ARCHITECTURE: THE SUBJECT IS MATTER

Architects are caught in a vicious circle; in order to defend their idea of architecture they often adopt practices, forms and materials already identified with the work of architects. Traditionally, architectural matter is understood to be the physical substance of buildings, and architects employ a limited palette of materials such as steel, glass, brick and concrete. The aim of this book is to expand the subject and matter of architecture, and to explore their interdependence. This book acknowledges architecture far beyond the familiar boundaries of the discipline and reassesses the object at its centre: the building. Architectural matter is not always physical or building fabric. It is whatever architecture is made of, whether words, bricks, blood cells, sounds or pixels. The fifteen chapters are divided into three sections - on buildings, spaces and bodies - which each deal with a particular understanding of architecture and architectural matter.