Envelopes

The art of the master-builder entails the creation of space,

not the design of façades. A spatial envelope is estab-

lished by means of walls, through which a space or a series

of spaces are manifested.

(Berlage 1908)

Today the practice of architecture seems to be increas-

ingly polarized between, on the one hand, a so-called

‘high-tech’ approach predicated exclusively on produc-

tion and, on the other, the provision of a ‘compensatory

façade’ to cover up the harsh realities of this universal

system.