Typostructure as deliberate act of renunciation
A plea for hierarchy, permanence, and defined architectural boundaries
Giulio Bettini and Daniel Penzis propose the “typostructure”: load-bearing systems that shape space, endure over time, and allow change. Their approach redefines renunciation not as loss, but as clarity — a framework for architecture that is both durable and open.
In their publication Typostruktur. Sehnsucht nach architektonischer Relevanz (Park Books, 2025), Giulio Bettini and Daniel Penzis explored the significance of load bearing structures as spatial elements in architecture, defining the principle of “typostructure”. One thesis of the book reads: “Typostructures are a conscious renunciation.”1 The authors develop this idea further in the following article.
Renunciation as an architectural term
The term “Verzicht” (renunciation) has its etymological roots in the Middle High German “verzîhen” – an active stepping back, a deliberate refraining from a claim or possession. This principle means more than mere omission; it denotes an intentional letting go. To refrain from something implies a rerduction to fewer elements than in the initial situation and a consequent concentration of forces. In architecture we can understand it as an active process in favour of design clarity, durability of the built fabric, and structural meaningfulness. Renunciation is therefore not a loss but an attitude – a decision that creates space for what is essential.
The architect as reformer: a (non )enduring self conception
Modernism understood architecture as an ethical project – a tool for social renewal. In this perspective the architect was not only a designer but also a reformer in the service of progress and rationality. This posture shaped the post war period, Brutalism, and even post modern movements: architecture was always more than form; it was a mission.
A paradigmatic testimony to this missionary self conception is Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic (1928–30), by Mies van der Rohe. It represents not only formal innovation but a radical reinterpretation of domestic life. The free plan, the open spatial continuum, the exposure of the chrome plated steel structure, and the use of industrial materials express a new architectural ethos (rational, transparent, intended for permanence) and stand in sharp contrast to the bourgeois representative dwelling of the nineteenth century. Mies put it succinctly: “It must lead us from chance and arbitrariness to rational clarity and intellectual order.”2 The villa thus becomes a built manifesto of an attitude that understands architecture as a cultural form of progress, as a mental structure for everyday life. Familiar building conventions are deliberately broken, and a new grammar is established that presupposes a holistic design of all elements: from structure to interior finishings, everything is prototypical and determined by the architect. Design and constructive conventions based on experience and workers’ wisdom are replaced by new means invented by the architect in order to fulfill his social mission. Since early Modernism this shift in design has revolutionised the discipline and has been applied as a tool across countless epochs. Today, however, the architectural self conception seems to have shifted in another direction. The claim to design every element and to question construction conventions often no longer arises from a need to reform discipline and society but is unreflectively adopted as a proven methodology. Without a mission, design does not lead to precision but to a tendency to treat all design decisions equally. It is the expression of a profound change in the discipline’s self conception.
After the ideological exhaustion of Modernism, there is a lack of a clear centre today. The egalitarianism of design, evident in many contemporary projects, has various causes – cultural, educational, and operational. Where progress, rationality, and social mission once served as binding guidelines, a climate of openness – but also arbitrariness – prevails today. The contemporary need of finding balances for an always bigger number of requests, norms and attending actors led to a growing role in design of processes, narratives, and contextualisations. These processes have potential to integrate divergent forces ans take place of clear architectural positions. Unlike the eras of the “ isms” that addressed these themes in the twentieth century, design today functions as an aggregate of equivalent options.3
At the same time, societal expectations have shifted. Diversity, participation, and interdisciplinarity have become key terms, with the effect that architectural decisions are increasingly perceived as problematic. Every choice, it seems, must be democratic justifiable, neutral communicable, and equally weighted. Architecture is no longer understood as the expression of a stance but as the mediation of diverging demands, shifting towards mediocrity instead of clearity.
Operational constraints also play a role: market logic demands maximum adaptability with minimal risk; competitions and tenders require comprehensive compliance with criteria – sustainability, accessibility, digitisation, economy – while calling for design restraint. Architects thus find themselves in a position in which everything seems equally important – and any hierarchy dissolves.
Digital design tools reinforce this development: parametric processes, AI generated images, and algorithmic variant proliferation foster an attitude in which decision is replaced by possibility. What remains is an atmosphere of design desaturation. The claim not to overform leads, paradoxically, not to openness but to indecision.
A readjustment is required – a clear differentiation between what is constitutive and what may change. We advocate the introduction of a new hierarchy – renunciation of designing every single element, not as a retreat but as a concentration on what carries loads, literally and figuratively.
