ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a theory of the universal language of architecture. It illustrates the architecture’s elements, their powers, the conditions that affect it and attitudes that might be adopted in doing it. The book also offers a working definition of architecture, as ‘Intellectual Structure and Identification of Place’. It also illustrates: ‘Basic and Modifying Elements of Architecture’; considerations that may be taken into account when doing it; and some common strategies for organising space. The book explores some of the fundamental strategies in organising space: relations between ‘Space and Structure’; ‘Parallel Walls’; the powers of the ‘Axis’ and the ‘Grid’; uses of the ‘Datum Place’; ‘Stratification’; ‘Transition, Hierarchy, Heart’; being ‘In-Between’; the ‘Inhabited Wall’; places that are ‘Hidden’; and ‘Refuge and Prospect’. It discusses the conditioning power exerted by the attitudes architects adopt to the world, other people, history, and materials.
