Hierarchies

 

A Traditional Korean House

It's a rhetorical question and probably a little pedantic to ask, but what is the most important part of a building? I asked my students this question the other day, mainly to get them thinking more deeply about the nature of the parts of the building. Is there a hierarchy? Why should there be hierarchies in the first place? Hierarchies are useful, in the main, for sorting things (both mentally and physically) into a structure and since a building components are juxtaposed vertically in creating space, a natural hierarchy indeed exists. Since we are used to placing the most important thing on top, it's quite obvious which is the most important part of a building.