Architecture+is...

 Who can really tell what architecture is? Some people think that is the way we conceive our spaces: the facades, the stairs, the construction materials. Some people think that architecture is a function turned into a space (the space “follows” the function). Others think that it is just an excuse to make a building look “pretty”, because that’s what architects do: they spend their lives drawing pretty things that later will become pretty buildings, without any type of utility or purpose. But architecture, even when it’s simple, it’s not simplistic. It never is.  Louis Khan once said: “Architecture doesn`t exist. What exists is a work of architecture.” And a true work of architecture must have certain characteristics: harmony with the environment, balance, form, it must produce agreeable sensations while being in it, or near to it, and of course, it must fulfill the intention for what was designed. It doesn`t base its essence on a current and much less on the ego, or on the beliefs that have been taught us in the schools. Instead, it shows us that everything is linked in every way possible, and the presence of one element (or the lack of it) affects all the other elements in a unity.  An architect in a study is like a musician writing a song: he must fit all the pieces into the correct place, or otherwise, his work will fail. At the end of the day, architecture is nothing more than frozen music. A song that can be seen instead of be heard.

Louis I. Khan (1901 - 1974)    