I Asked the Brick...

It was while on a trip to Rome, taking a tour of the city’s ruins, that Louis Kahn asked the brick: “What do you like, brick?”; the brick replied: “I like arches.” He then understood the essence of the brick, the essence of the material.

To know the nature of matter is to know what it can do. To understand materials, we need to consider them not just as the means to an end, but in terms of the potential they offer, their intrinsic properties, their constructive capability, their manufacturing and supply chains. Architecture then becomes an expression of the truth of materials, be they concrete, brick, wood, straw, and so forth.

It’s not enough to simply consider space as a container to be molded, but to consider first and foremost the content, the use, the users, and the environment into which it fits.