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Architectural theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Architectural discourse from the illustrated French Dictionary of Architecture (1856) by Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc

Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, and writing about architecture.
Architectural theory is taught in most architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading
architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are the lecture or dialogue, the treatise or
book, and the paper project or competition entry. Architectural theory is often didactic, and
theorists tend to stay close to or work from within schools. It has existed in some form since
antiquity, and as publishing became more common, architectural theory gained an increased
richness. Books, magazines, and journals published an unprecedented number of works by
architects and critics in the 20th century. As a result, styles and movements formed and dissolved
much more quickly than the relatively enduring modes in earlier history. It is to be expected that
the use of the internet will further the discourse on architecture in the 21st century.

Contents
 1 History
o 1.1 Antiquity
o 1.2 Middle Ages
 o 1.3 Renaissance
o 1.4 Enlightenment
o 1.5 19th century
o 1.6 20th century
o 1.7 Contemporary
 2 Some architectural theorists
o 2.1 Historical
o 2.2 Formalism and space
o 2.3 Modernist
o 2.4 Postmodern and contemporary
o 2.5 Digital architecture
 3 See also
 4 Notes
 5 References
 6 External links

History
Antiquity

There is little information or evidence about major architectural theory in antiquity, until the 1st
century BCE, with the work of Vitruvius. This does not mean, however, that such works did not
exist. Many works never survived antiquity.

Vitruvius was a Roman writer, architect, and engineer active in the 1st century BCE. He was the
most prominent architectural theorist in the Roman Empire known today, having written De
architectura (known today as The Ten Books of Architecture), a treatise written in Latin and
Greek on architecture, dedicated to the emperor Augustus. Probably written between 27 and 23
BCE,[1] it is the only major contemporary source on classical architecture to have survived.
Divided into ten sections or "books", it covers almost every aspect of Roman architecture, from
town planning, materials, decorations, temples, water supplies, etc. It rigorously defines the
classical orders of architecture. It also proposes the three fundamental laws that Architecture
must obey, in order to be so considered: firmitas, utilitas, venustas, translated in the 17th century
by Sir Henry Wotton into the English slogan firmness, commodity and delight (meaning
structural adequacy, functional adequacy, and beauty). The rediscovery of Vitruvius' work had a
profound influence on architects of the Renaissance, adding archaeological underpinnings to the
rise of the Renaissance style, which was already under way. Renaissance architects, such as
Niccoli, Brunelleschi and Leon Battista Alberti, found in "De Architectura" their rationale for
raising their branch of knowledge to a scientific discipline.

Middle Ages

Throughout the Middle Ages, architectural knowledge was passed by transcription, word of
mouth and technically in master builders' lodges.[2] Due to the laborious nature of transcription,
few examples of architectural theory were penned in this time period. Most works from this
period were theological, and were transcriptions of the bible, so the architectural theories were
the notes on structures included therein. The Abbot Suger's Liber de rebus in administratione sua
gestis, was an architectural document that emerged with gothic architecture. Another was Villard
de Honnecourt's portfolio of drawings from about the 1230s.

In Song Dynasty China, Li Jie published the Yingzao Fashi in 1103, which was an architectural
treatise that codified elements of Chinese architecture.[3][4]

Renaissance

The first great work of architectural theory of this period belongs to Leon Battista Alberti, De Re
Aedificatoria, which placed Vitruvius at the core of the most profound theoretical tradition of the
modern ages. From Alberti, good architecture is validated through the Vitruvian triad, which
defines its purpose. This triplet conserved all its validity until the 19th century. A major
transition into the 17th century and ultimately to the phase of Enlightenment was secured
through the advanced mathematical and optical research of the celebrated architect and geometer
Girard Desargues, with an emphasis on his studies on conics, perspective and projective
geometry.

Enlightenment

The Age of the Enlightenment witnessed considerable development in architectural theory on the
European continent. New archeological discoveries (such as those of Pompeii and Herculaneum)
drove new interest in Classical art and architecture. Thus the term Neoclassicism, exemplified by
the writings of Prussian art critic [Johann Joachim Winkelmann], arose to designate 18th-century
architecture which looked to these new Classical precedents for inspiration in building design.[5]

Major architectural theorists of the Enlightenment include Julien-David Leroy, Abbé Marc-
Antoine Laugier, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Robert Adam, James Stuart, Georg Friedrich
Hegel[6] and Nicholas Revett.

19th century

A vibrant strain of Neoclassicism, inherited from Marc-Antoine Laugier's seminal Essai,

provided the foundation for two generations of international activity around the core themes of
classicism, primitivism and a "return to Nature."

Reaction against the dominance of neo-classical architecture came to the fore in the 1820s with
Augustus Pugin providing a moral and theoretical basis for Gothic Revival architecture, and in
the 1840s John Ruskin developed this ethos.

The American sculptor Horatio Greenough published the essay American Architecture in August
1843 in which he rejected the imitation of old styles of buildings and outlined the functional
relationship between architecture and decoration. These theories anticipated the development of
Functionalism in modern architecture.
Towards the end of the century, there occurred a blossoming of theoretical activity. In England,
Ruskin's ideals underpinned the emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement exemplified by the
writings of William Morris. This in turn formed the basis for Art Nouveau in the UK,
exemplified by the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and influenced the Vienna Secession.
On the Continent, the theories of Viollet-le-Duc and Gottfried Semper provided the springboard
for enormous vitality of thought dedicated to architectural innovation and the renovation of the
notion of style. Semper in particular developed an international following, in Germany, England,
Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, France, Italy and the United States. The generation born during
the middle-third of the 19th century was largely enthralled with the opportunities presented by
Semper's combination of a breathtaking historical scope and a methodological granularity. In
contrast to more recent, and thus "modern", thematically self-organized theoretical activities, this
generation did not coalesce into a "movement." They did, however, seem to converge on
Semper's use of the concept of Realismus, and they are thus labelled proponents of architectural
realism. Among the most active Architectural Realists were: Georg Heuser, Rudolf
Redtenbacher, Constantin Lipsius, Hans Auer, Paul Sédille, Lawrence Harvey, Otto Wagner and
Richard Streiter.

20th century

In 1889 Camillo Sitte published Der Städtebau nach seinem künstlerischen Grundsätzen
(translated as City Planning According to Artistic Principles) which was not exactly a criticism
of architectural form but an aesthetic criticism (inspired by medieval and Baroque town
planning) of 19th-century urbanism. Mainly a theoretical work, it had an immediate impact on
architecture, as the two disciplines of architecture and planning intertwined. Demand for it was
so high that five editions appeared in German between 1889 and 1922 and a French translation
came out in 1902. (No English edition came out until 1945.) For Sitte, the most important issue
was not the architectural shape or form of a building but the quality of the urban spaces that
buildings collectively enclose, the whole being more than the sum of its parts. The Modern
Movement rejected these thoughts and Le Corbusier energetically dismissed the work.
Nevertheless, Sitte's work was revisited by post-modern architects and theorists from the 1970s,
especially following its republication in 1986 by Rizzoli, in an edition edited by Collins and
Collins (now published by Dover). The book is often cited anachronistically today as a vehicle
for the criticism of the Modern Movement.

Also on the topic of artistic notions with regard to urbanism was Louis Sullivan's The Tall Office
Building Artistically Considered of 1896.[7] In this essay, Sullivan penned his famous alliterative
adage "form ever follows function"; a phrase that was to be later adopted as a central tenet of
Modern architectural theory. While later architects adopted the abbreviated phrase "form follows
function" as a polemic in service of functionalist doctrine, Sullivan wrote of function with regard
to biological functions of the natural order. Another influential planning theorist of this time was
Ebenezer Howard, who founded the garden city movement. This movement aimed to form
communities with architecture in the Arts and Crafts style at Letchworth and Welwyn Garden
City and popularised the style as domestic architecture.

In Vienna, the idea of a radically new modern architecture had many theorists and proponents.
An early use of the term modern architecture in print occurred in the title of a book by Otto
Wagner,[8][9] who gave examples of his own work representative of the Vienna Secession with art
nouveau illustrations, and didactic teachings to his students. Soon thereafter, Adolf Loos wrote
Ornament and Crime, and while his own style is usually seen in the context of the Jugendstil, his
demand for "the elimination of ornament" joined the slogan "form follows function" as a
principle of the architectural so-called Modern Movement that came to dominate the mid-20th
century. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier provided the theoretical
basis for the International Style with aims of using industrialised architecture to reshape society.
Frank Lloyd Wright, while modern in rejecting historic revivalism, was idiosyncratic in his
theory, which he conveyed in copious writing. Wright did not subscribe to the tenets of the
International Style, but evolved what he hoped would be an American, in contrast to a European,
progressive course. Wright's style, however, was highly personal, involving his particular views
of man and nature. Wright was more poetic and firmly maintained the 19th-century view of the
creative artist as unique genius. This limited the relevance of his theoretical propositions.
Towards the end of the century postmodern architecture reacted against the austerity of High
Modern (International Style) principles, viewed as narrowly normative and doctrinaire.

Contemporary

In contemporary architectural discourse theory has become more concerned with its position
within culture generally, and thought in particular. This is why university courses on architecture
theory may often spend just as much time discussing philosophy and cultural studies as
buildings, and why advanced postgraduate research and doctoral dissertations focus on
philosophical topics in connection with architectural humanities. Some architectural theorists
aim at discussing philosophical themes, or engage in direct dialogues with philosophers, as in the
case of Peter Eisenman's and Bernard Tschumi's interest in Derrida's thought, or Anthony
Vidler's interest in the works of Freud and Lacan, in addition to an interest in Gaston Bachelard's
Poetics of Space or texts by Gilles Deleuze. This has also been the case with educators in
academia like Dalibor Vesely or Alberto-Perez Gomez, and in more recent years this
philosophical orientation has been reinforced through the research of a new generation of
theorists (E.G. Jeffrey Kipnis or Sanford Kwinter). Similarly, we can refer to contemporary
architects who are interested in philosophy and cultural studies. Some are interested in
phenomenology, like Christian Norberg-Schulz, or specialize as philosophers and historians of
science, such as Nader El-Bizri. Others, like Manfredo Tafuri, are interested in new ontological
definitions of architecture tracing a new notion of modernity in architecture. The notion that
theory entails critique also stemmed from post-structural literary studies in the work of many
other theorists and architects, such as Mark Wigley, among others. In their theories, architecture
is compared to a language which can be invented and re-invented every time it is used. This
theory influenced the so-called deconstructivist architecture. In contrast, network society
innovators, especially Silicon Valley software developers, have embraced Christopher
Alexander's emphasis on The Timeless Way of Building (1979) based on pattern languages that
are optimized on-site as construction unfolds.

Since 2000, architectural theory has also had to face the rapid rise of urbanism and globalization.
By developing a new understanding of the city, many theorists developed new understandings of
the urban conditions of our planet (E.G. Rem Koolhaas's Bigness). Interests in fragmentation and
architecture as transient objects further affected such thinking (e.g. the concern for employing
high technology), but also related to general concerns such as ecology, mass media, and
economism.

In the past decade, there has been the emergence of the so-called "Digital" Architecture. Several
currents and design methodologies are being developed simultaneously, some of which reinforce
each other, whereas others work in opposition. One of these trends is Biomimicry, which is the
process of examining nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements, to emulate or take
inspiration from them in order to solve human problems.[10] Architects also design organic-
looking buildings in the attempt to develop a new formal language. Another trend is the
exploration of those computational techniques that are influenced by algorithms relevant to
biological processes and sometimes referred to as Digital morphogenesis. Trying to utilize
Computational creativity in architecture, Genetic algorithms developed in computer science are
used to evolve designs on a computer, and some of these are proposed and built as actual
structures. Since these new architectural tendencies emerged, many theorists and architects have
been working on these issues, developing theories and ideas such as Patrick Schumacher's
Parametricism.

Nonetheless, there is no evidence for claiming that we are witnessing the birth of an entirely new
type of architectural theory and practice. Contemporary architecture's theoretical world is plural
and multicolored. There are different dominant schools of architectural theory which are based
on linguistic analysis, philosophy, post-structuralism, or cultural theory. For instance, there is
emerging interest in the re-discovery of the post-modernist project (Sam Jacob), in the definition
of new radical tendencies of architecture and its implication in the development of cities (Pier
Vittorio Aureli), and in a new formalist approach to architecture through the appropriation of
concepts from the Object Oriented philosophy (Peter Trummer or Tom Wiscombe). It is too
early, however, to say whether any of these explorations will have widespread or lasting impact
on architecture.

Some architectural theorists

Historical

 Vitruvius
 Leon Battista Alberti
 Andrea Palladio
 Sebastiano Serlio
 Gérard Desargues
 Filarete
 Francesco di Giorgio
 Teofilo Gallaccini
 Marc-Antoine Laugier
 Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremere de Quincy
 Giambattista Piranesi
 Carlo Lodoli
 Francesco Milizia
 John Ruskin
  Horatio Greenough
 Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
 Karl Friedrich Schinkel
 Paul Sédille
 Hermann Muthesius

Formalism and space

 Hans Auer
 Konrad Fiedler
 Henri Focillon
 Paul Frankl
 Adolf von Hildebrand
 Emil Kaufmann
 Theodor Lipps
 Alois Riegl
 Geoffrey Scott
 August Schmarsow
 Gottfried Semper
 John Summerson
 Robert Vischer
 Heinrich Wölfflin
 Wilhelm Worringer
 Hans Van der Laan

Modernist

 Reyner Banham Postmodern and contemporary

 Ernesto Nathan Rogers
 Bruno Zevi
 Sigfried Giedion
 Leonardo Benevolo
 Steen Eiler Rasmussen
 Otto Wagner
 Le Corbusier
 Adolf Loos
 Lewis Mumford
 Edoardo Persico
 Raymond Unwin
 Ebenezer Howard
 Rudolf Arnheim
 Lúcio Costa

