Poetics, Tectonics and Civics

The three themes mentioned above summarized the whole first semester of last year of study in degree of architecture science in design module. At first, the three words which are the three schools of thought in architecture are stranger to me. However, as soon as I have read on some readings and doing some research about the themes, I start to understand on what the three words actually mean in architecture, and the meaning is deep!

Two year ago, I remembered that we have been exposed to topics of Tectonics and Poetics in culture class. However at that time, we seems to be not ready or skilled enough to know about these themes carefully. It is now the final year, and finally the three schools of thought are brought into the primary core, the design subject including the civics. It makes the semester more philosophical-based and I even had a hard time reading those articles regarding poetics, tectonics and civics, full of difficult words and phrases which I don’t understand usually.

After some tutorials with the lecturers, I finally get to know what is really meant by the three themes. For civics, there must be a human engagement. The buildings with civic narrative are generally found in cities (urban areas) and are involved in history, culture of the society and even the nation. A very skillful architecture firm on this theme is Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) lead by Rem Koolhaas. A famous building of this example is Kunsthaal which links people moving (not building a structure to get people move). Another great example is Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind with those pointless structures in the building to create disturbing feeling to visitors so that they feel the suffer of Jewish people during Holocaust, even reflected by the facade.

For tectonics, it is defined as the poetry of craft in building. Technics referred to just craft, but tectonics involved the beauty in the craft. Craftmanship plays important role here, especially to the detailings and structural systems that matter the most for buildings fall under this category. Materials selection and mix, joint types and construction systems influenced the buildings of tectonics. Few good examples of architects that fall under this category is Glenn Murcutt, Renzo Piano, Carlo Scarpa and Frank Llyod Wright (specifically the Kaufmann House, the Falling Water)

The last theme, poetics is the one that is hard to achieve in architecture. Poetic is defined as something that evokes emotional response through space and sensory experiences (sight, smell, touch, hear) which are usually emphasized with density of materials and play of light and prolonged experience through epic and devil before reaching the climax. Tadao Ando is more to the play of light and detailing while Peter Zumthor is more to the minimalist approach and density of materials. Anyway, both of them are great in poetic buildings, but only in different approaches. The feeling provoked inside a poetic buildings would transcend people to another level of consciousness. (quote by the lecturer which I like it the most). A very great example of poetic work by Peter Zumthor is Thermal Baths.

In the past, buildings like cathedrals have to be in large scale, and the volume is very huge to spark the awe from the people. This is the approach from the past in traditional architecture especially in religious buildings. However, for now, in contemporary architecture, it is not only about the volume of space to create emotional response, but also by using light, materials and even nature for the same effect even in a small space. This is how architecture changes with time in terms of poetics. Same goes to tectonics, when in the past, everything is solid and bulky with rigid openings, but now, everything seems to be so transparent, with open-concept anywhere and even on skyscrapers. For civics, people in the past build castles, palaces, walls to reflect on power and temples and cathedrals to reflect on religious importance. Nowadays, civic buildings are built usually to reflect the people itself.

I am very happy and grateful that I finally understood the three schools of thought in architecture. Now, I can start to concentrate on my two design assignments for the semester which are basically on this; poetics, tectonics and civics. Of course, there are still room of improvement for me in the three fields which usually mixed up together somehow as we can clearly see from many examples of buildings. Really hoping that I can do well for my design by mastering the three schools of thought!