A Selection of Architectural Manifestos

HMS 497A: Thesis Writing

Instructor: Tulay Atak

Table of Contents

1. Adolf Loos, Principle of Cladding

2. Bruno Taut, Down with Seriousism
3. Glas (aka Bruno Taut), First letter to the Crystal Chain
4. De Stijl, Creative Demands
5. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Working Theses
6. Hannes Meyer, Building
7. Charlotte Perriand, Wood or Metal
8. Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici, House by the Sea
9. Interview with Jean Prouve
10. Richard Neutra, Survival through Design
11. Rudolf Schindler, A Prefabrication Vocabulary
12. Charles Eames, City Hall
13. Frank Lloyd Wright, In the Nature of Materials
14. Le Corbusier, Ineffable Space
15. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, With Infinite Slowness Arises Great Form
16. Lina Bo Bardi, Stones against Diamonds
17. Lina Bo Bardi, Technology and Art
18. Louis Kahn, Architecture is the Thoughtful Making of Spaces
19. Robert Venturi, A Gentle Manifesto
20. William Katavolos, Organics
21. Witold Rybcynzki, Sulphur Building
22. Yves Klein and Walter Ruhnau, Aerial Architecture
23. Paul Virilio, Oblique Function
24. Strike Committee of Ecole des Beaux Arts, Motion of May 15
25. Hans Hollein, Alles ist Architektur (original German version)
26. Hans Hollein, Everything is Architecture (English translation)
27. Toyo Ito, The Logic of Uselessness
28. Rem Koolhaas, Life in the Metropolis or the Culture of Congestion
29. Frank Gehry speaking about his own house
30. Coop Himmelb(l)au, Architecture Must Blaze
31. Rem Koolhaas, Junkspace
Sources

Adolf Loos, Spoken into the Void: Collected Essays 1897-1900, MIT P, 1983: 1
Programs and Manifestos on 20th Century Architecture, (ed. Ulrich Conrads), MIT P, 1975: 2, 4-
6, 20, 22
Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and his Circle (ed. Iain Botd
Whyte), MIT P, 1985: 3
Mary McLeod, Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living, Harry Abrams, 2003: 7
Caroline Constant, Eileen Gray, Phaidon, 2007: 8
Jean Prouve, Collected Works, Vol 1 (ed. Peter Sulzer), Brikhauser, 1995: 9
Architecture Culture 1943-1968, (ed. Joan Ockman), Rizzoli, 1993: 13-15, 18-19, 23-24, 26
Richard Neutra, Survival through Design, Oxford University Press, 1954: 10
California Arts and Architecture Magazine, June 1943: 11-12
Architecture Words 12: Lina Bo Bardi, Stones Against Diamonds, AA Publications 2013: 16-17
Architectural Design 12/1975: 21
Bau 1-2, 1968: 25
Architecture Words 8: Toyo Ito, Tarzans in the Media Forest, AA Publications, 2008: 27
Architectural Design 5/1977: 28
Architecture Theory since 1968 (ed. Michael Hays), MIT P, 2000: 29
http://www.coop-himmelblau.at/architecture/philosophy/architecture-must-blaze/ :30
October 100, Spring 2002: 31
You can judge how bad the seventies were by looking at its uptight architecture.

A democracy of opinion polls and complacency thrives behind Biedermeier façades.

We have no desire to build Biedermeier. Not now or no other time. We are tired of
seeing Palladio and other historical masks. Because with architecture, we don’t want
to exclude everything that is disquieting.

We want architecture that has more. Architecture that bleeds, that exhausts, that whirls,
and even breaks.
Architecture that lights up, stings, rips, and tears under stress.
Architecture has to be cavernous, fiery, smooth, hard, angular, brutal, round, delicate,
colorful, obscene, lustful, dreamy, attracting, repelling, wet, dry, and throbbing. Alive or
dead.

If cold, then cold as a block of ice.

If hot, then hot as a blazing wing.
Architecture must blaze.

Coop Himmelb(l)au 1980