Architectural discourse from the illustrated French Dictionary of Architecture (1856) by Eugne Viollet-le-Duc

Neolithic

Byzantine

Gothic Revival

Mesopotamian

Gothic Classicism
Islamic

Art Nouveau
Neoclassical

Ancient Greek
Persia

Architectural Styles
Renaissance
Baroque
Modernisme

Modern
Postmodern

Ancient Egyptian
Mayan

Roman
Romanesque

Neo-Renaissance

Contemporary
Expressionism

Mesoamerican

Neo-Baroque

Carlo Maderno faade of Saint Peters Vatican City, Rome, Italy

Architectural style is a way of classifying architecture largely by morphological & historical characteristics:
Form Techniques Materials Time Period Region Other Stylistic Influences

It is a way of classifying architecture that gives emphasis to characteristic features of design, leading to a terminology.

ThematiTheories c Architectural

ANTIQUITY MIDDLE AGES RENAISSANCE ENLIGHTENMENT 19TH CENTURY 20TH CENTURY MODERNISM POSTMODERNISM CONTEMPORARY

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio Anonymous tradition of trade guilds Alberti, Vignola, Palladio Structurialism: Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke Industrial Age Early Modernism Functionalism: Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc. Robert Venturi Starchitects

Thematic
Architectural Theories

ANTIQUITY
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:

: DURABILTIY (firmitas) : PRACTICALITY or convenience (utilitas) : PLEASANTNESS (venustas)

Thematic
Architectural Theories

ANTIQUITY
Vitruvian Rules of Aesthetic Form
Based on Greek traditions of architecture Teachings of Pythagoras : applying proportions of numbers Observations of tuned string of instruments Proportions of human body PLEASANTNESS : in accordance of good taste : parts follow proportions : symmetry of measures

Thematic
Architectural Theories

THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES

No documents
no person can be attributed for theories

Monastery Institutions
Most documents retrieved from the Middle Ages However, archives contain only few descriptions of buildings Described only as according to the traditional model Theres no accounting for tastes was the rule of thumb With hardly or no literary research present Villard de Hannecourts sketchbook in 1235 Rotzers Booklet on the right way of making pinnacles Only through guidance of old masters Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of builders

Development of Building Style

STRUCTURALIST
Building Material Amorphous material: Soft stone; snow Sheets of skin or textile Logs of wood Architectural Form Spherical vaulted construction Cone-shaped tent construction Box-shaped construction

CONSTRUCTION THEORY
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 Virtue

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, begins to thrust to the abutments.

During Middle Ages

No written documents survived about theories or models to describe the magnificent vaults of medieval cathedrals

CONSTRUCTION THEORY
During Renaissance
From Alberti onwards, architects began specializing Mathematical models by Francis Bacon and Galileo Galilei

: considers load and scientific studies : contributed to constructions

1675 : Marquis de Vauban founded a building depatment 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.
first engineering school

Other figures of mathematical construction theory

: Robert Hooke : Jakob Bernoulli : Leonard Euier

RENNAISANCE THEORIES
1948 a copy of Virtue manuscript found at St. Gallen Monastery Leon Bautista Alberti (1404-72)
Person in charge of constructions commanded by Pope On Building : De re aedifficatoria : one of the greatest works of the theory of architecture

: completed in 1452, published in 1485

: more emphasis on decoration of building exteriors

Sebastino Serlio
Regole generall di architectura

RENNAISANCE THEORIES
Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola
Regola delle cinque ordini Concise, facts and easily applicable rules of the five column systems Based his design instructions on four things: : idea of Pythagoras : proportions of small number : properties and other instruments : good taste I Quattro libri dellarchitectura The father of modern picture books of architecture One of French theorist who are critical of italians Prove that Pantheons Corinthian columns had 3 different proportions Rejected the doctrine of absolute beauty of measures

Andrea Palladio (1508-80)

Philibert de Lorme

PERSONAL STYLE
Copying from Antiquity
Architecture form antiquity came to a print of perfection

Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1863) : the first theorist who set out to create a totally new system architectural forms independent of antiquity

of

What we call taste is but an involuntary process of reasoning whose steps elude our observation. 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 form language Owen Jones : used forms inspired from nature, especially plants

ART NOUVEAU
The first architectural style independent of the tradition of antiquity after the Gothic style The example set by Art Nouveau encourage some of the most skillful architects of the 20th century to create their private form language

THEORETICAL TREATISES
Five points of Architecture (1926, Le Corbusier)
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Pilotis free plan free faade the long horizontal sliding window the roof garden

Architecture as Space (Bruno Zeri)

The crux of architecture is not the sculptural pattern, but instead the building interiors. These can be seen as negative solids, as voids which the artist divides, combines, repeats and emphasizes in the same way as the sculptor treats his positive lumps of substance. The personal style 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.

