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”
- “There’s no accounting for tastes” was the rule of thumb
Development of Building Style
- With hardly or no literary research present
- Villard de Hannecourt’s “sketchbook” in 1235
- Rotzer’s 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
PERSONAL STYLE
THEORETICAL TREATISES
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”
1870’s
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 man’s blood”
Louis Sullivan
- “form follows function”
1880’s
- Chicago School became the concentration of architectural development
- introduce Chicago Window
1890’s
The World Columbian Exposition
- built in 1863
- chief architect: Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted
1900’s
- 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
1910’s
- 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
1920’s
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
1930’s
International Style
1950’s
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