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ELEMENTS EUROPA 197

7 REASONS FOR DETAIL

Perceptive acuteness passes through verbal connexion.

Exerting, intensifying and spreading such acuteness is a

duty. Should I have the certainty of being heard out, I would

even mention ethics. Out of caution, I shall talk about

political duty instead. Vigilance is often evoked; it is useless

unless accompanied with hyperesthesia. In terms of utter-

ances and behaviours, observation is not enough and details

must be examined. The passive reception of materials is not

sufficient; it has to be addressed actively. Culture turns into

waste when left in the state we found it. Culture or cultures

rather, diversified due to their

languages and objects, are The issue of function and meaning of architectural details was mentioned

a self-explanatory matter to be twice: once regarding the relationship between architecture (volumes

manipulated. Then only can the and walls, materials) and setting and once more regarding links between

wished-for benefit occur. Whoever orders of that architecture (levels, bays, walls, openings) and its finishings

treats utterances like a matter to (dressings, carpentry, skin qualities). In both situations, the architect seeks

work on, hears and sees realities the felt continuity of sizes: as we spontaneously count floors to estimate a

better. Whoever hears and sees building’s size, we resort to perceptible measures to estimate the dimensions

realities better is less easy to tame. or spatial features of a room or a set of rooms. Perceptions succeed one

Jean-Claude MILNER, La Puissance du another through chains potentially following series of poles, the repetition

détail. Phrases célèbres et fragments en of a dimensional module or certain types of assembly, the return to specific

philosophie (The Power of Details. Famous forms, to ornaments, to material landmarks or even to some intervals

Sentences and Fragments in Philosophy), Paris, between objects. We smooth out a wall or ceiling surface with our eyes if

Grasset, coll. “ Figures ”, 2014, p. 9. not with our hands to figure out its tectonic texture, its response to gravity

forces, to their mechanical progression and their resistance to fatigue.

Architecture cannot be grasped without such training in visual inspection, in

a perceptible and intellectual analysis of its “elements”. Details capture and

channel attention. They even solicit it paradoxically sometimes: perceiving

them is discreet, analytical and tends to split up objects into separate

elements; yet, its energy incites it to seek joining, continuity, wishing for

them to be as “natural” as possible; the architect’s glances it and sees it as a

sheer artistic product in it. Detail resolution is not only a token for technical

mastery but also the sign of end quality, obtained after a long process

leading us from a problem to its solution. Such quality is a comfort-related

one: visual, tactile, acoustic, awareness caused against perception dulling.

This quality of use is combined with aesthetic stimulation as much as

possible.