TOA PPT 3 - Thematic Architecture

• Thematic theories


  Treatises which aim at the fulfillment of one principal goal, usually at the cost of other customary goals of building
• Building as a Message

  The oldest notes on architectural symbolism preserved until this day were issued by Vitruve (I, 1,5)
• Architectural styles


  • Austere Doric system for the temple of Mars, the god of war
  • Graceful Corinthian style decorated with leafy branches for the temple of Venus, the goddess of love
• Medieval culture


  • Used allegorical symbolism in architecture, such as churches symbolizing the "vault heaven" or "heavenly Jerusalem", modeled after the temple of Solomon or the liturgical calendar, with pillars representing prophets and apostles, and proportions important for numeric symbolism, not just beauty
• Renaissance symbolism in church buildings

  • Circular forms symbolizing the unity, infinity, and justice of God
  • Proportions and forms of the human body suitable because the human being had been created in the image of God
• Etienne-Louis Boullée's ideas on architectural symbolism


  • "Talking" (Fr. parlant) architecture, where the building is designed to resemble the object it represents, like a house for a saw owner resembling a saw blade
  • Buildings should be like poems, producing analogous feelings to those produced using those buildings
• Symbolic models of architectural forms in 19th and 20th centuries

  • Mathematical analogies
  • Biological analogies
  • Romantic architecture
  • Linguistic analogies
  • Mechanical analogies
  • Ad-hoc analogy
  • Stage analogy
• Mathematical analogies


  • Geometrical shapes (cone, ball, etc.)
  • Proportions
• Biological analogies


  • Organic shapes (shell, mushroom, etc.)
  • Vigorous (expanding) style of construction
  • Organic Analogy - categorizing building types according to methods from botany and zoology
  • Anatomical Analogy - comparing engineering structure of buildings to animal skeletons
  • Ecological Analogy - appropriateness of designed objects for their functional purposes, equivalent to fitness of animals and plants for their environment
  • Darwanian (Evolutionary) Analogy - explaining design of useful objects and buildings in terms of repeated copying with variations
• Romantic architecture


  Appeals to feelings, using exotic language of form and ancient morphology
• Linguistic analogies


  • Architecture = words + grammar, using expressionism and symbolism
  • Linguistic analogy is a metaphor, which can be tangible (visual, material), intangible (concepts, ideas, human conditions, qualities), or combined (visual and conceptual)
• Mechanical analogies


  "A house is a machine for living in", inspired by mechanics and the words of Le Corbusier
• Ad-hoc analogy


  A building is a combination of materials found on the site, as in vernacular architecture
• Stage analogy


  Building as a stage of life, dealing with the lifecycle and achieving a balanced ecosystem through sustainability
• Günter Bandmann's methods for studying architectural symbolism


  • Analyzing architects' intentions in initial sketches
  • Analyzing builders' intentions in letters and selection of proposals
  • Studying symbolically salient properties like physical position, orientation, and decoration of buildings
  • Considering historical and geographical contexts, original use, and accumulated symbolic meaning over time
• Pentti Tuovinen's method for designing town symbolism


  • Defining explicit symbolism with words, creating an ideal model, and decoding the message into the town's geometric form language
  • Creating a chart of symbolic elements and a diagram showing the symbolic system, then transferring the structure to the town plan
• Rudolf Arnheim's study of subconscious architectural symbolism


  • The strongest symbols are derived from the most elementary perceptual sensations and basic human experiences
  • Dynamic forms referring to movement are the most expressive, while imitation of other object forms disturbs dynamics and expression