The architecture as organism and process

Abstract

Thearchitecture has its own nature, formed by a practice which synthesizes ideas and things. Nothing is indifferent to it in the contemporary world. This is its main characteristic, which defines its métier. But as architecture is syncretic by definition, it risks getting lost amid so many specializations which it tends to identify with. In this essay, Giuseppe Strappa affirms the necessity of delimitating and logically recognizing the scientific research and design practice core. This is the very epistemological question of architecture. Arguing about the relationship between architecture and philosophy, the essay presents examples of how architects and engineers dealt with new technologies and materials at their time. Strappa concludes by saying that is necessary ‘to return to the direct contact with the more elementary things’, rediscovering the built and symbolic sense of architectural elements.