The Collective Human Mind & The Physical Realm of the Envelope
I enjoyed the exploration of the various themes and questions posed in the lesson “Politics of the Envelope and the Conflict of the Interior”. I found the question of the envelope as a social construct or a technical question to be fascinating and something I wanted to look into further. Fair warning- This ended up being more of an opinion piece than an explanation of the various perspectives we learned about.
Based on my understanding of the reading “the politics of the envelope” by Alejandro Polo, he views the envelope as a technical issue which can respond, attempt to solve, or reflect issues pertaining to the social realm. In my limited knowledge of the many intricacies of this debate, I feel myself leaning towards liking the idea of the envelope being more related and determined by the social context of a place over the purely technical realm, at least at first glance. I think it is fair to say that throughout most of human history, architecture and how it is technically resolved has developed according to the societal and surrounding environmental contexts from which it originates. A 1600s Baroque Cathedral in Italy and a 1600s temple in Japan have entirely different approaches for many reasons but primarily because of the difference in societal values, knowledge, and traditions. Overtime surely cultures learned from one another and progressed through a sharing of ideas but just because something works in one place does not mean it will always work in another. Additionally, even if a building implemented elements or methods from a different culture that building and its technical resolutions is still very much as result of that was going on politically and socially of the time it was constructed. This has been the case until means and methods became much more universal with the advent of a truly globalized world and we can see how this created dilemmas with the modernist movement and international style which remains true today with many similarities of contemporary architecture around the world. The reasons for negative aspects of buildings that fall into these movements or styles is very closely related to many other discussions we have had in this class and in my view is primarily a result of approaching the envelope with greater concern to the “how” over the “why”. I think there can certainly be cases where buildings have used this approach and been successful but I think that even today the majority of architecture that I view as “successful” are ones that are more focused on its place and the society from which it comes from before being just technically innovative. However, I do not believe that they need to be entirely separated or exist without the other. All this to say, in the process of technical innovation of the envelope one must not forget or ignore its context.
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