ABSTRACT
The role of structure in architecture is an issue related to the interest in “tectonics” in architecture (Frampton, 1995), an interest being about materials, structures and detailing rather than architecture as scenography or shaping of objects. A basis for this material-and structure-based approach to architecture is architectural theories of the 19th century concerning core and surface, materials and shape, and form and function. Gottfried Semper’s elaborations on different kinds of materials, their respective different ways of being applied in construction and their different visual appearance is a main reference in today’s discussions on tectonics in architecture (Semper, 2004 /1860). As an approach for discussing the relation between structure and architecture, Karl Bötticher’s distinction between Kunstform and Kernform is maybe even more useful. By this concept Bötticher (1874) pointed out an object’s Kunstform, which is about an object’s outer shape, its visible appearance, to be distinguished from its inherent and more hidden properties, die Kernform, and discussed the relationship between these two properties of buildings (fig.1). In his first edition from 1844, which is before Semper’s main work, Kunstform is a concept about form-making, whereas in the revised edition of 1874, written after Semper, Bötticher developed the concept Kunstform towards a kind of formalism arguing for Vorbilder determining design.
