Tectonic Visions in Architecture

The chapter offers an introduction to the etymological background of tectonic theory in architecture, central conceptual definitions and application of tectonic theory in architecture.

Tectonics and the ethics of contruction.

Tectonics has to do with the design and joining of form elements so that they form an architectual synthesis - in this way, tectonics refers to the interrelationships between the basic idea, the form principals, the choice of building technology and the constructive present within a given building. Every building holds a tectonic vision per se that may be more or less explicit, more or less primitive or more or less sophistiated, wether such a vision be capriciously or deliberately determined.

This book unfolds the tectonic realm of ideas and describes in essay form how tectonic visions are manifest in the architecture of Ludvig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Charles and Ray Eames, Jørn Utzon, Louis I. Kahn, and Alison and Peter Smithson. In a concluding discussionm the book designates tectonic strategies as the key to maintaining a ethical dimension in the design og our physical environment.