The paper offers a historical and conceptual study of tectonics, a concept which Martin Heidegger hints at in Building Dwelling Thinking. The purpose is to clarify the concept of tectonics, which has barely been taken up by readers of Heidegger’s work, in order to rethink the concealed connection which it maintains to technique and raise the question whether it may contain an answer to the challenge which Heidegger sees embodied in modern technology.