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Tectonism – Architecture for the Twenty-First Century, published by: Images Publishing – The Arts Bridge, Melbourne 2023
In his treatise, Tectonism: Architecture for the Twenty-First Century, Patrik Schumacher presents a comprehensive, illustrated analysis of Tectonism, demonstrating its superiority as the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style. The central thesis is that tectonism, as a logical continuation and refinement of earlier stages of parametricism, is most congenial to the demands and opportunities of our computational age and therefore set to spread its influence to become global best practice in the field of architecture.
Link to order on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tectonism-Architecture-Century-Patrik-Schumacher/dp/1864708964/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1MG3WQX7Z6QKH&keywords=Patrik+Schumacher&qid=1693264941&s=books&sprefix=patrik+schumacher%2Cstripbooks%2C70&sr=1-1
TECTONISM, AA Book Launch lecture
Summary:
Tectonism is the most advanced and most sophisticated contemporary architectural style. There are, to date, only relatively few fully satisfactory built examples, and most of them are still of a relatively modest scale. Notwithstanding this fact, it is the thesis of this book that tectonism, as defined and illustrated here, represents the future of 21st century architecture. This thesis is optimistic with respect to the long-term rationality of the discipline of architecture, i.e. with respect to its capacity to discern and ascertain, via its internal discourse, the superiority of tectonism, and to spread its influence and impact as global best practice accordingly. This optimism also extends to the rationality of the wider society, as represented through private clients, public clients, and through end user acceptance, to be susceptible to the guidance it will receive from its architectural expert discourse. This optimism is based on a critical analysis and appraisal of architectural history. The avant-garde intuitions of the early modernists in the 1920s, backed up by sound theoretical arguments, did win over the discipline in the 1930s and 1940s, and spread its real impact on the global built environment throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The current avant-garde values and methods promoted and applied within the movement of tectonism, although very different from modernism, are equally well thought through, as the arguments in this book will attempt to demonstrate.
Contents:
Preface
Introduction
1.First Premise: Parametricism
1.1 The Indispensable Concept of Style
1.2 Parametricism against Pluralism
1.3 Parametricism and Progress
1.4 Conceptual and Operational Definition of Parametricism
1.5 Style–war: Parametricism versus Minimalism
2.Second Premise: Computational Engineering
2.1.Intense Collaboration and Strict Distinction between Architecture and Engineering
2.2.Structural Fluidity – From Typology to Topology in Structural Engineering
3.From Engineering Inspiration to Architectural Style: Tectonism
3.1.Making Engineering Logics Speak
3.2.Accentuation and Suppression
3.3.Tectonic Articulation
4.Tectonism as Style: the Expressive Utilisation of Engineering Logics
4.1.From Engineering to Style
4.2.Historical Precedents
4.3.Structural System Optimisations as Drivers of Tectonic Articulation
4.4.Environmental Engineering Logics as Drivers of Tectonic Articulation
4.5.Fabrication Methods as Drivers of Tectonic Articulation
4.6.Semiological Form to Function Correlations
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