Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TOA Lecture
TOA Lecture
• 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 PRECEDE design
-- PARADIGM = 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 (Construction Theory)
– Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc.
• ART NOUVEAU (Personal Styles)
– Eugene Emmanuel Violett-le-Duc, Le Corbusier, etc.
• FUNCTIONALISM
– Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc.
• 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:
-- DURABILITY (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 strings of instruments
-- proportions of human body
-- PLEASANTNESS = in accordance of good taste
= parts follow proportions
= symmetry of measures
THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES
• MONASTERY INSTITUTION
– 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
• DURING RENAISSANCE
- From Alberti onwards, architects began specializing. Thus, the mechanics of
materials & construction started to become a field of study of
its own.
- Mathematical models by Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei.
- 1675: Marquis de Vauban founded a building department in the French army
called “Corps des ingenieurs”
- 1747: Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, special school founded in Paris where
new profession specializing in construction was organized
- Other figures who developed mathematical construction theory
Robert Hooke; Jakob Bernoulli; Leonard Euler
- From Euler onwards, theory of elasticity of structures developed
PERSONAL STYLES
• ART NOUVEAU
- The 1st architectural style independent of the tradition of antiquity after the
Gothic style
- The example set by Art Nouveau encouraged some of the most skillful
architects of the 20th century to create their private form
languages.
- Le Corbusier: architecture psychology, as natural forms of plants,
buildings as giant sculptures
PERSONAL STYLES
• THEORETICAL TREATISES
- The “personal styles” of architects are not necessarily based on laws of nature
or on logical reasoning. More important is that they exhibit a
coherent application of an idea which also must be clear that the
public can find it out. An advantage is also if the style includes
symbolical undertones.
FUNCTIONALISM
• MECHANICAL ANALOGY
– A machine is a house for living
-- Beauty assumes the promise of function
• PROBLEM-SOLVING ANALOGY
– RATIONALIST: analysis, synthesis, evaluation
-- Logical, Systematic, or Parametric in Approach
• ADHOCIST ANALOGY
-- Responding to the immediate need using materials
immediately available
• PATTERN LANGUAGE ANALOGY
– Observing patterns of environment-behavior relationships
• DRAMATURGICAL ANALOGY
– All the world is a stage
-- The architect as director