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Industrial Revolution (1768)
Arts and Crafts Movement
a. b. c. a. Conservative William Morris John Ruskin architecture of borrowing

Electicism

Fruits of Industrial Revolution

Joseph Paxton Crystal Palace, 1851 Elisha Graves Otis Elevator, 1857 Manufacturing of Rolled Steel

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
1870s The Great Fire of Chicago, 1871
downtown in Chicago was burned and in needs of construction of new buildings place where first tallest building was constructed

William Le Baron Jenney

made the first skyscraper

Daniel Burnham
make no little plans, they have no magic to stir mans blood

Louis Sullivan
form follows function

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
1880s
Chicago School became the concentration of architectural development introduce Chicago Window

1890s The World Columbian Exposition

built in 1863 chief architect: Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
1900s European architecture was notified Person to notify:
Otto Wagner Adolf Loos ornament is a crime H.P. Berlage Frank Llyod Wright

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
1910s Office of Peter Behrens
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe less is more Walter Gropius Le Corbusier
2 Art movements that influenced
Futurism simultaneity of movement Cubism interpretation of space

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
1920s The Bauhaus
Art and Technology, the new unity Established architects
Frank Llyod Wright organic architecture Le Corbusier Mies Van Der Rohe / Gropius

1930s International Style 1950s The period of Reassessment

Universalism Personalism

POSTMODERNISM The center of Postmodernism:

Robert Venturi less is bore

Philip Johnson
say that a portion of Chippendale building in New York has no function Introduce the element of Discovery

POSTMODERNISM
SYMBOLIC ARHITECTURE
Building as a message

Mathematical Analogy Biological Analogy

use of plants and ornaments uses exotic language of form vastness; trying to surprise; huge grammar; uses words with proper grammar Buckminter Fuller any materials that you can get or available in your environment such as wood in forest

Romantic Architecture

Linguistic Analogies

Mechanical Analogies Ad Hoc Analogy Stage Analogy

Modern Architecture
Growth, Efficiency and Modernism

Modern architecture is generally characterized by simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building. It is a term applied to an overarching movement, with its exact definition and scope varying widely. (Wikipedia)

Historical & Theoretical Basis

early modern architecture began at the turn of the 20th century with efforts to reconcile the principles underlying architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society it would take the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification. the concept of modernism would be a central theme in these efforts.

Modernism The term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Modernism Modernism was a revolt against the conservative values of realism. The most paradigmatic motive (motif) of modernism is the rejection of tradition and its reprise, incorporation, rewriting, recapitulation, revision and parody in new forms.

Modernism Modernism rejected the lingering certainty of Enlightenment thinking and also rejected the existence of a compassionate, all-powerful Creator God in favor of the abstract, unconventional, largely uncertain ethic brought on by modernity, initiated around the turn of century by rapidly changing technology and further catalyzed by the horrific consequences of World War I on the cultural psyche of artists.

Characteristics
a rejection of historical styles as a source of architectural form (historicism) an adoption of the principle that the materials and functional requirements determine the result use of industrially-produced materials, an adoption of the machine aesthetic

Characteristics
a rejection of ornament a simplification of form and elimination of "unnecessary detail particularly in International Style modernism, a visual emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines the related concept of "Truth to materials", meaning that the true nature or natural appearance of a material ought to be seen rather than concealed or altered to represent something else

Modern Architecture
As Characterized by the Masters of Modern Architecture

Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer, Alvar Aalto, Walter Gropius and Louis I Kahn.

A house is a machine for living in.

Le Corbusier

Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.

Walter Gropius

Gropius House, 1938

Embassy of the United States in Athens, 1959-1961

Less is more.

Mies van der Rohe

Congrs International d'Architecture Moderne International Congress of Modern Architecture

CIAM Founded in 1928 in Switzerland, dissolved in 1959 due to the differing perceptions of the members. It is an organization with conferences and meetings which are held in collective works, discussions, resolutions and publications marking the beginning of the academic period of modern architecture.

