SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE
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
MATHEMATICAL ANALOGY
Pure forms
Golden Section
BIOLOGICAL ANALOGY
ORGANIC: relationship between parts of building or between the building and its settings movement
BIOMORPHIC: focuses on growth processes and capabilities associated with organisms
ROMANTIC ANALOGY
BY ASSOCIATION: making references
BY EXAGGERATION: use of contrast, excessive stimulation,
unfamiliar scale, and unfamiliar forms
LINGUISTIC ANALOGY
GRAMMATICAL MODEL: elements (words) & rules (grammar)
EXPRESSIONIST MODEL: buildings as vehicles for
expressing an attitude towards a project
SEMIOTIC MODEL:
using symbols literally
FUNCTIONALISM
PRECONDITIONS IN FUNCTIONAL ARCHITECTURE
Function is one of the cornerstones of Vitruvian theory.
Did not receive as much attention in Renaissance era.
Industrial Revolution
Eugene Viollet-le-Duc
20th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE
The Chicago School
Louis Sullivan: Ornament in Architecture (1892)
"Form follows function"
Frank Lloyd Wright "Form and function as one"
Otto Wagner: Moderne Arckitektur (1895)
Bauhaus and Walther Gropius
Architecture supported by "mother sciences"
Construction Economy "matchbox architecture"
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe "Less is more"
PERSONAL STYLES
THEORETICAL TREATISES
Five Points of Architecture (1926, Le Corbusier)
1. pilotis
2. free plan
3. free façade
4. the long horizontal sliding window
5. the roof garden
Architecture as Space (Bruno Zevi)
“The crux of architecture is not the sculptural pattern, but instead the which the building interiors. These can be seen as "negative solids," as voids artist
divides, combines, repeats and emphasizes in the same way as sculptor treats his "positive" lumps of substance."
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 can also be a clear that the public can find it out. An advantage is also if the style includes symbolical undertones.
Copying from antiquity
Architecture from antiquity came to a point of perfection
Eugene viollet-le-duc (1863) the 1st theorist who set out to create a totally new system of architectural forms indepent of antiquity
“What we call taste is but an involutary process of reasoning whose steps elude our observation. Authority has no value if its grounds are not explained”
The foundation of modern architecture
Although viollet-le-duc did not create a timeless architectural style himself, he showed others the philosophical foundation and the method that
could use to develop even radically new form languages.
Owen jones used forms inspired from nature, especially plants.
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 architectural psychology, as natural forms of plants, buildings as giant sculptures.
CONSTRUCTION THEORY
DURING MIDDLE AGES
No written document survived about theories or models to describe the magnificent vaults of medieval cathedrals.
Shapes of gothic vaults resemble inverted catenaries.
Architects design not only the layout and decoration but also the construction and stability of buildings
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.
Building Material Architectural Form
Amorphic material:soft stone, snow Spherical vaulted construction
Sheets of skin or textile Cone-shaped tent construction
Logs of wood Box-shaped construction
BEFORE WRITTEN CONSTRUCTION THEORY
Architecture created without the help of architects or theory
Builders used a model instead of mathematical algorithms now used in modern construction.
Inverted "catenary" model.
SEMI-CIRCULAR VAULT: THEORY BY VITRUVE
"When there are arches... the outermost piers must be made broader than the others, so that they may have the strength to resist when the wedges, under
the pressure of the load of the walls, begin to thrust out the abutments."
Renaissance theories
ANDREA PALLADIO (1508-80)
"I quattro libri dell'architectura" -the father of modern picture books of architecture
PHILIBERT DE L'ORME
one of French theorists who are critical of Italians
proved that Pantheon's Corinthian columns had 3 different proportions
thus, rejected the doctrine of absolute beauty of measures
WORKS PRINTED BY FRENCH THEORISTS
1. Francois Nicolas Blondel: Cours d'architecture (1675)
2. Claude Perrault: Ordonnance des cinq especes de colonnes (1683)
3. Jean Louis de Cordemoy: Nouveau traite de toute l'architecture (1706)
4. Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l'architecture (1753)
5. Jacques-Francois Blondel: Cours d'architecture (1770)
6. J-N-L Durand: Precis des lecons (1802-5)
7. Julien Guadet: Elements et theories de l'architecture (1902)
1418 – a copy of vitruve manuscripts found at ST. GALLEN MONASTERY
Leon battista alberti (1404-72)
A person in charge of constructions commanded by pope.
“ON BUILDING” = de re aedificatoria
1. One of the greatest works of the theory of architecture
2. competed in 1433, published in 145
3. more emphasis on decenaties of balding or
SEBASTIANO SOLO
“Regole generall di architectura”
GIACOMO BAROZZI DA VIGNOLA
“Regola delie cinque ordini”
concise, fast and easily applicable niles of the five com systems
based his design mstructions on four things:
1. Ides of Pythagoras (proportions of small numbers meant harmony
2. proportions and other instructions provided by
3. example art by earlier buildings
4. general good taste
Classical theories
Marcus Vitruvius pollio
Author of the oldest research on the architecture
Wrote an extensive summary of all the theory on construction.
Had a thorough kwowledge of an earlier Greek and roman writings.
Ten books on architecture
De architectura libri decem
Consists most of normative theory design (based on practice)
A collection of thematic theories of design with no method of combining them into a sysnthesis
Presents a classification of requirements set for buildings:
1. Durability (Firmitas)
2. Practicality or convenience (utilitas)
3. 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 with 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 is no accounting for tastes “was the rule of thumb
Development of building style
With hardly or no literary research present
Villiard de honnecourt’s “sketchbook” in 1235
Roritzer’s “booklet on the right way of making pinnacles”
Only through guidance of old masters
Tradition binding and precise in closed guilds of builders.
