Soil extraction results in different material qualities. Some products, like coal, are affiliated with industry and pollution. Others, such as marble, equal to perpetual wealth and aesthetic. In the region of West Macedonia, in the North of Greece, those qualities coexist in the form of mines and quarries, creating a material network. With starting point the difference between marble and coal, the research investigates extraction practices as a multilevel topic, an ever-growing field where artificial and natural landscape blends. In the possibility of extraction sites closure, questions emerges in regards for the impact in city, environment and humanity sites towards a future transition. Those sites wound create a new archaeology, signs of an era of Anthropocene and a wounded nature.

Hence research circulates around three themes. First it examines the Hinterlands as a system of operations carrying industrial production, following by the sites of extraction and the narratives around them, in pursuit of the spirit of place. The third aspect is a cognitive examination of the human position into those practices. A placement of human through craft proposes a rethinking of materiality and nature as active agents. This affiliation with non-human entities underlines a transition of culture into a caring state, creating an ecosystem sympathy. Goal is to find answers about the recovery of post-mining territories, the revival of this inert anthropogenic environment.

With a starting point of the brutalism return to the foreground of the architecture practice and its positive shift and acknowledgement by users and critics, the essay tries to construct a narrative around the formation of prismatic forms. There is a chance of analysis of a broader group of buildings - works that converge similar traits. This analysis revisits and adds to former essays of this thematic area, which were written in the decade of 1990. The renew aims to indicate fragments that have not presented or have not studied in an adequate degree and also to encapsulate the secrets behind those type of creations.

For the holistic study of the topic the narrative searches manifestations of monolithic structures from history, myths and tales, adding a symbolic background to sociopolitical values. Myths assist unravelling the clew of continuity, urges behind the consistent use of prismatic forms through different time periods. There is a tendency of humans to return to more primitive forms, as they encapsulate meaning, so some architectural forms work more as statements, symbols rather than function and space. Symbolism and Monumentality, aligned with the essence of monolithic architecture, indicate an examination of the feeling of uncanny.

As a dominant factor of Monolithic architecture, uncanny and its effects on human mind and senses are getting into consideration, through the lance of terms as gothic, terror, sublime. Aspects of uncanny will be the core of discovery and definition of monolithic architecture’s characteristics. Traits as darkness, lack of orientation, continuity of form, insecurity are embedded in the design process or created unconsciously. They provide except for morphology, atmospheres that end up in a design identity, a typology of monolithic architecture.

Afterwards a categorization of contemporary examples is discussed, based on their affiliation with exterior and interior form and design. Examples include works of the past two decades, which encapsulate the characteristics of monolithic terminology and differentiation from the previous traits found in bibliography. There is a redefinition of monolithic architecture in contemporary design of past two decades, revealing forms more close to nature and landscape. Alejandro Aravena Center of Innovation of Chile, Ensample’s studios Musical studies center, Olafur Eliasson’s ilusisat Icefjord Park and Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine Pavilion describe new possibilities in design and readjust the atmospheric values brought with the term uncanny. Presentation of examples aims to discover new design tools for architects and designers, accompanied with the understanding and rational behind those creations.