La herramienta es la cosa

Abstract

Architects work using two tools, each with a different nature: the tool that changes matter into material, and the geometry which gives it order. Both tools have to do with the human ability to understanding the reason for things. Guaman Poma de Ayala and Hernán Ruiz II lived in two distant worlds during the reign of Felipe II, and were interested in drawing as a tool, though in different ways. In the culture of the Incas, preceding the use of iron, rocks were carved using other rocks. The Incas developed their expertise in stone cutting and left us with rocks carved with the utmost intensity. Stone technique allowed Inca culture to find their ideal of beauty. The tools that the Spanish brought to the Andes were much more effective in all ways; but they finish off the Inca technique. The drawings of Hernán Ruiz II show his belief in geometry and perspective as tools of knowledge and design, as well as his trust in drawing with a pencil and paper. The plane was the new tool with which other hands would erect architecture. From that point on, the manual relationship between the architect and his works was carried out in paper, supplanting the true handwork of the work, which would be the task of others. In the same way, today the key and the screen have occupied the architect's worktable. Models are essential. Only with models can the contact with matter, though being replaced, be recover within the design process.