Abstract

This paper attempts to clarify the concepts of freedom and constraint through a study of architectural design work, an activity that its practitioners represent as a constraining space, though they in fact manage to find new solutions within. The study aims at both factual and theoretical results: factual in that the difficulties of exercising this profession seem to be due less to constraints than the excessive degree of responsability and near impracticability of the studies they induce; theoretical because certain facts suggest that a fundamental revision of the negative relation generally understood to obtain betwwen freedom and constraint is in order. Two examples of such facts: prohibitions are not as constraining as prescriptions, and certain 'absorption' strategies can open a path to freedom while following a given constraint 'to the letter'.