"Folding becomes the [Yokohama Port Terminal's] operative technique, and all the buildng's functions - circulation, mechanical, electrical, structural, programmatic, waterproofing, etc - are somehow absorbed by the logic that this technique provides."
"The building, however, does not come without some inevident complexities and contradictions. For instance, while the ramped/support pier areas are folded and prewelded steel-plate structures, the main hall is spanned by traditional triangulated trusses that are subsequently clad in steel plates that extend the logic of the fold over the entire system. Thus, the building's structure is actually composite and varied in nature, and the envelope is a thetorical artifice that cloaks and binds the sometimes contradictory and differentiated elements into an organic whole." (p. 28)
What is inherently in question here, and throughout--and perhaps eternally--is truth in architecture. Whether the debate is for the rationalist (the part and the whole dictate) or the empirical (prioritty of form), each agenda inevitably results in the neglect of the other.
Ideally, I suspect, it is every architect's intention for each aspect of the product to come together. Nevertheless, rigorous investigation is often not part of an architectural process that is more often than not a business.
Architecture is a metaphor for problem solving and the search for multiplicities. To find any solution to a problem is not good enough. A problem should become opportunity for further investigate and the establishment of new possibilities. This often requires questioning and requestioning of established norms.
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