Materiality & Immateriality
‘Every material possesses its own language of forms, and none may lay claim for itself to the forms of another materials ‘
The topic for today’s article is materiality and immateriality. Based on the articles that we had read, we are required to stated out or write down the understanding of these articles to different type of meaning and words that represent the true significance of it.
I had this question pop up in my mind when I saw the topic that is given by lecturer- materiality and immateriality. There seems so similar when you just focus on the words because it is just one word more than the others. But it indeed proposed a different meaning in architecture by different architects. So, let me show you what I truly understand in the following paragraphs.
Basically, Materiality in architecture is the concept of, or applied use of various materials or substances in the medium of building. Material is a relative term in architectural design and can be used to designate materials which are considered virtual, or other materials which are natural.
Natural materials- stone, brick, and wood allow our vision to penetrate the surface and enable us to become convinced of the veracity of matter. As to say, natural materials express their age and history, as well as the story about the value that a community places in its built environment.
Through materiality, we are fascinated by the nature and quality of a material, its colour and grain, the way that it is cut and fits together. From the origin article that written by Alberti, the materiality he wanted to express was the materials that been choose should be used correctly.
Besides, he introduced different type of materials and focus more on the construction quality. Alberti’s thought was the function is more important than the senses.
‘Materiality’ plays a role as a main concept in architecture. Usage of materials is needed whenever want to construct a building. With the use of nature materials, it is unavoidable that people can easily find out the value of it.
The texture, the surface, that remain the quality of raw materials is the meaning that represent materiality. Architects nowadays more emphasise on the building’s strength, whether it is being solid or function to show the power of the entire building.
Richard Pare Aalto's Muuratsalo Experimental House
uses natural materials and is inclusive of the nature around it, Through the process of designing the house, it became an experimental study of materiality, architecture construction and philosophies- said by him. The most basic understanding of the house is its courtyard scheme which focuses inwards on the space while also directing careful views of the nearby Lake Paijanne.
The walls of this courtyard reflect the very nature of the experimental home, as there are more than fifty different types of bricks which are arranged in various patterns.
For immateriality, what I understand is it usually uses the machine-made materials without conveying their materials essence or age. The glass, metal and the synthetic plastic. The further understanding of immateriality is it perceived more to the senses.
Hearing, touch, smell, and taste are some of the senses that I want to mention. New materials are overshadowed when the technology of our world began to improve. As what hill said, the immaterial is more tend to conceptualize building rather than build.
“Sometimes a building is not the best means to explore architectural ideas. Consequently, architects, especially famous ones, tend to talk, write and draw a lot as well as build”, explains Hill.
‘Immateriality’ plays a role in contemporary architecture that it gives a new sensibility of recent technological construction into a positive experience of space, place, and meaning. There are many ways to understand immaterial architecture. Usually, it is an idea of formless phenomenon that related to the senses such as light, and touch. What you feel and what you want to feel is the most important things when comes to immateriality because this is the main role that it presented which involved creative interpretation, fictions rather than facts.
‘ instead of mere vision.. architecture involves realms of sensory experience which interact and fuse into each other’
For example, modern architect tends to create a new quality of space rather than just a simply square space. They also create a building that is visually transparent to make it doesn’t even exist.
Blur Building
a media pavilion for Swiss EXPO 2002
conceptualized a most unlikely solution: making nothing. According to an early napkin sketch, the contribution would be “formless, massless, colorless, weightless, odorless, scaleless, featureless, meaningless.” Early renderings envisioned a cloudlike mass suspended above the lake surface, though the architects preferred the term Blur as a moniker for the project, “as an alternative to the new orthodoxy of high definition,” according to Elizabeth Diller.
I think materiality and immateriality predominantly about the expression of material properties and the human perception. Although material and immaterial give a different meaning and different type of materials, but they also served as a part of important things in architecture because they have their own purpose and function. The sense that we perceived can be easily figured out
If I am the fourth writer for the article, I will argue about the probability of nature materials to be used in immaterial architecture. Is it a chance for the combination of immaterial and material in contemporary architecture? As we know, nowadays building of architecture are keen more to immaterial compare to material, design a building with a concept of blending the two main component into it will brings out what unexpected result. I will discuss what are the consequence if architect try to use a different way to present the meaning and value of building with use of sensation and raw materials?