Arch 111 Introduction to Architectural Concepts

Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Fall Semester 2020-21

Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building: The Vitruvian Trilogy

Arch 111 / 2020-21

Citations incomplete
for visuals from web sources.
(Not for circulation outside the class)
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

What is a BUILDING for?

1. Building as environmental filter

2. Building as enclosure and

background for human activity

3. Building as a cultural work

Cameroon Hut (tribal architecture)

4. Building as an economic entity

5. Building as an environmental
impact
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–Geoffrey Broadbent

Palladian Villa (Villa Capra, Palladio, Vicenza, 16th c.)

 "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture."
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

–Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, architectural historian

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Bike shed at Palo Alto, California Lincoln Cathedral, England, 1192 - 1280
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

(Cameroon hut) vs. (Palladian Villa)

anonymous – signed
indigenous/native – acquired/imported
regional/local – international Cameroon Hut (tribal architecture)
vernacular – “high-style”

outmoded distinction:
architecture – Architecture
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Palladian Villa (Villa Capra, Palladio, Vicenza, 16th c.

Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Bernard Rudofsky, Architecture Without

Architects: A Short Introduction to Non-
pedigreed Architecture, University of
New Mexico Press, 1964.

Rudofsky widens Pevsner’s narrow

definition of architecture by
emphasizing anonymous, vernacular
architecture as a significant part of
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architectural history.
 Both have structural integrity,
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

serve their function well, are

based on a sense of geometric
order, and enhanced with
ornament.
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Cameroon hut Pantheon, Rome, 1st c. AD

Arch 111 / 2020-21 Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Worn-out debate: Architecture, ART or SCIENCE?

Arch 111 / 2020-21 Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building
 Architecture, ART and SCIENCE, or MORE?
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Good building satisfies three conditions:

FIRMITAS, COMMODITAS/UTILITAS, VENUSTAS

as translated by Sir Henry Wotton, 17th century:

Firmness, Commodity/Utility, Delight

Marcus VITRUVIUS Pollio

(80–70 BC, died after
c. 15 BC)

Book: De Architectura,
ca 25 BC dedicated to the
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emperor Caesar Augustus

1684 depiction of Vitruvius presenting the book to

Augustus
 Purposes of Architecture: The Vitruvian Trilogy
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Firmness, Commodity/Utility, Delight

i.e. architecture be:
solid, useful, beautiful
structurally sound, practical and functional, delightful

stability, utility, attractiveness

safety, function, beauty
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Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

In Geoffrey Scott’s words:*

Architecture is about ‘FIRMNESS’.
By this necessity it stands related to science, and to the standards of science… On every
hand the study of architecture encounters physics, statics and dynamics… It is open to
us, therefore, to look in buildings for the logical expression of material properties and
material laws…

But architecture is about ‘COMMODITY’.

This furnishes a standard of value totally distinct from the scientific. Buildings may be
judged by the success with which they supply the practical ends they are designed to
meet.

And architecture is about ‘DELIGHT’.

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For this reason, we may trace in architecture a third and different factor—the
disinterested desire for beauty…
This is to study architecture, in district sense, as an art.

*Scott, G., The Architecture of Humanism: A Study in the History of Taste (1914), W. W. Norton & Co., 1999 (excerpt,
1-5)
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Architecture is about 'FIRMNESS’.

By this necessity it stands related to science, and to the standards of
science...
On every hand the study of architecture encounters physics, statics, and
dynamics...
It is open to us, therefore, to look in buildings for the logical expression
of material properties and material laws...
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log cabin advanced mass housing

Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Architecture is about 'COMMODITY’.

This furnishes a standard of value totally distinct from the scientific.

Buildings may be judged by the success with which they supply the
practical ends they are designed to meet.
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a simple hut advanced mass housing

Silodam, MVRDV, Amsterdam, 1995
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

And architecture is about 'DELIGHT'.

For this reason, we may trace in architecture a third and different factor—
(…) desire for beauty.
This is to study architecture, in the strict sense, as an art.
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The child enjoys the beauty of the building for its own sake.
Louis Kahn, National Assembly Building, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1959-82
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

Enjoying the beauty of Taj Mahal, gazing at

nearby buildings and nature.
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 “You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with these materials
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

you build houses and palaces.

That is construction. Ingenuity is at work.
But suddenly you touch my heart, you do me good, I am happy and
I say: `This is beautiful.’ That is architecture. Art enters in.”

Le Corbusier
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Frank Lloyd Wright, Falling Water House

Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

“The purpose of architecture is to

move us. Architectural emotion
exists when the work rings within us Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1928
Photographs: Paul Kozlowski © FLC/ADAGP
in tune with a universe whose laws
we obey, recognize and respect.”
Le Corbusier,
Towards a New Architecture, 1923
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Pavillon d'exposition ZHLC

(Maison de l'Homme), Zurich © FLC/ADAGP
Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

“A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through

measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be
unmeasurable.” –Louis Kahn

= tangible and intangible values

of architecture
Kahn’s preliminary sketches for the Assembly Building in Dhaka,
image from MoMA Archives
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Week 1c. Purposes of Architecture and Building

References
-- Compiled from Arch111 opening lectures by Aydan Balamir, Cânâ Bilsel, edited
by Ekin Pınar
-- Related references cited underneath the slides

Assignment-1: Read carefully the text: Vitruvius, “The Education of the

Architect” in The Ten Books on Architecture, pp. 5-13. Write down three items
from Vitruvius’ text that still apply to today’s architect and explain why.

Submission format: Single page pdf document

Arch 111 / 2020-21

Due: 23.10.2020 at 9.40