lecture

• Thematic Theories


  Treatises that aim to fulfill one principal goal, usually at the cost of other customary goals of the building
• Thematic Theories by Historical Periods


  • Classical
  • Middle Ages
  • Renaissance
  • Structuralist
  • Art Nouveau (Personal Style)
  • Functionalism
  • Postmodernism
  • Symbolic Architecture
  • Ecological Architecture
  • 21st Architecture
• Architects of Thematic Theories by Historical Periods

  • Classical: Marcus Vitruvius Poliio
  • Middle Ages: Medieval (Dark Age) anonymous tradition of trade guilds
  • Renaissance: Alberti, Vignola, Palladio, etc.
  • Structuralist: Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc.
  • Art Nouveau (Personal Style): Eugene Emmanuelle Viollet-le-Duc, Le Cobursier, etc.
  • Functionalism: Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, Modern Architecture, etc.
  • Postmodernism: Robert Venturi
• Classical Theories


  • Architect: Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
  • Author of the oldest research on architecture
  • Wrote an extensive summary of all the theories on construction
  • Had a thorough knowledge of earlier Greek and Roman writings
• Book: "Ten Books on Architecture" or "De Architecture Libri Decem"


  • Consists mostly of normative theory of design (based on practice)
  • 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) - known as the VITRUVIAN TRIAD
• Vitruvian Triad


  • Based on Greek traditions of architecture
  • Teaching of Pythagoras: applying proportions of number
  • Observations of a tuned string of instruments
  • Proportions of the human body
• Firmitas


  Firmness or physical strength secured the building's structural integrity
• Utilitas


  Utility provided an efficient arrangement of spaces and mechanical systems to meet the functional needs of its occupants
• Venustas


  Venustas, the aesthetic quality associated with the goddess Venus, imparted style, proportion, and visual beauty
• Middle Ages Theories: No documents, No person can be attributed to theories, Buildings: Monastery Institutions, Most documents retrieved from the Middle Ages contain only a few descriptions of buildings described as "according to the traditional model", "There's no accounting for tastes" was the rule of thumb
• Book: Villard de Hannecourt's "sketchbook" in 1235


  Theory: Only through the guidance of old masters, Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of builders

  
• In 1418, a copy of the Vitruve was found among the manuscripts of the Monastery of St. Gallen. The word about the manuscript spread fast to the circles of architects in Italy and was soon met with enthusiasm.
• Leon Bautista Alberti (1404-72) or Battista


  • Person in charge of constructions commanded by Pope
  • He wrote Della Pittura (On Painting) which included Brunelleschi's theories of perspective and De Re Aedificatoria (On Building), the first architectural treatise of the Renaissance
  • The book was influenced by Vitruvius' The Ten Books of Architecture
  • One of the greatest works of the theory of architecture
  • Completed in 1452, published in 1485
  • More emphasis on the decoration of building exteriors

  
• Buildings by Alberti


  • San Maria Novella, (1404-1472)
  • The Palazzo Rucellai (1446-1451)
  • Basilica of Sant 'Andrea, (1472-94)
• Sebastiano Serlio


  Book: "Regole generall di architectura" - The first book to be published in 1537, the General Rules of Architecture, was conceived as the fourth part of the series. In this book, Serlio describes the five different architectural orders in which to build (Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite) and explains which types of materials and ornaments can be used within each order.

  
• Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, (1507 –1573)


  Book: "Regola delle cinque ordini", The Five Orders of Architecture - Concise, facts and easily applicable rules of the five-column systems, Based his design instructions on four things: 1. the idea of Pythagoras that the proportions of small integers meant harmony, 2. the proportions and other instructions provided by Vitruve, 3. the example set by earlier buildings and 4. general good taste, whatever that meant when interpreted by each writer.

  
• Andrea Palladio (1508-80)


  • The Father of modern picture books of architecture
  • Book: "I Quattro libri dell'architectura" or "The Four Books of Architecture" - Orders of Architecture, Domestic architecture, Public buildings, Town planning, Temples
  • Numerals on the plans give widths and lengths of rooms and heights. It was the most coherent system of proportions in the Renaissance

  
• Philibert de L'orme


  • One of the French theorists who is critical of Italians
  • Proved that Pantheon's Corinthian columns had 3 different proportions
  • Rejected the doctrine of the absolute beauty of measures
  • Mindful that French architectural requirements differed from Italian, and respectful of native materials, he founded his designs on sound engineering principles. He assimilated the orders of classical architecture and mastered their use; but being a man with an independent, logical turn of mind and a vigorous personality, he fused the orders with a delicacy of invention, restraint, and harmony characteristic of purest French classicism
• From times immemorial, available building materials and tools have determined or at least modified building forms, as can be seen in many surviving examples of vernacular architecture which have been created without the help of architects or theory.
• Thematic Theories of Architecture

  Treatises which aim at the fulfillment of one principal goal, usually at the cost of other customary goals of building
• In ancient Mesopotamia, a stone vault spanning over 20m has been standing for two millennia. Its design was based on a catenary curve, which allowed for pure compression and the absence of sidewise forces. This suggests the builders used a mechanical model instead of modern mathematical algorithms, and verbal instructions may have constituted a form of design theory.
• Symbolic Architecture


