2.2. Poecs of Architecture

2.2. Poetics of Architecture

Like everything in our material culture, every act of architecture has its poetics, that is to say a 'reading' specific to its conception and realisation. What is poetics? Strictly speaking, poetics is the theory of literature and it concerns how poetry and other creative writing should be 'read' – that is, understood and evaluated.

Etymologically poetics stems from the Greek term ποιεΐν [poiein 'to make']. Poiesis is therefore by default related to making, fabrication, production (as much as described by Aristotle in his Metaphysics as the act of production following the thinking, noesis). In architecture, poetics has come to fill a similar role, that of “making” and “reading”. 5

POETICS, NOT POETRY We should emphasize that poetics is not used as synonymous to poetry. De facto, poetry is the form of literary art 'in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, it's apparent meaning.' As we have already set, poetics per se instead, in its classical dimension, is linked to production.