The term tectonic derives from the Greek word tekton meaning carpenter, builder. Tekton in turn is closely related with the Greek words techne, artistic skill, art and technikos, artistically skillful, artistic, technical. Tekton is etymologically also related to the Latin words texo, to weave, to interlace, to write, textile, textile, cloth, textus, web, text, textura, textile, building and contextus, context, coherence. The Latin morpheme tex is also related to teg / tog where words such as tego, cover, hide, protect, tectum, roof, house, tectorium, plaster work, coat of paint and tegula, roof tile can be found. There are of course countless other etymological connections but tectonic shall rest for the time being.
The terms architectonic, architect, architecture derive from the Greek words archo, to begin, to be first, to rule, arche, beginning, foundation, principle, supremacy and architekton, the constructor or as a composite interpretation the master builder.
Frampton points out in his introduction that the term tekton also has been used in the meaning of the carpenter as a poet. A poet who interprets and stages our culture through what is built (my comment).
So why does Frampton use the expression Tectonic Culture instead of Tectonic Architecture? There certainly must be an important distinction here. Culture of course has a wider meaning than Architecture in that it encompasses all of the arts known in a defined civilization. The term culture originates from the Latin word cultura, cultivation, civilization which in turn derives from the Latin morpheme col / cul where words such as colo, colui, cultum, cultivate, care for and cultus, care, worship are to be found.
So where is this discussion of terminology leading? Are we any closer to understanding the Frampton oeuvre?
If we simultaneously take a closer look at what architects and which of their works Frampton has studied and analyzed we might be able to discern a pattern, a structure of thought. If we thereafter concentrate on one work by one architect a model of thought for accomplishing valid architecture is revealed.
My choice of work is the Alice Millard house, La Miniatura, Pasadena, California, 1923. The architect is Frank Lloyd Wright. Here we have a project where FLW for the first time utilizes his idea of the textile block system with full implementation, an idea which he has pursued for the last 15 years. This quite ingenious system of building is based on a light-weight prefabricated concrete block measuring 40x40x8.75 centimeters having indented joints along its four edges, a hollowed backside for low weight/ low material usage and a decorated/ designed frontside with signs/ text cast into the surface of the concrete. Thin reinforcing steel wires are vertically set and horizontally laid in the edge-joints of the concrete tiles. Two wall-membranes with air between and a free choice of internal distance are thus erected and closely knit together with steel wires which also are interlaced with the steel wires inserted in the tile-joints. The hollowed tile-joints are filled with concrete as construction progresses and finally we have a two-slab reinforced concrete double-wall. What we actually have here is a systematic building process utilizing prefabricated concrete construction components with no need for a large building-site crane. The concrete block houses designed by FLW would normally have a load-bearing stabilizing skeleton structure consisting of reinforced concrete columns, beams and floor slabs. The skeleton structure was in fact essential for the overall stability of the described double-wall concrete block system. We could argue that the presence of an in-situ concrete skeleton structure somewhat diminishes the ingeniousness of the prefabricated building system but we must bear in mind the evolutionary state of construction technology in the 1920s. Frampton points out that FLW visually suppressed this skeleton structure so as not to interfere with the concept of the textile block system. These textile concrete blocks can be described as text-tiles that is tiles with text applied to them which Frampton would seem to imply in his chapter heading: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Text-Tile Tectonic.
At this point we shall turn to a manifesto presented by FLW in the Architectural Record, 1929:
Aesthetically concrete has neither song nor any story. Nor is it easy to see in this conglomerate, in this mud pie, a high aesthetic property, because in itself it is amalgam, aggregate, compound. And cement, the binding medium, is characterless...
I finally had found simple mechanical means to produce a complete building that looks the way the machine made it, as much at least as any fabric need look. Tough, light, but not ”thin”; imperishable; plastic; no unnecessary lie about it anywhere and yet machine-made, mechanically perfect. Standardization as the soul of the machine here for the first time may be seen in the hand of the architect, put squarely up to imagination, the limitations of imagination the only limitation of building. (extract).
FLW writes in 1932 about the economic/ tectonic advantages of a system of building with concrete blocks in Frank Lloyd Wright: Writings and Buildings, Horizon Press, New York, 1960:
We would take that despised outcast of the building industry - the concrete block - out from underfoot or from the gutter - find a hitherto unsuspected soul in it - make it live as a thing of beauty - textured like the trees. Yes, the building would be made of the ”blocks” as a kind of tree itself standing at home among the other trees in its own native land. All we would have to do would be to educate the concrete block, refine it and knit it together with steel in the joints and so construct the joints that they could be poured full of concrete after they were set up and a steel strand laid in them. The walls would thus become thin but solid reinforced slabs and yield to any desire for form imaginable. And common labor could do it all. We would make the walls double of course, one wall facing inside and the other wall facing outside, thus getting continuous hollow spaces between, so the house would be cool in summer, warm in winter and dry always. (extract).
In this poetic text one can sense a dedicated commitment and a refreshing stand-alone stance in respect to building-industry methods and standards at that time.
So what have we established so far? Engaging in a building task as described in the above text extracts, that is building the project by first building a valid project philosophy from which view-point all project decisions shall be reviewed is a precondition for achieving architectural quality.
Other works of importance which Frampton refers to are the architectural works of Renzo Piano and the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. One work in particular is interesting in regard to the above described FLW project and that is the Renzo Piano Building Workshop infill housing project in Rue de Meaux, Paris, France, 1991. This project is a sophisticated exercise in prefabricated modular construction using a component grid of 90x90 centimeters for the facade. The glass-fiber reinforced cement panels are in their turn clad with terracotta tile components of 20x42 centimeters which are mounted on supports cast integrally with the back of the panel. What we have here is a fabric of components encompassing the building structure in much the same way as demonstrated in the FLW project. The same attention to structure of thought and structure of detail is apparent.
Bo Malmlow architect
Stockholm, May 22, 1997.
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