Chapter 1 | Introductionhas informed the choice in the angle of approach. Furthermore, understanding the
master of design as a collective emphasised the nature of design and building as a
collaborative process. Latour’s theory also emphasises the locality of processes, which
is highly relevant in architecture. The design solutions were shaped in the course of
the project, as the ideas of the architect underwent trials. The impact of the collective
on the architectural solution was particularly interesting in the case of a building that
holds a canonised status. When discussing Aalto’s buildings, we often fail to either
see or understand the input of other designers. This is the very aspect into which the
anthropological approach provided useful insight. By following the research methods
suggested by Latour it was possible to make the architectural hybrid “speak”. The rec-
iprocity between the social and the inanimate becomes apparent in, for example, the
aesthetically inspired use of material, low production costs or the qualities attributed
by the material to the hybrid of which it is part, by way of fire-resistance or heat-
insulation qualities. The scientific investigation of the architect’s work included com-
munication with other designers, the client, the builder and product manufacturers
during the process of design and construction, in addition to the actual design work.
The American architect and sociologist Dana Cuff has referred to the architectural
praxis, as described in the present research, as the social dimension of architecture.
While she does not emphasise material action to the same degree as Latour, her work
offers a good description of the social challenges embedded in architectural praxis.^69
Latour’s observations on descriptions of innovation and the intertwining of forces
as events that do not lend themselves to generalised concepts supports the approach of
this study to focus on one project only. Paimio Sanatorium project was not compared
with any other project since, no other building projects has been studied with similar
methodology and level of detail. This would render any such comparison impossible.
Similarly, comparing the findings of the present study regarding the architectural
hybrid of Paimio Sanatorium to his later writings on technology would be equally
futile, as they represent his later thinking.
As a general aim, this study attempted to link architectural research with recent
theories of the history of technology and, to open up a softer, non-deterministic
perspective on the relationship between architecture and technology.
69 Cuff’s book Architecture: The Story of Practice concerns architectural offices in 1980s United States. She observed
their operations through anthropological and ethnographic methods. See Cuff 1991.