The New World Ford and Rolls Royce have burst open the core of the town, obliterating distance and effacing the boundaries between town and country. Aircraft slip through the air: Fokker and Farman widen our range of movement and the distance between us and the earth; they disregard national frontiers and bring nation closer to nation. Illuminated signs twinkle, loud-speakers screech, posters advertise, display windows shine forth. The simultaneity of events enormously extends our concept of space and time, it enriches our life. We live faster and therefore longer The precise division into hours of the time we spend working in office and factory and the split-minute timing of railway timetables make us live more consciously Radio, marconigram, and phototelegraphy liberate us from our national seclusion and make us part of a world community. The gramophone, microphone, orchestrion, and pianola accustom our ears to the sound of impersonal-mechanized rhythms Large blocks of flats, sleeping cars, house yachts, and transatlantic liners undermine the local concept of the homeland. The fatherland goes into decline. We learn Esperanto. We become cosmopolitan. [Hannes Meyer, in his 1926 essay, The New World]

CIAM: Rethinking Architecture Its foundation marks the determination of Modernist architects to promote and finesse their theories. For nearly thirty years the great questions of urban living, space, and belonging were discussed by CIAM members. The documents they produced, and the conclusions they reached, had a tremendous influence on the shape of cities and towns the world over.
Il'ia Golosov's Zuev House of Culture Workers' Club (1928)

CIAM: Rethinking Architecture The organisation's founding declaration was signed by twentyfour architects at La Sarraz, Switzerland, in 1928. None of the signatories was British. The La Sarraz Declaration asserted that architecture could no longer exist in an isolated state separate from governments and politics, but that economic and social conditions would fundamentally affect the buildings of the future.

28 European architects organized by Le Corbusier, Helene and Siegfried Giedion Mandrot. Karl Moser, Hendrik Berlage, Victor Bourgeois, Pierre Chareau, Josef Frank, Gabriel Guevrekian, Max Ernst Haefeli, Hugo Hring, Arnold Hochel, Huib Hoste, Pierre Jeanneret, Andr Lurat, Ernst May, Fernando Garcia Mercadal, Hannes Meyer, Werner Moser, Carlo Enrico Rava, Gerrit Rietveld, Alberto Sartoris, Hans Schmidt, Mart Stam, Rudolf Steiger, Szymon Syrkus, Henri-Robert Von der Mhll and Juan de Zavala. Then join Alvar Aalto, Uno Ahren, Louis Herman De Koninck, Fred Forbat, and Harwell Hamilton Harris.

CIAM: Rethinking Architecture "The main goal and purpose that has brought us here is to assemble the different elements of contemporary architecture in a harmonious whole, and give a real sense of architecture, social, and economic." Helene of Mandrot, Switzerland, 1 Congress.

Le Corbusier and other members of CIAM having some fun at the La Sarraz Conference (1928)

CIAM: Rethinking Architecture The Declaration also asserted that as society became more industrialised, it was vital that architects and the construction industry rationalise their methods, embrace new technologies and strive for greater efficiency. (Le Corbusier, one of the movement's founders, often liked to compare the standardised efficiency of the motor industry with the inefficiency of the building trade.)

Antonio Sant'Elia, sketch of a building and roadway from La Citta Nuova (1914)

CIAM: Rethinking Architecture CIAM's early attitudes towards town-planning were stark: "Urbanisation cannot be conditioned by the claims of a pre-existent aestheticism; its essence is of a functional order the chaotic division of land, resulting from sales, speculations, inheritances, must be abolished by a collective and methodical land policy. At this early stage the desire to re-shape cities and towns is clear. Out is the "chaotic" jumble of streets, shops, and houses which existed in European cities at the time; in is a zoned city, comprising of standardised dwellings and different areas for work, home, and leisure.

The Athens Charter The fourth CIAM Congress in 1933 (theme: "The Functional City") consisted of an analysis of thirty-four cities and proposed solutions to urban problems. The conclusions were published as "The Athens Charter" (socalled because the Congress was held on board the SS Patris en route from Marseilles to Athens). This document remains one of the most controversial ever produced by CIAM. The charter effectively committed CIAM to rigid functional cities, with citizens to be housed in high, widely-spaced apartment blocs. Green belts would separate each zone of the city. The Charter was not actually published until 1943, and its influence would be profound on public authorities in post-war Europe.
Participants at the international CIAM-4 conference in Athens (1933)

The End of CIAM It didn't take long for architects to question the conclusions reached at Athens, and to worry publicly about the sterility of the city envisioned by CIAM.

Geometric, Sunken Roadways between Columns of Buildings in Le Corbusier's "Ville Radieuse" (1930

The End of CIAM Chief among these doubters were young British architects Alison and Peter Smithson, who led a breakaway from CIAM in 1956. Three years previously they had outlined their concerns: "Man may readily identify himself with his own hearth, but not easily with the town within which it is placed. 'Belonging' is a basic emotional need- its associations are of the simplest order. From 'belonging'identity- comes the enriching sense of neighbourliness. The short narrow street of the slum succeeds where spacious redevelopment frequently fails.

"International Style" Exhibition organized at MoMA in New York by Philip Johnson & others (1932)

The End of CIAM The Smithsons worried that CIAM's ideal city would lead to isolation and community breakdown, just as European governments were preparing to build tower blocks in their ruined cities.

