Wood is one of the oldest materials in the history of building – and simultaneously one of the most modern. No other construction material has gone through such dynamic changes over the past few years as wood has: the disassembly and reorganization of the material as layered and fiber composites have made it technically far easier to handle, flexible and formally shapeable.
It is now available as a construction material for abstract geometrical concepts and this in dimensions with practically no natural limitations. Firmly anchored in the construction images of the old natural material timber, wood has today reached far out into the range of structural possibilities other materials have offered and is thrusting its way forward as a highly practical replacement for them in building practice. The changes that have been brought about to its inner material composition are accompanied by exciting possibilities for design and forming. All of this has put wood firmly into its current position where from the interplay of a rustic natural material and a projection medium it has emerged as an ideal means for the realization of form concepts that are independent of materials.
But on what laws of logic is construction with this hybrid material based, as it fluctuates between nature and culture? What is the dividing line here between the material and the form? This anthology questions the positions and perspectives of wood in the quandary of being caught in the space between identities and possibilities. The essays collected here bring the perspectives of architecture, the handicrafts, engineering, the arts, history, philosophy and anthropology.
This book is the concluding result of a research project carried out by the Professor for Structural Design at the ETH Zurich. It is sponsored by the Department of Architecture and Federal Ministry of the Environment.

With texts by Christoph Baumberger, Hermann Blumer, Gion A. Caminada, Marie Drath, Jörg Gleiter, Hannes Henz, Tim Ingold, Johannes Käferstein, Katrin Künzi, Beat Mathys, Urs Meister, Ákos Moravánszky, Stefan Polónyi, José Afonso Portocarrero, Mario Rinke, Christoph Schindler, Joseph Schwartz, Philip Ursprung, André Wagenführ, Yves Weinand, Niklaus Wenger, Mark Aurel Wyss, David Yeomans and Klaus Zwerger.