Week 1b.

Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

Arch 111 Introduction to Architectural Concepts

Fall Semester 2020-21

Week 1b.Concepts in Flux: On Architecture and Architects

“Frontispiece from The Builder’s Dictionary,

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London, 1734. The architect, at center holding

drawing, is shown as master of the works, but
beholden to the gentleman at right.”

Joan Ockman, ed. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating

Architect in North America, p. 40.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

ARCHI-TECT-ure
ARCHI: chief, principal

TECT: {tékʰnɛː] [ˈtexni] craftsmanship, craft, art

Techne: knowledge and principles of making
Tectonics: [τεκτονικός] pertaining to building;
structure and properties of the Earth's crust; rigid plates of the
shell

-ure: suffix denoting an action, process, result

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Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The task of the architect:

“And this – to bring order and relation into human surroundings –
is the task of the architect.”
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture, p. 34

“The architect’s task, beyond the transformation of the world into

a comfortable or pragmatic shelter, is the making of a physical
formal order that reflects the depth of our human condition…”
Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the
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Perspective Hinge, p 7.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The tools of the architect:

“… the architect has not ‘made’ buildings; rather, he or she has made the
mediating artifacts that make significant buildings possible. These artifacts – from
words, to many kinds of inscriptions and drawings, to full-scale mock-ups – and
their relation to buildings, however, have not remained constant throughout
history.”
Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation
and the Perspective Hinge, p 7.

“Relief commemorating the founding of Ulm Cathedral

in June 1377. The mayor of the city, Ludwig Krafft, and
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his wife rest the model of the building on the

shoulders of the architect.”

Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, p. 82.

Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in ancient Egypt:

Professional dynasty
Architects developed pictorial drawings
Architects initiate the construction: “stretching of the cord ceremony”
Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, pp. 3-27.

Left: “Bird’s eye view of an

Amarna palace in a painting from
the tomb of Mery-Re, XVIII
Dynasty (1550-1292 B.C.) The
main sections of the palace in
depth are shown as registers
placed one on top of the other.”

Right: “Portrait statue of the

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architect Senmut; XVIII Dynasty.

He holds the cord with which the
buildings were laid out on the
site.”
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in ancient Greece:

Architects wrote inscriptions
Architecture was an upper-class occupation
Skill in carpentry was essential
No clear-cut distinction between architecture, engineering, and city-planning
Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, pp. 3-27.

Arsenal inscription, c. 317 B.C.

Translation is on the left and part of the original
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inscription is on the right

Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in ancient Greece:

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“Reconstruction drawing of the naval arsenal at Piraeus, the port of Athens, built between 340
and 330 B.C. The architects were Philon and Euthydemos. The building, which does not survive,
can be recreated with some surety on the basis of specifications inscribed on a stone tablet.”
Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, p. 13.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in the Middle Ages:

Architects as master-builder
Skillful in crafts, carpentry, metalwork, etc.
Architect relied on programmatic layouts and go directly to the site
No clear-cut separation of the architect-conceiver and the reality of the building
process
Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, pp. 59-95.
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“Monastry plan of St. Gall,

ca. 810. This remarkable
architectural drawing is a rare
survivor from the earlier
Middle Ages.”
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in the Middle Ages:

Gothic period

“The usual apprenticeship was for seven years, beginning at age thirteen or fourteen.
This was followed by three more years of improvement as a journeyman, a time
spent on the job gaining practical experience in different types of work. It was also
the time to travel and observe.”

Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, p. 80.

“Gothic architecture, the most ‘theoretical’ of all medieval building practices, was
fundamentally a constructive practice, operating through well-established traditions
and geometric rules that could be applied directly on site. From the footprint of a
building, construction proceeded by rhetoric and geometry, raising the elevation as
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discussions about the building’s face continued, almost until the end.”

Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge, p. 8.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in the Renaissance:

Architecture came to be understood as liberal art, not craftsmanship
Architect as an artist and an intellectual
Knowledge on mathematics and geometry was crucial
The higher social standing for the architect
Use of different types of architectural drawings
Increased emphasis on the designing phase before construction

Spiro Kostof, ed. The Architect, pp. 124-160.

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Alberti’s treatises De re aedificatoria

“made it clear that architectural
practice without theory was just a
trade, not a discipline”.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The practice of architecture in the Renaissance:

“Perspective machine, from Vignola’s Le Due

Regole. This curious machine shows two
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observers creating a perspective, seemingly in

order to ‘corroborate’ the mathematical depth
of the world…”

Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, Architectural

Representation and the Perspective Hinge, p. 32.
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The education of the architect:

“Up until about 1860, architecture education meant one thing only:
apprenticeship with a practicing architect. It might be supplemented by whatever
could be scraped together haphazardly from books, travel, and occasional public
lecture series, but at its core was the hardy institution of apprenticeship. By 1930,
it would mean something entirely different: study at a college or university with a
formal curriculum in architecture.”

Joan Ockman, ed. Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architect in North America, p. 68.
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“Temporary architecture studios at

the University of Toronto, School of
Architecture, c. 1960.”
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

The education of the architect:

Next week: École Des Beaux-Arts and Bauhaus

Atelier Laloux à l'Ecole des Beaux Arts Bauhaus costume party

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Photo (C) Musée d'Orsay, Dist. Photograph by Karl Grill

RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

Concepts in flux:
“In sixteenth-century Italy a convenient room had many doors;
in nineteenth-century England a convenient room had but one.”
Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages,” 1978.

Villa Madama, Italy, 16th c. Amesbury House, House, England, 19th c.

by Raphael and Antonio England, 17th c. by Robert Kerr
by John Webb

Rooms have more than one Corridor was installed parallel The corridor and the universal
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door to interconnecting rooms requirement for privacy were

Systematic division of
circulation space from
occupied space occurred
only in the stables
The spiral stair-within-a-stair
was for servants
Division of inhabited space
from an unoccupied
circulation space
firmly established
“Thoroughfares” are regarded
as the backbone of the plan
Corridor reduced contact
within the house
Week 1b.Concepts in Flux On Architecture and Architects

References
-- Prepared by Esin Kömez
-- Related references cited underneath the slides
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