“Every phenomenon – a physical object, an organic form, a feeling, a thought, our group life – owes its shape and character to the duel between opposite tendencies; a physical configuration is a product of the duel between native constitution and outside environment” (P.326, KAPES G., “The new landscape”, 1956) 

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Prologue

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The process of detecting a theme to research often starts from personal interests. Although these uncharted fascinations seem disconnected and isolated at first glance, they hide an intricate net of non-tangible meanings. 
When I first came across Duality and Hybridity, they were in the form of a collection of pictures, texts, and sounds, of which I was ignoring the specific interrelation.

The sound of the waves on the sand and a picture of the sea shore, a text which describes a museum-house and a human silhouette in the sun, a panoramic pool which dissolves itself in the boundless sea behind, Alessandro Baricco's description of the "the mute existence of land and water", pictures of pebbles and shells - once dry, once wet - and the porch of my grandmother's house.

Later, analyzing this material unitarily, I finally came across the link I was looking for: the veiled source of my fascination was not the material itself as much as the Duality intrinsic to it. Suddenly, I realized that every phenomenon that I was observing with attraction was carrying a hybrid significance, each source was the subtle expression of a dichotomy.

Moreover, once I was aware, I instantly noticed that this theme had been a constant throughout my past. Yet, I was already researching these themes through painting, writing, photography, and in my academic journey, without being fully conscious of it until now.  

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Introduction

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In first place, I felt a quivering excitement when I discovered the origins of my interest as if a new, lucid perception of myself started at that moment. However, right afterwards, came the need to understand what the concept of “Duality” implies and how it is related to space and architecture. Therefore, this is the groundwork that generated the following study: a research with the aim of analyzing the concept of Duality from an architectural point of view.

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Indeed, the text starts from an investigation of the abstract concept of ‘Duality’, to build a picture of its value in relation to the broader themes of ‘Singularity’ and Plurality’. Furthermore, the physical aspect of the analysis will be examined through the instance of Postmodern architectural theories, which often arose from principles of juxtaposition and complexity. 

Interestingly, the idea of Duality seems to occur in numerous material implications of life, almost resembling an intrinsic quality in our nature, or rather in several aspects of it. As soon as I started reflecting on how the concept of ‘duality’ could play a role in human existence, I quickly had in my hands a fair list of antithetical binomials such as men and women; body and mind; good and evil; life and death; natural and artificial; water and land, and then more, in an architectural perspective, such as inside and outside; public and private; form and function; light and darkness.

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Actually, even if most of these dichotomies usually correlate with fields of interest such as Art, Religion, Philosophy and Psychology, my investigation is aiming to discover their spatial and architectural implications. Thus, suddenly, I began to research the influence of these antithetical tensional relationships in former architectural theories, hence coming easily across the values of Postmodernism, with its features of contradiction and multiplicity.

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At the beginning of “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture” by Robert Venturi, the book which in time became the manifesto of the postmodern architectural movement, the author asserts: “I prefer ‘both-and’ to ‘either-or’, black and white, and sometimes grey, to black or white.” […] “Ambiguity and tension are everywhere in an architecture of complexity and contradiction. Architecture is form and substance - abstract and concrete - and its meaning derives from its interior characteristics and its particular context.” (Inside and Outside) “An architectural element is perceived as form and structure, texture and material. These oscillating relationships, complex and contradictory, are the source of the ambiguity and tension characteristic to the medium of architecture”  (Venturi, 1966)

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Certainly, to take into consideration this binary aspect of the world that surrounds us does not mean minimizing the complexity of the environment, but instead, it represents a way of categorizing it. In fact, in a dual relationship, the binomial (Ex: Light-Darkness) indicates only the two antipodes of the tensional relationship. However, in between these two extremes stays the spectrum of tangible phenomena, which unfolds itself in a myriad of shades. Therefore, we could assert that each binary tensional relationship admits a plurality of hybrid and complex variations in-between. (Black – Shades of grey – White).

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Thereupon, in 1843 the American writer and journalist Margaret Fuller wrote: “Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.”  (Fuller, 1843)

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Without a doubt, M. Fuller wrote these words pointing out the hybrid essence of human beings, however, the implied idea could relate to several other dualisms, such as ‘light/darkness’ and ‘inside/outside’. Perhaps, “perpetually passing into one another” in analogous means.

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Thus, the present thesis aims to demonstrate that the concepts of Duality - and consequently hybridity, complexity and ambiguity - are intrinsic in the phenomenological environment and have a decisive influence on our perception and behaviour, and therefore are concepts which take on a central role in our comprehension and fruition of the architectural (as well as natural) space.