Tectonics by Any Other Name

Abstract

O P / PO STIO N S The allied disciplines for the built environment have been under siege due to social and health issues that have surfaced throughout the globe.1 Professional architecture organizations are reorienting their historical approach of Eurocentrism to bring awareness to marginalized communities due to a clear demand from their constituents.2 This reflection has highlighted a dependence on western building techniques and ignorance of tectonics from nonpopular cultures. A positive of this new expansive approach is the platforming of new authors who draw from underrepresented legacies and social identities. This essay utilizes the tectonics of the American porch and watervulnerable landscapes to illuminate issues of economics, space, and race to critically examine the collision of architecture and identity, specifically social identity and authorship. While many architectural theorists have offered conflicting views on defining tectonics, Kenneth Frampton’s definition is most closely associated with cultural influences, and thus will be the point of departure to be dissected further.3 Frampton loosely explains tectonics in his text Studies in Tectonic Culture. The critical message is that Frampton removed the purely scientific reading of architectural construction, adding an artistic dimension that would become an exciting read of the interaction between architecture’s critical elements in mass, details, joint, material, construction, and structure.4 Notably missing from this catalog was the author’s agency as author. Far too often is the material evidence of man absent during discussion of architectural tectonics. However, one could argue the impossibility of one without the other. Frampton, like many others, centers on Western European ideologies when articulating the legacy of tectonics. Tectonics is Germane Barnes University of Miami Tectonics by Any Other Name