Reading Detail and Poetry

1. As the technique of detailing changed from the hands of the craftsman to the tools of the architect, how has the resulting construction of details changed? Explain in terms of scale, material and cost.

The technique has changed because the craftsmen had a professional knowledge of the medium they were working with. They had direct contact with the detail. They had a much more intimate and personal relationship with the design. The architect has a more distant relationship. The fact that their knowledge of the field they want to create a detail in may be limited. There is only so much you can learn about something from books without actually perfecting the art yourself. The construction of these details has become either mass produced by machinery or outsourced to a professional. This creates a disconnect between the architects vision and the detail work. There is only so much that language can communicate. Sometimes detail gets lost in translation. Because the outsourcing would be expensive and time consuming it isn’t done as often.  

2. How does "geometrical relationship" of individual details provide an understanding of the whole building if "indirect vision" localizes the viewer and "habit determines to a large extent even optical reception"?

Most buildings have some sort of continuity of their systems running within them. An individual might not be able to derive an understanding of the whole building all at once but through looking at isolated details one may be able to apply what they find to the entire building. The details should reinforce the concept at more intimate and perceivable level. They lead the individual to the big picture. The architect can communicate their ideas through conventional elements that have specific connotations. They can either use these elements in an unconventional way to communicate their ideas or in their general state to say something entirely different. These conventional methods can also be referenced as precedents to new elements and ideas.

3. Carlo Scarp's details are a "result of an intellectual game" where the Open City buildings are constructed from an act of poetry. Describe what role the detail plays to "tell-the-tale" in each of these environments.

Detail plays a huge role in the poetry because it manipulates people’s perception of the site. The perception is extremely important to the poetic essence of the city. Hearing the sound of the sea or allowing a smooth transition between brick and sand  like in the entry to the hospederia de los Disenos are both examples of details that communicate the buildings integration to the site and it’s poetic nature.

4. Pendleton-Jullian writes about the Open City as emerging from and being in the landscape. Does allowing landscape to initiate "the configuration of territory and space" challenge Western building notions, and how so

Yes, the two views of Pendleton and Western building notions challenge eachother. In western culture, the architect often does not chose the site, the client comes to the architect with preconceived ideas for program and a site that is already purchased. The architect is expected to make these needs happen. Oftentimes the site is manipulated to make the client happy. When you look at the open city, it is a totally different situation. The program molded with the site and was allowed to compromise for the site. These are two entirely conflicting methods of approaching the building design process.

5. Describe some detail conditions of the Open City that convey "lightness" as Pendleton-Jullian refers to.

The open city has both physical and conceptual lightness. Physically, there are many elements, such as light wells, that give a feeling of lightness. The fact that the city has grown and matured over time also creates lightness through the poetic flow of changes over time. The buildings communicate and work with each other even if they seem to be entirely different because of their integration to the terrain.