Arqutectura Viva 285 - Monadnock

The bricks to which Louis Kahn addressed his famous question wanted to be arches; those handled by Job Floris and Sandor Naus would like to be art. And not only because of their decorative potential; with their artisanal nature they take pride in belonging to the building tradition also pursued by Cuypers, Berlage, or Dudok, and which after centuries of experimentation has in the Netherlands attained a finesse unseen in few other places. Firing, bonding, and pointing are part of the everyday vocabulary of this Rotterdam-based practice, and the following pages try to apply their particular language of blocks, which is as rigorous in its execution as it is expressive in its tactile materiality.