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Synchronic and Diachronic Labor: Deconstructing Eladio Dieste’s Ruled Surfaces

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/qbv8-mr51

Abstract

Eladio Dieste was a Uruguayan engineer whose practice prioritized the choreography of on-site labor during the second half of the twentieth century. Dieste’s structural innovations in reinforced masonry are admired for their geometric audacity, material economy, and experiential effects. This paper discusses the work and pedagogy from an ongoing architecture class called Dieste Building Shop. The course is a combination of history/theory seminar and building technology class, which focuses on the deconstruction and construction of one of Dieste’s innovations, ruled surface brick walls – double curvature surfaces defined by a series of vertical lines. One of the most underexamined aspects of Dieste’s oeuvre is its link to physical labor. This scholarly blind spot is the foundation of the labor-based pedagogy defined in Synchronic and Diachronic Labor. This type of pedagogy can establish diverse, socio- cultural networks that are intrinsic to technical knowledge. The intellectual distance between architecture and physical labor is a fundamental part of these overlooked technical histories. The effects of this historical schism are explained through the distinction between synchronic and diachronic conceptions of time and its impact on labor.

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