A study of the complex relation between abstraction and concrete reality. The monolithic substance of concrete structures is alleviated by revealing its malleable condition of possibility: abstraction. Abstraction is channelled back into its meaning-giving material content: concretion. Marking the oscillating relationship between both dimensions, this piece tries to bridge a seemingly alienating gap between ideality and materiality by demonstrating how both sides constantly and incessantly work through and define each other.
What is concrete can be remodelled through abstraction; what is abstract needs to be translated into concrete reality to find its voice. Taking into account this interdependence allows us to rethink contemporary dualistic impasses, such as the link between urban planning and lived social reality in debates on social housing, between the virtual and the real, between theory and practice.
