The twenty-first-century architect is confronted by a bewildering choice of innovative materials compared with any previous era. Many have emerged with claims of durability which, while backed up by guarantees, offer none of the tried-and-tested confidence that can only be gained through prior use and experience, for there is none. Just as architects start to adapt to the ultralight world of carbon fibres that can take on some of the tensile tasks conventionally undertaken by high-strength metals, along comes graphene for them to absorb into their palette of possibilities. There is also an emerging range of technologies for them to grapple with, not least robotics and digital fabrication. While we would have difficulty in finding many architects who spanned the pre- and post-industrial eras, we can review aspects of a singular building in this regard – the extraordinary Sagrada Família basilica (1882–ongoing), the magnum opus of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). An internationally prominent building, it can take us on a construction technology journey across time.

On Stone

This chapter is built around stone. For architects, stone is the most enduring of all the materials available with which to construct their dreams. As a premium building material, it is manifestly tangible in all respects, whether cliff face, at the quarry or fully worked and incorporated within the built structure: stone is stone.

Looking at a brief history of this one material, its evolving use at the Sagrada Família basilica exemplifies the tensions that will remain with designers for many years to come, regardless of the increasing mechanisation of building material production and construction procedures, namely the role of materials and their specific use within the creative process. To what extent do emerging materials and techniques speak for themselves in design? Whereas the stonemason, for instance, assesses the grain of a particular stone, and determines where to cut it optimally and how to orient it in the construction as part of the creative process, are there equivalent nonhuman creative processes at work today when using a robot stone-cutter? This chapter reveals how using a traditional material such as stone, and absorbing it into a world of advanced technology in an exceptional project, affords an evolution that can enrich building craft rather than threaten it, and sponsor a human–nonhuman creative dialogue in so doing (Figure 2.1).