Autotelic Architecture : A collection of architectural stories

Abstract: • Autotelic Architecture is a collection of buildings with architectural stories. • The buildings included are described with black line drawings on white paper and a supplementary text. The drawings have been stripped down to only show walls, pillars, stairs, ramps and significant objects. Together the drawing and the text describes what story is told in the building through its architectural elements. • The reason to include a building in the collection is our recognition of a story within it. • All of the buildings in the collection have been built. • Each of the buildings in the collection hold a story thought of as relevant, communicated with spaces and objects. The relevance is based on an incomplete set of attributes, indicating a strong architectural story. • The buildings are categorized in different themes. For example, the theme of labyrinths describe buildings that are of a maze like nature, schizophrenic describe buildings with multiple logics and nothingness describe buildings appearing to be almost nothing. One building can be part of several themes, and the number of themes is not fixed. • The intention is to visualize the nature of the architectural story and to provide a conceptual inventory for further development of architectural stories. We believe that from telling stories with only the configuration of a buildings physical conditions there arises a direct intellectual stimulation which adds poetic depth to the building. • This book argues that the poetical aspects of architecture has a purpose in itself and should take precedence over the technical aspects. • This book is not a manual and can therefore not be seen as dogmatic or as a recipe for architecture. It is a body of strong architectural stories that deserve to be noted and shared. • This book does not take a stand against other forms of architecture, it simply proposes a language of designing that is both serious and happy, both literal and tentative, both enigmatic and real.