Engineering a New Architecture by Tony Robbin (review)

ENGINEERING A NEW ARCHITECTURE by Tony Robbin. Yale UniversityPress, New Haven CT 06520,U.S.A.,1996. 138pp. Reviewed ly Rudolf Arnheim, 1200Earhart Road, #537,Ann Arbor, MI 48105, U.S.A. As the title of this book indicates, it stresses the technical and economic aspects of constructing buildings. Therefore , to evaluate it would take somebody competent in those areas, but the author Tony Robbin is an artist with extensive training in engineering, and his interests in this book concern particular architectural shapes. In principle, such shapes have accompanied humans as long as humans have made shelters for themselves. These shapes were modified as buildings began to be constructed of wood or stone. Recently, however, these stylesof building have reverted, in a way, to the primordial tents. New materials and building techniques have lent new virtues to the ancient shapes. We are familiar, from the history of the arts, with the interaction of technology and aesthetics-new technical media have suggested new shapes, and shapes in turn have striven for desirable media. Pier Luigi Nervi, who created some of the most original and beautiful buildings of our century, thought of himself as an engineer and took the inspiration for his shapes from technical requirements. In his book Aestheticsand Technologyin Building he says: [TIhe progress achieved by the Gothic buildersseems truly miraculous. They were the real forerunnersof modern technology,replacing the equilibrium achieved by heavy masses of masonry with the equilibriumof forces created by the interplay of thrust and counterthrust of slender ribs built with very good materials (Nervi,p. 5 ) . The prototype of the design here under discussion is the tent. When made of fabric, the tent does not support itself , as does the traditional wall, but needs to be held up, for example, by a central pole or pneumatic pressure. When cast in cement or fiberglass, it maintains itself statically. Although by their very nature these shells or membrane structures will remain limited to special purposes, they introduce general principles that must be called revolutionary . One of these principles makes for overcoming the duality of roof and wall, of cover and support. The traditional distinction goes well with our existence in a gravitational system,with the effort of reaching what is above us and the ease of giving in to what is below. This terrestrial awareness, however, is complemented by the equallyfundamental awareness of what may be called the cosmic principle, which is the awareness of the cornerless space around us, empty and replete at the same time. A spherical manmade shell surrounding an interior is an image congenial to a space age, where the vertical and the horizontal vanish and humans are exhilarated and dizzied by the lack of edges. Robbin points out that the thinness of structures made of fabric or cast in cement or fiberglass gives them the quality of membranes, combining separation with transparency by letting light come through during the day and keeping darkness out at night. The thinness of the shell reveals a conspicuous parallelism between the concavity of the internal vault and the convexityof the external cover. Such parallelism is observed in some traditional cupolas and chapels, but only in approximation.In the membrane strue tures it promotes the visual interaction between inside and outside. This interaction is in keeping with a trend toward openness in modern architecture, which came with the use of glasswalls as a solution to the problem of how to combine access with closedness (cutting holes into solid walls for doors and windows was always an awkward architectural makeshift). The shells promote this openness especiallywhen they function more as canopies than as shelters and touch the ground only in rhythmical intervals, like the enpointe steps of a ballerina. This slight contact with the gravitational ground gives the building a floating lightness, enhancing the dynamics of the design. It recalls Nervi’sprediction “thata steadily growing number of manufactured products, inspired by aerodynamics will tend to create a basis of feeling, preference, and taste to the point of forming a true and authentic style when put in direct contact with our everyday life” (Nervi, pp. 187-188). Such dynamics lead to geometrically ever more complex shapes, which can now be...