211possess their own Prägnanz, a tension capable of binding the
individual elements together.
The technical rationality of a building is usually visible
in the ordered appearance of its construction: for a long time,
economical building called for the simplification and uni-
fication of parts and structures. With the growth of digital
planning and project realization, on the other hand, the con-
struction of buildings risks becoming unclear, since highly de-
veloped computing programs make possible arbitrary formal
decisions and most complicated constructions. Algorithmic
orders, however, present themselves in a different way from
traditional structures.
Order in architecture is not restricted to the characteris-
tics of static objects and their adequate readability. Alongside
orders that follow preconceived ideas, there are others that
are generated through the influence of multifarious parame-
ters, and which change, for example, in response to individual
use or social appropriation, and at times emerge only through
a conflict with a rigid framework of order. Processual order
is manifested in the alterable elements of architecture, for ex-
ample the continual rebuilding of a town or the furnishings of
a > home. These types of order are also subject to influences
from the > context, and are perceived as part of an order be-
longing to a superordinate level. During the ‘lifecycle’ of a
building, order is integrated into various systems of utiliza-
tion, and has recourse to different local or social contextual
references accordingly.
Strong order asserts itself in relation to disturbances,
but threatens to become rigid when spared all exposure to
adversity. In the realm of perception, it has been established
that an angle that diverges slightly from 90° fosters active vi-
sion (Seyler 2004). In the Baroque, symmetry was broken by
guided asymmetrical movement; in Modernism, static bal-
ance is replaced by unstable equilibrium. Order and fulfilled
expectation, then, always stand in a complementary relation-
ship to > complexity and surprise. An excessively rigid order,