Log In
Or create an account ->
Imperial Library
Home
About
News
Upload
Forum
Help
Login/SignUp
Index
Preface
What Is a Detail?
There Are No Details in Modernism.
A Detail Is a Fragment in Which the Whole Building Is Represented.
Details Are the Articulation of Structure.
Details Are the Articulation of Construction.
The Detail as Autonomous Design
Conclusion
There Are No Details
Detailing involves the selective presentation and suppression of information at the service of a larger understanding of the building.
The inclusion or omission of a positive detail is a result of concepts that are both compositional and ideological.
Consistency of form in detail is neither possible nor desirable.
Consistency of concept may lead to an inconsistency of form, but one that is often beneficial.
Detailing requires the presentation of information in degrees of importance, in hierarchies.
Good detailing, having created hierarchies, will often violate them, and having arrived at a system to consistently present its selective information, will present it in an inconsistent way.
Anti-hierarchy
Conclusion
The Details as Motif
The Motific Detail as Cultural Symbol
The Motific Detail as Fragment
Conclusion
The Detail as a Representation of Construction
Otto Wagner and H. P. Berlage
Bernard Maybeck
Auguste Perret
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier
Louis Kahn and the Smithsons
Williams and Tsien, the Patkaus, Hadid, and Ando
Modernist Myths and Modernist Orders
Conclusion
The Detail as Joint
What is a joint or rather, what is a part?
What is the appropriate relation of one part to another part?
What is the relation of part to whole?
Is a building a mechanism or an organism? Is it more like a watch or a tree?
The Modern Organism
The Arts and Crafts Joint
The International Style Joint
The Body Politic
The Constructivist Joint
The Steel Organism
The Animated Joint
The Fragmented Joint
The Modern Organism—Again
Conclusion
The Autonomous Detail
Construction—a change in our awareness of parts and whole
The Constructionally Narrative Detail
Structure—a change in our awareness of the forces acting within a building, particularly weight
Program—a change in our awareness of our own functional engagement with a building
Performance—a change in our awareness of the forces acting on a building
Distance
Failures
Conclusion
What Is Detailing?
Is detailing simply the act of elimination?
Detailing is the act of deciding not to conceal.
Is there a difference between an ornament and a detail?
Construction
Shelter
Program
How does scale matter?
What is the relation of the architectural part to the architectural whole?
What is a Detail?
Selected Bibliography
Drawing Sources
Image Credits
Index
← Prev
Back
Next →
← Prev
Back
Next →