Architectural Construction

Clement Greenberg wrote that the arts can save themselves from degeneration as an art forms "only by demonstrating that the kind of experience provided was valuable in its own right, and not to be obtained from any other kind of activity." Kenneth Frampton takes this assertion as his departure point in his essay "Rappel à l'Ordre: The Case for the Tectonic", in which he celebrates construction as the essence of architecture that holds promise in its quest to ground itself as an art form, while not denying "spatial enclosure" as the other defining essence of architecture. Indeed, constuction in its most general sense is not unique to architecture. A piece of sculpture "constructed" using common building construction materials and common building techniques is not architecture if does not deal with space, whether physical or virtual, as its central argument, problem, or reason of being. Construction is architectural insofar as it defines space through enclosure, demarcation, or elevation.