Structure

Something made up of a number of components that are put together in a particular way. Structure is any means of arranging or puting together a work to form a cohesive and meaningful whole, including sensory elements, organizational principles, expressive features, and functions of art. To give structure to a thing (to structure it) is to give form or arrangement to it. Sometimes structure refers to the elements of a thing that keep it from collapsing.Quote: "Structure, then, is on the one hand, the technique by which the art of architecture is made possible; and, on the other hand, it is part of its artistic content. But in the first case it is subject to mechanical laws purely, in the second, to psychological laws. This double function, or double significance, of structure is the cause of our confusion. For the aesthetic efficacy of structure does not develop or vary pari passu with structural technique. They stand in relation to one another, but not in a fixed relation. Some structural expedients, though valid technically, are not valid aesthetically, and vice versa." Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism , W.W. Norton, New York, 1974, p.95. Also see adobe, arch, architecture, armature, balloon framing, bearing wall, cement, coils, column, construct, cross-section, helix, homogeneity, interdisciplinary, join, lattice, plan, post and lintel, process, slab construction, steel, structuralism, Structurist, technique, and wood.