Materiality & Immateriality.
In architecture, materiality is the concept of, or applied use of, various materials or substances in the medium of building. It can be physical elemets such as timber, stone and rock and is not limited to the theoretical position on the perceived materiality of images, texts or other objects of representation. It can be visualize, which suitable for building construction depend on their own function.
Immateriality, defined as without material form or substance. It is a ‘senses’, as the perceived absence of matter more than the actual absence of matter. Immaterial in architecture trigger a sense more often associated with the immaterial, such as smell, and question one more often associated with the material, such as touch.
In the past decade, the architecture is tend to be materiality, as it claimed that the strong and solid materials represent for the power.
In today architecture, a building is expected to be solid, stable and reassuring , either in physically, socially or psychologically. From the article of Jonathan Hill, “Bound to each other, the architectural and material are considered inseparable”. Which, hidden within one another, the term material and immaterial blur and slip, questioning other terms such as intellectual and manual, form and formless, real and virtual. One of the immaterial refers to the realm of ideas. The Jonathan Hill articles also claimed that “ immaterial is as important to architecture as the material and has as long a history”.
The role of architecture today is more to immateriality, which not only the ‘visual’ form of materials, but also the five senses which is taste, sight, touch, smell and hearing. The development of technology tend to invent new materials for new qualities in architecture. The architecture today tend to more on the sensory of space and how the building adapt to the environment.
One of the best example to represent the immateriality architecture today is The Blur Building. It is an architecture of atmosphere and was built for the Swiss Expo 2002 on Lake Neuchatel. The building structure is minimal which is supported by four columns and the lightweight tensegrity structure measures 300 feet wide by 200 feet deep by 75 feet high. The primary building material is water which originally on site. Blur is an anti-spectacle. There is nothing to see but all depend on our own perspective of view.
In my opinion, the fourth text should be arguing about both materiality and immateriality should work together to get a better result in future development of architecture. This is because architecture should not only focus on neither the visual and form ‘materiality’ nor the feeling and senses ‘immateriality’. In balancing both materiality and immateriality, it will satisfy both construction technology , environmental factors and human perception.
