ABSTRACT
In The Architectural Detail, Edward Ford outlines five strategies for the use of the detail: the detail as abstraction, as motif, as an order, as a joint, and as a subversive activity. While Ford argues that all of these typologies are important to consider in evaluating architecture, he finds that the detail can be at its most meaningful when operating as a joint or intersection between elements. This chapter presents two essays, The Tell-the-Tale Detail by Marco Frascari and Detail: The Subject of the Object by Peggy Deamer, each investigating the critical role of the architectural detail in our built environment from different perspectives. Frascari’s text focuses on selecting the appropriate details required to precisely devise the tale intended for the viewer. In her essay, Deamer introduces a series of scholars, artists, and architects who have all integrated a conscious consideration for labor and production into their ways of thinking about their work.