Cartesian towers from Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse (1930)

The End of CIAM The last CIAM meeting was held in 1956. By the mid-1950s it was clear that the official acceptance of Modernism was stronger than ever, and yet the concerns voiced by the Smithsons and their allies that the movement was in danger of creating an urban landscape which was hostile to social harmony, would rise to a crescendo in the decades to come.

J.J.P. Oud, Industrialized Housing in Rotterdam

The Legacy of CIAM The CIAM is a revolutionary movement in contemporary architecture since it arises from a socio-economic need of change. We think it's admirable that a group of architects to come together to try to compose new ideas emerging from its disagreement with the architecture at that time. Several theories raised are still being used today and were great contributions to architecture and urbanism in general. In conclusion we believe that the CIAM was an event that marked the destiny of architecture both economically and socially and provided the first ideas of planning for the design of cities.

Ad for Mercedes-Benz, 1927, outside Le Corbusier's Weienhof house

"For twenty years, many as their existence, convinced I was a member of CIAM. Now I think it is time to express how much this has meant to me international town of architects and planners during the long struggle of modern architecture. The most important fact was that in a world filled with confusion and partial attempts, a small international group of architects felt the need to collect in full view the multitude of problems I had in front. The decision to place this concept all over each limited purpose determined our position, our belief, our faith." Gropius, Walter, "CIAM :19281953" in Scope of Total Architecture, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1955
Walter Gropius D 51 Armchair

"Our jobs are meaningless without discussion. Deliberation is equivalent to report [...]. Our reports are very important. I would prefer that Congress exposed some erroneous discussion is lost in an analysis without end "
Nikolai Kolli, Le Corbusier, and others in Russia (1930)

Colored sketch of Le Corbusier's proposal for his Ville Radieuse (1930)

CIAM succeeded in developing new architectural ideas into a coherent movement, but Modernists would spend many years defending, and often undoing, its legacy.

Postmodern Architecture
The Death of Modernism

At 3:32 pm, 15 July, 1972, Modernism came to an end.

Charles Jencks, architectural historian

The city of modern architecture, both as a psychological construct and a physical model, has been rendered tragically ridiculous... the city of Le Corbusier, the city celebrated by CIAM and advertised by the Athens Charter, the former city of deliverance is everyday found increasingly inadequate.
Colin Rowe, Fred Koetter (1976). Collage City.

PruittIgoe, St. Louis, Missouri Minoru Yamasaki, 1954

PruittIgoe, St. Louis, Missouri Minoru Yamasaki, 1954

PruittIgoe, St. Louis, Missouri Minoru Yamasaki, 1954

The city of modern architecture, both as a psychological construct and a physical model, has been rendered tragically ridiculous... the city of Le Corbusier, the city celebrated by CIAM and advertised by the Athens Charter, the former city of deliverance is everyday found increasingly inadequate.
Colin Rowe, Fred Koetter (1976). Collage City.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs , 1961 Jacobs examined Modernist housing developments like Pruitt Igoe and asked what it was like to actually live in them. She argued that they were dehumanizing because they deny individuality, provoke social malaise and lead to crime and vandalism. Jacobs concluded that Modernist architecture is mentally and socially damaging.

Postmodern Architecture
The Return of Wit, Ornament & Reference

Postmodern Architecture
Major Architects Robert Venturi Charles Moore Hans Hollein Phillip Johnson James Stirling Aldo Rossi

Modern Architecture Rejected the forms and values of a previous age particularly the revival of historic styles, ornamentation and decoration Offered a democratic and utopian solution to the problems of mass production good design for all Argued that aesthetic beauty would naturally arise out of reason and truth embodied in ideas such as form follows function, truth to materials Evolved a simple, pure and unifying aesthetic reflected in Mies Van Der Rohes dictum, less is more

In its simplest form postmodernism is most clearly understood in terms of its rejection of the values, forms and theories associated with Modernism or Modernity.

Less is a bore.

Robert Charles Venturi, Jr.

Architecture can no longer afford to be intimidated by the puritanically moral language of orthodox Modern architecture. I like elements which are hybrid rather than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted rather than straightforward, ambiguous rather than articulated, perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as interesting, conventional rather than designed, accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. 1966

Vanna Venturi House

Inside the Seattle Art Museum

Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, London

Chapel at the Episcopal Academy, Newtown Square, PA. (2010)

Pick very few objects and place them exactly.

Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson at age 95 with his model of a 30' by 60' sculpture created for a Qatari collector.

Puerta de Europa in Madrid

The postmodern AT&T Building, now the Sony Building

PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2007

One Detroit Center from Jefferson Avenue in Detroit.