Lost in Translation: Searching for the Detail in Contemporary Architectural Practice

‘In a poetic universe, every fragment is a luminous detail. Itresonates with the super-sensuous. It is in perpetual transportfrom the everydayness of its material appearance to the sphereof the transcendental where it is really located, and its impactupon consciousness constitutes a moment of vision or thesense of embracing the totality of all that is.’Gerald l. Bruns, ‘Toward a Random Theory of Prose’, Introductionto Theory of ProseWhen the question of ‘the detail’ is posed in architecture it is often takenas a technical issue to be solved. The Architectural Graphic Standards andmaterial manufacturer’s literature are often the first places considered whenin search of building details. Within offices a library of commonly useddetails are kept for reference, use, and modification when developing and‘detailing’ a building. Generally, the questions being asked of the detail arecentered on its physical and performative requirements: where and how is itbeing used, and what are the responsibilities and demands being placed onit such as transition, expansion, weather resistance, joining, etc. What canbe lost in the ‘solving of the detail’ is its potential. Seen as solely a technicalproblem, the detail can become disembodied from the work; treatedas a singular moment to be solved around a specific condition. Its potencyand potential as a necessary and contributing part to the larger whole andrealization of the architectural work can become lost.In current architectural practice and theory there are varying positions takenon the detail from architects such as Rem Koolhaas who question the ideaand relevance of the detail to architectural theorist Marco Frascari who assertsthat the detail in architecture is the source for ‘the possibilities ofinnovation and invention.’ Author Edward Ford writes in his most recentbook The Architectural Detail, ‘The good detail is not consistent, but nonconforming;not typical, but exceptional; not doctrinaire, but heretical; notthe continuation of an idea, but its termination, and beginning of another.’What becomes apparent is that the detail is not so neatly defined and withthese varying degrees of interpretation can quickly lose its importance andpotency within the practice of architecture.This paper is an inquiry into the nature of the detail and its relevance incontemporary architectural practice.

Volume Editors
Martha Thorne & Xavier Costa

ISBN
978-0-935502-83-1