Typus + Structure = Typostructure
Through our work as architects, we have identified load-bearing structures as an essential element of architecture and asked ourselves how they could be combined with durability (in terms of sustainability) but also spatially relevant (as a generative part of the project). During this quest, we discovered the possibility of combining load-bearing and spatial components into a single element, merging structures and typological processes: from this, we coined the term Typostructure. In this context, structure is seen as a version of “form” that includes the meaning and position of its components. 4 Analogous to Gestalt theory, a structure is to be understood as a whole, whose behaviour is defined not by individual elements but by its inherent nature.5 Owing to this internal shaping, structures optimise their form in accordance with statical requirements to be achieved. This form, in turn, influences rooms, both spacially as defining their identity. A structure in typostructural sense is therefore more than the mere organisation of loads; form, space and identity are included. Spatial effect in architecture is often linked to the concept of type, both for building elements (window types, floor types) and for entire layouts, whether through circulation (courtyard house, access gallery) or spatial form (dome, stoa). Within these terms a wide range of variations can take place without changing the spatial component. A dome can be executed as a round or pointed arch, on a circular or elliptical base; yet the spatial quality of the dome remains: a vertical spatial closure without perceptible geometric breaks. 6
To understand load bearing structures as types means above all recognising their space defining character. As noted above, structures are efficient systems that simultaneously act spatially and establish identity. Thanks to these qualities, typostructures persist for a long time and allow several life cycles. For example, the identity of an industrial hall can survive generations, even when converted into housing, a fitness centre, or a school. In this sense typostructures are open towards transient architectural elements such as fit-outs. Exploiting these qualities for architecture is one of the essential features of typostructure, which we have examined in our book through a number of projects.7
Typostructures as an antithesis to design egalitarianism
By the term typostructure we propose neither the radical reinvention of Modernism nor a return to formal dogma. Rather, we understand typostructures as an architectural instrument that counters today’s widespread egalitarianism with something else: a clear hierarchy, a structural order that distinguishes between the permanent and the mutable. The focus on the load bearing system forms a solid foundation both for interdisciplinary requirements and as a backbone for future life cycles. The space shaping character of typostructures represents an essential difference from the conventional understanding of structure: typostructures suggest spaces and are formally complete in themselves, but they do not yet constitute the finished image of architecture. Typostructures therefore aim not at total design but at dialogue. Establishing constitutive framework conditions – elements that carry, shape, and endure beyond temporary use – opens space for relationships with other elements such as services, fit out, or façade in order to constitute architecture as a finished form.
Unlike the practice described above, originated during the Modern movement, the typostructure does not require the architect to definitively determine all elements, but only those that are load-bearing and spatially relevant. This implies a deliberate renunciation of the definition of non-load-bearing elements, those dedicated to temporary uses, or more generally, anything that is changeable.
It is by now clear that typostructure does not require the absolute determination of all elements by the architect but a deliberate letting go in form of renunciation. Yet only where it makes architectural sense: in the fit out, in usage open areas, in the mutable.
Crucial is the interplay of typostructure, structure, and fit outs. While structure is designed for permanence, fit outs remain ephemeral.
Recognizing the difference between structural persistence and ephemeral elements generates a new architectural freedom within a defined framework. Unlike design methods that seek flexibility by radically abstaining from form in favor of programmatic variety (think of convenient concrete slab and column constructions8), typostructure involves a targeted formal definition of load-bearing elements. These are formally concluded and at the same time inevitably present in the space, contributing to the character of the environments.
We analized this phenomenon in the small church of San Baudelio de Barlanga (Soria, Spain, 11th century): the big palm-shaped coloumn defines structure, space and identity of the curch. Further elements, which have been added afterwards as stairs, coloumns or mezzanine don’t change the identity of the space (see picture 1). In spite of the simplicity of this example is clear that typological structures don’t define a rigid order but a resilient, transformable architecture – one prepared for change without relinquishing its structure. In this distinction lies the contemporary relevance of typostructure: not as a design concept but as an attitude towards permanence, order, and meaning.
A changed role for the architect
This way of thinking has consequences for the architect’s self conception: no longer the moral reformer shaping society as a whole; no longer the neutral moderator balancing every demand in an increasingly unaccountable equilibrium. Instead, the architect establishes the fundamental static and formal conditions under which dialogue and change become possible.
By abandoning the conventional design of each element and focusing on spatially effective structures, architects can not only lay the foundations for a dialogue between the countless demands of contemporary design but also create freedom for future changes to the project. Responsibility is thus placed not only on the architect but on all actors in the project, who must consciously engage in dialogue with typostructure. Whether it be technical installations or fit-outs, architecture will remain faithful to typostructure in its identity but will at the same time be a precise response to the specific requirements of the project at a given moment in history. Contemporary participatory architecture does not begin with co design of floor plans or with variant evaluations of countless parameters; it begins with a fundamental stance on the permanence of structure.
In this way, the structural system can carry not only loads but also meanings.
Notes
1 G. Bettini, D. Penzis, Typostrukturen sind bewusster Verzicht, in Typostruktur. Sehnsucht nach architektonischer Relevanz, Park Books, Zurich 2025.2 Mies van der Rohe, in: M. Puente (ed.): Conversations with Mies van der Rohe, Princeton Architectural Press, New York 2008, p. 17
3 For example, critical regionalism emphasised cultural identity, structuralism emphasised processes of social aggregation, while postmodernism focused on authors' personal narratives based on the architecture of the past.
4 See in this regard: C. Brandi, Struttura e architettura, Giulio Einaudi Editore, Turin 1967
5 See in this regard: Rotenstreich, Nathan (1972): On Lévi-Strauss' Concept of Structure, “The Review of Metaphysics”, Jg. 25, Nr. 3 (March 1972), pp. 489–526, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20126058 (accessed on: 11.8.2025).
6 We have outlined a definition of type and its ability to manage variation and continuity in G. Bettini, D. Penzis, Typostruktur. Sehnsucht..., cit., pp. 33–95.
7 Louis Kahn designed a series of buildings that address typostructural themes. See: G. Bettini, D. Penzis, Typostruktur. Sehnsucht..., cit., pp. 13–31.
