ABSTRACT
This essay considers Abstraction as the whole process of drawing existence from the event of a translation which, always and by necessity leaves something out. The word Abstraction—from the Latin abstrahere, “to pull away, to extract”—refers explicitly to a “leaving something out” and also, implicitly, to a “bringing something in,” in exchange. The type of Abstraction emphasized here is a world-making process by which a sensible object approaches the complexity of the real and turns the ungraspable and “ever in flux” into the concrete, the namable and tamable, the available, liable to be acted upon. Ultimately, Abstraction is about action, and therefore agency. As a process, it is deeply rich and multifaceted, simply because every form of creation is contingent on its occasion; hence Abstraction comes forth in a wide range of configurations. Architecture—at the forefront of world-making processes—is a manifestation of the process of Abstraction, which, through the builtsphere has acquired planetary dimensions.
