Krisarion as a Conceptual Tool for the Tectonic Inquiry of Crisis in Architectural Epistemology

Abstract

Throughout history, societies have encountered numerous crises-including economic, ecological, political, warfare, and pandemics-that frequently intersect with architecture. These crises impose challenges and present new opportunities, necessitating a reexamination of architectural theory and practice. Architecture is compelled to navigate both external pressures of societal crises and internal epistemological dilemmas within its disciplinary framework, fostering innovative interpretative models. This study reconceptualizes crises as alternative analytical tools that advance architectural epistemology by adopting the metaphor of kriserion, a noun derived from the Greek language that meets the meaning of the word sieve in modern English language, drawn from the etymological origins of the term crisis, to investigate the production of architectural episteme. Focusing on tectonic theory, the research employs content and discourse analyses to scrutinize a corpus of texts, thereby identifying a selection representative of each sieve (kriserion) within this domain. The investigation engages with seminal works by figures such as C. B & ouml;tticher, G. Semper, E. Sekler, K. Frampton, M. Frascari, V. Gregotti, P. H. Kirkegaard, and I. K. Andersson, whose contributions have shaped the discourse on architectural tectonics. By offering a perspective on crisis as a tool in architectural epistemic production and introducing the crisis-tectonic intersection, this study demonstrates how architectural epistemology evolves from dichotomies to relationships and opens possibilities for interpretations.