THEORY OF DESIGN

• 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

• DEVELOPMENT OF BUILDING STYLE– with hardly or no literary research present -- Villard 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

RENAISSANCE THEORIES

• 1418 – a copy of Vitruve manuscripts found at St. Gallen monastery

• LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI (1404-72) – person in charge of constructions commanded by Pope -- “On Building” = De re aedificatoria

-- one of the greatest works of the theory of architecture -- completed in 1452, published in 1485 -- more emphasis on decoration of building exteriors

• SEBASTIANO SERLIO -- “Regole generali di architectura”

• GIACOMO BAROZZI DA VIGNOLA -- “Regola delle cinque ordini” -- concise, fast and easily applicable rules of the five column systems -- based his design instructions on four things:

-- idea of Pythagoras (proportions of small numbers meant harmony -- proportions and other instructions provided by Vitruvius -- example set by earlier buildings -- “general good taste”

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 -- Francois Nicolas Blondel: Cours d’architecture (1675) -- Claude Perrault: Ordonnance des cinq especes de colonnes (1683) -- Jean Louis de Cordemoy: Nouveau traite de toute l’architecture (1706) -- Marc-Antoine Laugier: Essai sur l’architecture (1753) -- Jacques-Francois Blondel: Cours d’architecture (1770) -- J-N-L Durand: Precis des lecons (1802-5) -- Julien Guadet: Elements et theories de l’architecture (1902)

• No method for systematically inspecting the results

CONSTRUCTION THEORY

Building MaterialBuilding Material Architectural FormArchitectural Form

Amorphic material: Amorphic material:

soft stone; snowsoft stone; snowSpherical vaulted constructionSpherical vaulted construction

Sheets of skin or textileSheets of skin or textile Cone-shaped tent constructionCone-shaped tent construction

Logs of wood Logs of wood Box-shaped constructionBox-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.”

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

PERSONAL STYLES

• 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 independent of antiquity

“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. - Although Viollet-le-Duc 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 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: architecture psychology, as natural forms of plants,

buildings as giant sculptures

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 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 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

• 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”

POSTMODERNISM

• 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

- 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”

ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE

SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE