The materialisation of the joint: Re-reading the Brion Cemetery through the agency of the drawing

Abstract

Starting from the investigation of three works, exemplary of a way of proceeding through the fragment, the research intends to demonstrate how interpretative analysis can extract essential principles for the design of the new. Following a rationale of passionate criticism, it sees in the work on the material carried out by Carlo Scarpa, Sigurd Lewerentz and Juliaan Lampens the possibility of ‘drawing’ insights that are still relevant to the work of architecture. Observing their buildings through full-scale drawings, it is possible to speculate how the projects were conceived (and built) starting from a reflection on the minimal elements of architecture and on the expressive value embedded in the materials.

The joint can thus become, if not only observed as an element of connection of disparate elements but as an agent of the design process, a form of transcendental scheme, through which we can reorganise a reflection on the whole process.

Keywords:

architectural joint, materiality, design attitude