Tectonics Against the Image: On Frampton, Brutalism, and the Drift of Contemporary Architecture

There is a line of thought—most clearly articulated by Kenneth Frampton—that should be stated as precisely as possible: construction is not merely the technical basis of architecture; it is its language. What architecture communicates emerges through how it is made—through material, joint, assembly, and the specific conditions of its time. This is the tectonic argument …

Casa Luna and Casa Guna: Ethical Monumentality at the Human Register

Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s Casa Luna and Casa Guna are often described through the familiar vocabulary of contemporary concrete architecture—monolith, prism, fortress, abstraction. Yet what makes these houses persuasive is not primarily their formal bravura and severe minimalism, but the way each project re-stages the ethical question of Brutalism’s heritage: how can architectural frankness, mass, and …