  Building as a Message
• Vitruvius


  • Issued the oldest notes on architectural symbolism preserved until this day
  • Talked about a suitable (lat. proprius) style of architecture for the temple of each god
• Semi-Circular Vault: Theory by Vitruve


  Known to ancient Romans, while its theory was still at a rudimentary level as Vitruve has only one sentence to say about it: "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"
• 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
• Middle Ages Construction Theory: No written documents survived about theories or models to describe the magnificent vaults of medieval cathedrals, Architects were also in charge of the construction work itself
• Medieval Culture


  • Used allegorical symbolism in different fields, including architecture
  • Some churches symbolized the "vault of heaven" or "heavenly Jerusalem"
  • Others were modeled after the temple of Solomon or the liturgical calendar
  • The pillars represented prophets and apostles
  • Proportions were important for numeric symbolism, not just beauty
• Renaissance Construction Theory


  • The methods of creating mathematical models and verifying them through experiments were adopted from Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
  • Galilei applied his scientific method to construction in his work Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze(1638)
  • This work laid the foundation for modern construction theory, which unfortunately was detached from architectural theory for centuries, and led to the creation of a separate guild of engineers
  • The name "engineer", which comes from the Latin word Ingenium ="genius" or "a product of genius", or "invention", had already been used in the Middle Ages for skillful architects
  • Now this word was adopted by Marquise de Vauban when he founded a building department, Corps des ingénieurs, in the French army, in 1675
  • In 1747, a special school, Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, was founded in Paris
• Renaissance Period


  • Symbolism suited to church buildings was developed further
  • Palladio thought circular forms are fitting for churches because they symbolize the unity, infinity, and justice of God
  • Others thought that proportions and forms of the human body were suitable for a church because, according to the Bible, the human being had been created in the image of God
• Architectural symbolism


  • Giorgio Martini's sketch
• Central figures in developing the mathematical construction theory

  • Robert Hooke (1635-1703), Jakob Bernoulli (1654-1705), and Leonhard Euler (1707-1783)
  • All of them published several books. From Euler onwards, the theory of elasticity of structures developed side by side with mathematical theory
• Etienne-Louis Boullée


  • Presented rather original ideas on the symbolism of the building
  • Told his students to design "talking" (Fr. parlant) architecture
  • For example, the house of a saw owner had to be designed to resemble the blade of a saw
  • "Buildings should be like poems. The impressions they create to our senses should produce analogous feelings to those produced using those buildings."
• Renowned architects and theorists in Europe during the Renaissance believed that the "form language" of new buildings should be copied from antiquity and modified to fit practical requirements and resources. Architecture from antiquity came to a point of perfection. Some sporadic protests (e.g., the defense of the Gothic style by Goethe: Von Deutscher Baukunst) had been heard. But they did not affect the mainstream of design.
• Symbolic models of forms of buildings in the 19th and 20th centuries

  • Mathematical analogies
  • Biological analogies
  • Romantic architecture
  • Linguistic analogies
  • Mechanical analogies
  • Ad-hoc analogy
  • Stage analogy: the building is a stage of life
• Eugène Viollet-le-Duc (1863)


  • The one who set out to create a new system of architectural forms independent of antiquity
  • In his book Entretiens sur l'architecture he states that, "what we call taste is but an involuntary process of reasoning whose steps elude our observation" and "Authority has no value if its grounds are not explained"
  • The foundation of modern architecture
  • Did not create a timeless architectural style himself, he showed others the philosophical foundation and method that they could use to develop even radically new forms of language
• Mathematical analogies


  • Geometrical shapes (cone, ball, etc.)
  • Proportions
• Owen Jones


  • Another important writer who inspired young architects to create new formal styles
  • He studied the methods of exploiting an eternal source of architectural forms: nature and especially the forms of plants
  • The result of his studies became the first design instruction on the use of ornaments originating in nature: Grammar of Ornament (1856). One of its 37 rules (no 13) states that "flowers or other natural objects should not be used as ornaments", instead acceptable are "conventional representations founded upon them sufficiently suggestive to convey the intended image to the mind, without destroying the unity of the object they are employed to decorate."
• Biological analogies


  • Organic shapes (shell, mushroom, etc.)
  • Vigorous (expanding) style of construction
  • Organic Analogy - where building types are categorized according to methods taken from botany and zoology
  • Anatomical Analogy – The engineering structure of buildings is compared with the skeleton of the animal
  • Ecological Analogy - Views the appropriateness of designed objects for their functional purposes as being equivalent to the fitness of animals and plants for their environment
  • Darwinian ( Evolutionary ) Analogy - Explains the design of useful objects and buildings in terms of repeated copying in which variations are made at each stage and are then put to the test
• Art Nouveau was the first European architectural style independent of antiquity. Its creators didn't do much theoretical research. "Jugendstil" became dominant but was short-lived due to the world war. In art, it is often so that the works of a new style first come about without any explicit theory, guided by intuition, and only after a few years do their principles become clear to such an extent that they may be worded.
• Romantic architecture


  • Appeals to feelings
  • Exotic language of form
  • Ancient morphology
  • Architecture = words + grammar
  • Expressionism and symbolism