Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Theory of Architecture
Theory of Architecture
Research of Architecture
- Research contributes to Design Theory
Nature of Design Theory
- Design Theory states facts
- Design Theory aids design
Scope of Architecture Theory
- Includes all that is presented in the handbooks of architects
- Includes legislation, norms and standards, rules and
methods
- Includes miscellaneous and unscientific elements
Why Design Theory?
- To aid the work of the architect and improve its product
- Proven theory helps designers do work better and more
efficiently
- Skill without knowledge is nothing
(architect Jean Mignot, 1400 AD)
Understanding Design Theory
- Theory does NOT necessarily mean PRECCED design
- PARADISM : every new or established theory applied
: STYLE
THEMATIC THEORIES
CLASSICAL
- Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
MIDDLE AGES
- Medieval (read: Dark Age) anonymous tradition of trade
guilds
RENAISSANCE
- Alberti, Vignola, Palladio, etc.
STRUCTURALIST
- Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc.
ART NOUVEAU (Personal Style)
- Eugene Emmanuelle Violett-le-Due, Le Corbusier, etc.
FUNCTIONALISM
- Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc.
- modern architecture
POSTMODERNISM
- Robert Venturi
SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE
ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE
CLASSICAL THEORIES
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
- Author of the oldest research on architecture
- Wrote an extensive summary of all the theory on
construction
- Had a thorough knowledge of earlier Greek and Roman
writings
Ten Books on Architecture
- De architectura libri decem
- Consists mostly of normative theory of design (based on
practice)
- A collection of thematic theories of design with no method
of combining them into a synthesis
- Presents a classification of requirements set for buildings:
: DURABILTIY (firmitas)
: PRACTICALITY or convenience
(utilitas)
: PLEASANTNESS (venustas)
Vitruvian Rules of Aesthetic Form
- Based on Greek traditions of architecture
- Teachings of Pythagoras : applying proportions of numbers
- Observations of tuned string of instruments
- Proportions of human body
- PLEASANTNESS : in accordance of good taste
: parts follow proportions
: symmetry of measures
Monastery Institutions
- Most documents retrieved from the Middle Ages
- However, archives contain only few descriptions of buildings
- Described only as according to the traditional model
- Theres no accounting for tastes was the rule of thumb
Development of Building Style
- With hardly or no literary research present
- Villard de Hannecourts sketchbook in 1235
- Rotzers Booklet on the right way of making pinnacles
- Only through guidance of old masters
- Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of builders
RENNAISANCE THEORIES
CONSTRUCTION THEORY
Building Material
Amorphic material:
Soft stone; snow
Sheets of skin or textile
Logs of wood
Architectural Form
Spherical vaulted
construction
Cone-shaped tent
construction
Box-shaped construction
PERSONAL STYLE
ART NOUVEAU
- The first architectural style independent of the tradition of
antiquity after the Gothic style
- The example set by Art Nouveau encourage some of the
most skillful architects of the 20th century to create their
private form language
THEORETICAL TREATISES
- Five points of Architecture (1926, Le Corbusier)
a. pilotis
b. free plan
c. free faade
d. the long horizontal sliding window
e. the roof garden
- Architecture as Space (Bruno Zeri)
The crux of architecture is not the sculptural pattern, but
instead the building interiors. These can be seen as negative
solids, as voids which the artist divides, combines, repeats
and emphasizes in the same way as the sculptor treats his
positive lumps of substance.
- The personal style of architects are not necessarily
based on laws of nature or on logical reasoning. More
important is that they exhibit a coherent application of an
idea which also must be clear that the public can find it out.
An advantage is also if the style includes symbolical
undertones.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Industrial Revolution (1768)
- Arts and Crafts Movement
a. conservative
b. William Morris
c. John Ruskin
- Electicism
a. architecture of borrowing
Fruits of Industrial Revolution
Joseph Paxton Crystal Palace, 1851
Elisha Graves Otis Elevator, 1857
Manufacturing of Rolled Steel
1870s
The Great Fire of Chicago, 1871
- downtown in Chicago was burned and in needs of
construction of new buildings
- place where first tallest building was constructed
William Le Baron Jenney
- made the first skyscraper
Daniel Burnham
- make no little plans, they have no magic to stir mans
blood
Louis Sullivan
- form follows function
1880s
- Chicago School became the concentration of architectural
development
- introduce Chicago Window
1890s
The World Columbian Exposition
- built in 1863
- chief architect: Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law
Olmsted
1900s
- European architecture was notified
- Person to notify:
a. Otto Wagner
b. Adolf Loops ornament is a crime
c. H.P. Berlage
d. Frank Lloyd Wright
1910s
- Office of Peter Behrens
a. Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe less in more
b. Walter Gropius
c. Le Corbusier
- 2 Art movements that influenced
1. Futurism simultaneity of movement
2. Cubism interpretation of space
1920s
The Bauhaus
- Art and Technology, the new unity
Established architects
a. Frank Llyod Wright organic architecture
b. Le Corbusier
c. Mies Van Der Rohe / Gropius
1930s
International Style
1950s
The period of Reassessment
- Universalism
- Personalism
POSTMODERNISM
The center of Postmodernism:
Robert Venturi less is bore
Philip Johnson
- say that a portion of Chippendale building in New York has
no function
Introduce the element of Discovery
SYMBOLIC ARHITECTURE
- Building as a message
1. Mathematical Analogy
2. Biological Analogy
- use of plants and ornaments
3. Romantic Architecture
- uses exotic language of form
- vastness; trying to surprise; huge
4. Linguistic Analogies
- grammar; uses words with proper grammar
5. Mechanical Analogies
- Buckminster Fuller
6. Ad Hoc Analogy
- any materials that you can get or available in your
environment such as wood in forest
7. Stage Analogy