HT: Ask the Brick - Tectonics Beyond Order and Disorder Tectonics, or the visual expression of structure, encompass a range of different possible architectural effects: the "squishiness" of a column capital, the presence or disappearance of joinery, the "floating" quality of a pane of glass, or any show of muscularity within a building. Tectonics are at the heart of almost all discussions of architectural correctness for the Classicists, especially in the form of the idealized" primitive hut." Tectonics continue to occupy our minds as we continuously explore new materials and fabrication methods as a means of evolving architectural design and impact. This course considers the longer duree of tectonic culture - tectonics as markers of goodness and judgment; tectonics as signs of (in)stability and (im)permanance; tectonics of the past; tectonics into the future. This course argues that the semiotic force of the tectonic is more than a question of legibility, greater than the sum of its presences - and as point, constitutive of the idea of Architecture itself. The course openly challenges students to theorize architecture through contemporary tectonics. At the very crossroads of theory and practice lay the realm of architectural effects--between materialist apprehension and cognitive recognition. Students will therefore work back and forth between close readings and practice: between historical, canonical definition and the streetwise slang of an experiment still in the making. In so doing, the course seeks to bring together a different, and cannier, and more fluid, sensibility of the ways in which architecture announces itself, makes itself known and present to its world. Short writings will be required as will a small symposium.

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