Articulation (architecture)

Dividing the church height into bays using pilasters gave the interior space a new vertical unity.

The smooth covering creates in the process other, larger symbolic forms in rhythmic succession on the roof.

The sharper forms, the result of the smooth surface fusion, intrude with sharp articulation into the sky.

[2][5] The design of Casa da Música in Portugal produced a building in which the formal intellectual underpinning is equalled by the continuity, the fusion of forms, in its attempt to achieve sensual beauty.

Its emotionality comes through in its exuberant external design where articulation in structure has been overwhelmed by continuity and fusion.

Sometimes the effect completely obscures the sense of the whole, breaking it down into too many pieces, but in most cases the articulation expresses a balance between the two.