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What is the role of materiality and immateriality in architecture today?
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Is materiality and immateriality predominantly about the expression of material properties, the transformation of materials, human perception, or value judgements; some combination of these; or something else.
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In other words, if a forth text were added to this chapter, what would the argument be about today’s architecture in relation to materiality and immateriality?
ARTICLE READING
LECTURE 05
Many current architectural proposals, consciously or unconsciously, deal with one question related with the very same specificity of architecture, and that is materiality. Materiality is basically the concept of use of materials in the construction of a building. I personally feel that in today’s architectures, materiality and immateriality are both very important visual presentation to a structure of a building, it helps either to show clearly or perceived the audience about the materials for what it is or what is not. Besides that, it also provides a basic idea of the construction to the building for instance the use of concrete and timber, have different jointing system.
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Here are two examples of the concept of materiality of architecture that shows the dominant use of material and shows the function and method of construction.
Immateriality on the other hand is, to me, is as important as materiality. That’s because I think immateriality in today’s architecture explores the sometimes-conflicting forces that draw architecture towards either the material or the immaterial. It gives almost like a sixth sense to the architecture world as the perceived absence of matter more than the actual absence of matter. To provide what the audiences could not see with the naked eyes, a spiritual factor rather than physical, that are based individually by personal experiences and perceptions.
Here are another two examples, showing the concept of immateriality to perceived the sense of boundary of walls between interior and exterior.
One of the famous architect I felt is famous for materiality architecture, is the American architect, Louis Isadore Kahn. In semester 3, I was lucky enough to get to do a precedent study on his famous work the Kimbell Art Museum, but today the examples of materiality I wanted to bring out is another of his famous work, Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban. “Even a brick wants to be something” quoted by Louis Kahn himself. In this building, Louis Kahn stresses the Importance of honoring your materials. He had a steadfast belief that all materials had their own destiny and wouldn't tolerate any attempt to deviate from that. During the age of clean modernism and the use of cutting edge materials, his architecture was often dismissed for being overly symbolic and heavily venerating buildings of the past. Influenced by the arid nature of many of his sites, Kahn's buildings often took the form of cavernous brick shells with large geometrical cut outs, which he would like to describe them - in his bizarre Kahn-way - as ruins in reverse.
Kimbell Art Museum, from Louis Khan, this famous building shows the great used of materials, and how it coordinate with the light effect created by Louis Kahn.
Jatiyo Sangsad Bhaban, another famous work of Louis Kahn, that greatly shows, individually the use of bricks, adn how he show appreciation to it.
In contrast, a Japanese architecture Sou Fujimoto is the other architect that in contrast show the characteristics of immateriality in its architecture works. A notable example would be its serpentine pavilion a small architectural installation on an unused lot in Milwaukee's East side entitled faBRICK. But for this example, I wanted to bring out the famous House NA. Described as “a unity of separation and coherence”, the house acts as both a single room and a collection of rooms. The loosely defined program and the individual floor plates create a setting for a range of activities that can take place at different scales. The house provides spaces of intimacy if two individuals choose to be close, while also accommodating for a group of guests by distributing people across the house.
Serpentine Pavilion (left), House N (Center & Right), famous work of Sou Fujimoto, that greatly shows, the characteristics of immateriality by perceiving the boundary of the buildings he created between interior and exterior.
House NA, by Sou Fujimoto, here it shows the idea of living in a tree that shows a connection between each place by also a unity between interior to the environment.
In conclusion, if a fourth text were to be added, I believe it would be titled “LIMITS OF THE IMMATERIAL”. Architecture today are a lot limited by visual and I believe visual is an incomplete experience. If it totally supplants reality, it will become reality. Architecture should be more than that. Architecture, perhaps by definition, should have a complete experience, it should do with the materiality of reality and its immateriality. I can't think of a better characterization of architecture than saying that it is linked to a phenomenological experience and that it is also phenomenologically determinant. Food can't be virtual. Neither can architecture. Architecture is even an anchoring to materiality.