A study of the building surface, architecture's primary instrument of
identity and engagement with its surroundings.
Visually, many contemporary buildings either reflect their systems of
production or recollect earlier styles and motifs. This division between
production and representation is in some ways an extension of that
between modernity and tradition. In this book, David Leatherbarrow and
Mohsen Mostafavi explore ways that design can take advantage of
production methods such that architecture is neither independent of nor
dominated by technology. Leatherbarrow and Mostafavi begin with the
theoretical and practical isolation of the building surface as the
subject of architectural design. The autonomy of the surface, the free
facade, presumes a distinction between the structural and nonstructural
elements of the building, between the frame and the cladding. Once the
skin of the building became independent of its structure, it could just
as well hang like a curtain, or like clothing. The focus of the
relationship between structure and skin is the architectural surface. In
tracing the handling of this surface, the authors examine both
contemporary buildings and those of the recent past. Architects
discussed include Albert Kahn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Alison and
Peter Smithson, Alejandro de la Sota, Robert Venturi, Jacques Herzog,
and Pierre de Meuron. The properties of a building's surface--whether it
is made of concrete, metal, glass, or other materials--are not merely
superficial; they construct the spatial effects by which architecture
communicates. Through its surfaces a building declares both its autonomy
and its participation in its surroundings.