 Christopher Alexander Digital architecture

 Stan Allen
 Pier Vittorio Aureli
 Andrea Branzi
 Markus Breitschmid
 Preston Scott Cohen
 Peter Cook (architect)
 Gillo Dorfless
 Nader El-Bizri
 Peter Eisenman
 Hal Foster
 Kenneth Frampton
 Marco Frascari
 K. Michael Hays
 Charles Jencks
 Jeffrey Kipnis
 Rem Koolhaas
 Leon Krier
 Sanford Kwinter
 Catherine Ingraham
 Sylvia Lavin
 David Leatherbarrow
 Marc Linder
 Christian Norberg-Schulz
 Werner Oechslin
 Juhani Pallasmaa
 Alberto Pérez-Gómez
 Paolo Portoghesi
 Aldo Rossi
 Colin Rowe
 Joseph Rykwert
 Yehuda Safran
 Denise Scott Brown
 Richard Sennett
 Daniel Sherer
 Robert Somol
 Deyan Sudjic
 Manfredo Tafuri
 Robert Tavernor
 Panayotis Tournikiotis
 Peter Trummer
 Bernard Tschumi
 Oswald Mathias Ungers
 Robert Venturi
 Dalibor Vesely
 Anthony VIdler
 Paul Virilio
 Sarah Whiting
  Bruno Zevi

 Ole Bauman
 Mario Carpo
 Mark Foster Gage
 Greg Lynn
 Malcom McCollough
 Antoine Picon
 Ali Rahim
 Nikos Salingaros
 Patrik Schumacher
 Lars Spuybroek

Anti-architecture

 George Bataille
 Guy Debord
 Michel Foucault
 Henri Lefebvre

See also
 Vastu shastra
 Phenomenology (architecture)

Notes
1.

 Kruft, p. 447.
  Evers, Thoenes, et al., p.13.
  Liang Ssu-ch'eng. A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture: a Study of the Development
of its Structural System and the Evolution of its Types. MIT press, 1984. ISBN 0-262-12103-4
  Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt ed. Chinese Architecture. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-
300-09559-7
  Robin Middleton and David Watkin, Neoclassicism and 19th-century architecture. The MIT
Press, 1980 and Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750–1890, Oxford University Press,
2000.l,
  Mark Jarzombek, *"The Cunning of Architecture's Reason," Footprint (#1, Autumn 2007),
pp. 31-46.
  Louis H. Sullivan. Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings. Courier Dover Publications,
1979. Page 202. ISBN 0-486-23812-1
  Otto Wagner. Moderne Architektur: Seinen Schülern ein Führer auf diesem Kunstgebiete.
Anton Schroll. 1902.
  Otto Wagner. Translated by Harry Francis Mallgrave. Modern Architecture: A Guidebook
for His Students to This Field of Art. Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.
1988. ISBN 0-226-86938-5

10.  Reading University: What is Biomimetics? Archived March 23, 2012, at the Wayback
Machine. Retrieved 3 June 2012.

References
 Reyner Banham. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. Praeger Publishers, 1960.
ISBN 0-262-52058-3
 Bernd Evers, Christoph Thoenes, et al. Architectural Theory from the Renaissance to the
Present. Taschen, 2003. ISBN 3-8228-1699-X
 Saul Fisher, "Philosophy of Architecture", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall
2015 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
 K. Michael Hays (ed.). Architecture Theory since 1968. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.
ISBN 0-262-58188-4
 Mark Jarzombek, "The Cunning of Architecture's Reason," Footprint (#1, Autumn 2007),
pp. 31–46.
 Stephen R. Kellert, Judith Heerwagen, and Martin Mador (eds.), "Biophilic Design: the
Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life", John Wiley, New York,
2008. ISBN 978-0-470-16334-4
 Hanno-Walter Kruft. A history of architectural theory: from Vitruvius to the present.
Princeton Architectural Press, 1994. ISBN 1-56898-010-8
 Harry F. Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1969.
Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-521-79306-8
 Kate Nesbitt. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural
Theory. Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. ISBN 1-56898-054-X
 Joan Ockman, Edward Eigen. Architecture Culture 1943-1968: A Documentary
Anthology. Rizzoli, 1993. ISBN 0-8478-1511-0
 Nikos Salingaros. "A Theory of Architecture". Umbau-Verlag, 2006. ISBN 3-937954-07-
4.
 Andrea Sauchelli, "On Architecture as a Spatial Art" Nordic Journal of Aesthetic, 43
(2012)
 Manfredo Tafuri, translated by Giorgio Verrecchia. Theories and History of Architecture.
Harper & Row, 1968. ISBN 0-06-438580-9
 Vitruvius, Translation: Morris Hicky Morgan (1960). The Ten Books On Architecture.
Dover Publications.

External links
 Collection of source documents in the history, theory and criticism of 20th-century
architecture.

Categories:
  Architectural history
 Architectural theory

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