Blog 8 : Borgmann

I found it very interesting when we were discussing chapter 10 of Borgmann the other day. I had never thought about the fact that building something involves chance. When I think about building I think of blueprints, sketches, and the large amount of precise calculations that must be done. The fact that contingency is a major factor of the building process had never occurred to me. I had always assumed that things were constructed precisely according to the blueprint, down to the last inch. The example Borgmann used in the book was the Freiburg Minster. It took over 300 years for the Freiburg Minster to be built, and over that time period, there were a couple of different builders that took part in the construction process. During the time it was being built, the design shifted from Romanesque to Gothic. The differing ideas brought into the project by each builder caused this particular church to be very unique. For example, the style used in building the steeple varied from that used to build the smaller towers. Contingency played a major part in the construction of the Freiburg Minster. I am sure the final outcome was not the same as the initial plans for the church, much the same way that the blueprints of one of today’s buildings don’t show exactly how the building will turn out after its completion. Until reading Borgmann, I had never realized the fact that chance played such a significant role in the construction of buildings.