THEORY OF DESIGN

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 PRECEDE design
-- PARADIGM = 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 (Construction Theory)
Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc.
ART NOUVEAU (Personal Styles)
Eugene Emmanuel Violett-le-Duc, Le Corbusier, etc.
FUNCTIONALISM
Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc.
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:
-- DURABILITY (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 strings of instruments
-- proportions of human body
-- PLEASANTNESS = in accordance of good taste
= parts follow proportions
= symmetry of measures
THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES

MONASTERY INSTITUTION
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 Honnecourts sketchbook in 1235
-- Roritzers Booklet on the right way of making pinnacles
-- only through guidance of old masters
-- tradition binding and precise in closed guilds of builders
RENAISSANCE THEORIES

1418 a copy of Vitruve manuscripts found at St. Gallen monastery

LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404-72)
person in charge of constructions commanded by Pope
-- On Building = De re aedificatoria
-- one of the greatest works of the theory of architecture
-- completed in 1452, published in 1485
-- more emphasis on decoration of building exteriors
SEBASTIANO SERLIO
-- Regole generali di architectura
GIACOMO BAROZZI DA VIGNOLA
-- Regola delle cinque ordini
-- concise, fast and easily applicable rules of the five column systems
-- based his design instructions on four things:
-- idea of Pythagoras (proportions of small numbers meant harmony
-- proportions and other instructions provided by Vitruvius
-- example set by earlier buildings
-- general good taste
 RENAISSANCE THEORIES

ANDREA PALLADIO (1508-80)

I quattro libri dellarchitectura
-- the father of modern picture books of architecture
PHILIBERT DE LORME
one of French theorists who are critical of Italians
-- proved that Pantheons Corinthian columns had 3 different proportions
-- thus, rejected the doctrine of absolute beauty of measures
WORKS PRINTED BY FRENCH THEORISTS
-- Francois Nicolas Blondel: Cours darchitecture (1675)
-- Claude Perrault: Ordonnance des cinq especes de colonnes (1683)
-- Jean Louis de Cordemoy: Nouveau traite de toute larchitecture (1706)
-- Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur larchitecture (1753)
-- Jacques-Francois Blondel: Cours darchitecture (1770)
-- J-N-L Durand: Precis des lecons (1802-5)
-- Julien Guadet: Elements et theories de larchitecture (1902)
No method for systematically inspecting the results
CONSTRUCTION THEORY

Building Material Architectural Form

Amorphic material:
Spherical vaulted construction
soft stone; snow

Sheets of skin or textile Cone-shaped tent construction

Logs of wood Box-shaped construction

BEFORE WRITTEN CONSTRUCTION THEORY

- Architecture created without the help of architects or theory
- Builders used a model instead of mathematical algorithms
now used in modern construction.
- Inverted catenary model
SEMI-CIRCULAR VAULT: THEORY BY VITRUVE
When there are arches the outermost piers must be made
broader than the others, so that they may have the strength to resist
when the wedges, under the pressure of the load of the walls, begin
to thrust out the abutments.
CONSTRUCTION THEORY

DURING MIDDLE AGES

- No written document survived about theories or models to describe
the magnificent vaults of medieval cathedrals
- Shapes of gothic vaults resemble inverted catenaries
- Architects design not only the layout and decoration but also the
construction and stability of buildings

DURING RENAISSANCE
- From Alberti onwards, architects began specializing. Thus, the mechanics of
materials & construction started to become a field of study of
its own.
- Mathematical models by Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei.
- 1675: Marquis de Vauban founded a building department in the French army
called Corps des ingenieurs
- 1747: Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, special school founded in Paris where
new profession specializing in construction was organized
- Other figures who developed mathematical construction theory
Robert Hooke; Jakob Bernoulli; Leonard Euler
- From Euler onwards, theory of elasticity of structures developed
 PERSONAL STYLES
COPYING FROM ANTIQUITY
- Architecture from antiquity came to a point of perfection
- Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1863): the 1st theorist who set out to create a totally new
system of architectural forms independent of antiquity
What we call taste is but an involuntary process of reasoning whose steps
elude our observation. Authority has no value if its grounds are not
explained.

- The foundation of modern architecture.

- Although Viollet-le-Duc did not create a timeless architectural style himself, he
showed others the philosophical foundation and method that
they could use to develop even radically new form languages.
- Owen Jones: used forms inspired from nature, especially plants.

ART NOUVEAU
- The 1st architectural style independent of the tradition of antiquity after the
Gothic style
- The example set by Art Nouveau encouraged some of the most skillful
architects of the 20th century to create their private form
languages.
- Le Corbusier: architecture psychology, as natural forms of plants,
buildings as giant sculptures
PERSONAL STYLES

THEORETICAL TREATISES

- Five Points of Architecture (1926, Le Corbusier)

1. pilotis
2. free plan
3. free faade
4. the long horizontal sliding window
5. the roof garden
- Architecture as Space (Bruno Zevi)
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 styles 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.
FUNCTIONALISM

PRECONDITIONS IN FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE

- Function is one of the cornerstones of Vitruvian theory
- Did not receive as much attention in Renaissance era
- Industrial Revolution
- Eugene Viollet-le-Duc

20th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

- The Chicago School
- Louis Sullivan: Ornament in Architecture (1892)
- Form follows function
- Frank Lloyd Wright Form and function as one
- Otto Wagner: Moderne Arckitektur (1895)
- Bauhaus and Walther Gropius
- Architecture supported by mother sciences
- Construction Economy matchbox architecture
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Less is more
POSTMODERNISM

PRECONDITIONS IN FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE

- Function is one of the cornerstones of Vitruvian theory
- Did not receive as much attention in Renaissance era
- Industrial Revolution
- Eugene Viollet-le-Duc

20th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

- Louis Sullivan: Ornament in Architecture (1892)
- Form follows function
- Frank Lloyd Wright Form and function as one
- Otto Wagner: Moderne Arckitektur (1895)
- Bauhaus and Walther Gropius
- Architecture supported by mother sciences
- Construction Economy matchbox architecture
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Less is more
 SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE
MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY
Pure forms
-- Golden Section
BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY
ORGANIC: relationship between parts of building or
between the building and its settings
-- BIOMORPHIC: focuses on growth processes and movement
capabilities associated with organisms
ROMANTIC ANALOGY
-- BY ASSOCIATION: making references
-- BY EXAGGERATION: use of contrast, excessive stimulation,
unfamiliar scale, and unfamiliar forms
LINGUISTIC ANALOGY
GRAMMATICAL MODEL: elements (words) & rules (grammar)
-- EXPRESSIONIST MODEL: buildings as vehicles for
expressing an attitude towards a project
-- SEMIOTIC MODEL: using symbols literally
SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE

MECHANICAL ANALOGY
A machine is a house for living
-- Beauty assumes the promise of function
PROBLEM-SOLVING ANALOGY
RATIONALIST: analysis, synthesis, evaluation
-- Logical, Systematic, or Parametric in Approach
ADHOCIST ANALOGY
-- Responding to the immediate need using materials
immediately available
PATTERN LANGUAGE ANALOGY
Observing patterns of environment-behavior relationships
DRAMATURGICAL ANALOGY
All the world is a stage
-- The architect as director
ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE