Sunday 4 November 2007

"God is in the Details"

"God is in the Details." - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Now I'm not religious, and I honestly don't know if Mies was or not. However, these words from the modernist master architect remind us that the purity and perfection of a design, lie in the beauty and elegance of it's details.

Here's a look at our first set of details from the competition stage. Not quite "God-ly", but we're working on them. The basic premise is that the entire pavilion is to be assembled by hand, with no mechanical fixings or connections. All joints are basic notch joints which slot into one another and are held together by flexing the sections into place. Neoprene gaskets are fitted in at each joint to compensate for tolerances and to help with friction.







2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. Will it take longer to assemble?

On another note, I could not help but notice an interesting thing about your first paragraph. It is something I find quite a bit - the need to distance oneself from God. I do not think any of your readers would have been offended or thought less of you if you had struck, "Now I'm not religious, and I honestly don't know if Mies was or not. However," from the opening. Yet, I know this is something people feel they have to do. See if you notice it going forward.

ALVIN said...

thanks!

ideally it should take less time to assemble as we eliminate the need for any mechanical fixings. however, we need to consider the tolerances for construction and assembly, and devise a joint that can hold everything in place.

interesting comment about religion and the need of many to seperate...as R.E.M. said...