding,
Learning in the Mobile Age. Budapest, 2005.
Flachbart, G., and P. Weibel. Disappearing Architecture: From
Real to Virtual to Quantum: Blackwell Synergy, 2005.
Heidegger, M. Poetry, Language, Thought: Harper & Row
New York, 1971.
Hill, Jonathan. Immaterial Architecture. London: Routledge,
2006.
Jay, M. Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought: University of California Press,
1994.
Lloyd Thomas, Katie Material Matters : Architecture and Material Practice. London: Routledge, 2006.
Pallasmaa, J. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses: Academy Editions, 1996.
Rousseau, J. J. Emile: Kessinger Publishing, 2004.