Exchange of Forces: Environmental Definition of Materials in the Works of Vitruvius, Alberti, Le Corbusier, and Peter Zumthor

DISSERTATION

This research examines the ideas and the built works of four architects from different historical periods in order to distinguish and clarify some of the ways that the material qualities of architectural settings can be made manifest. Presenting a contextual approach to the understanding of material qualities, it counters two attitudes that prevail in contemporary architectural theory and practice: that design is either the creation and composition of autonomous shapes (known as 'form'), or the elaboration of the materials' intrinsic qualities. A critique of this divided understanding is presented in the Introduction, together with a brief survey of its history, origins, examples, implications, and shortcomings. In the following four chapters, works of Vitruvius, Alberti, Le Corbusier, and Peter Zumthor are examined in order to describe and exemplify an alternative understanding that challenges the prevailing form-or-matter choice. It is shown that in the settings these architects described and designed, forces are exchanged between a material and its milieu, revealing the latent qualities of the material and the setting over time. Demonstrating the presence and persistence of the notions of force, exchange, opposition, equilibrium, and environment (in the sense of the surrounding totality that consists of both natural and human influences), this study inquires into the hitherto overlooked history of an environmental understanding of material qualities.

Esra Sahin Burat