Theories Flashcards
Birth of Architectural Theory
The Renaissance
Neo-Classicism
The knowledge of the ancients is useful but it wasn’t always right.
It was all about the looks/beauty of things and vanity.
-Like Greek Columns
-Scale
-Simplicity of geometric forms
Classicism
The original structures. The idea of the old. The firsts.
The enlightenment
-It happened during the French revolution
-Attacked Renaissance traditions
-Believed that Western system of values were superior
-Interests in other cultures and other histories
Modernism
Time period: 1920’-1960’s
Set of ideas- the needs, the purposes, materials and constructions
Embraces economic values -using least resources/cheaper
cccModernity
A broad term that extends outside of architecture.
-Come from technological advancements
What are the 3 major themes of Modern Architecture?
(Modernity)
- A plea for simplicity in the accommodation of modern needs
- The artistic and ethical ruin of eclecticism
- Demand for a new style based on present technologies and construction methods
-There are differences between constructional and artistic forms
Historicism
Revival of past styles to see if they would be useful for contemporary movement in history.
Multiple revivalism’s into one thing
Seen negatively because it wasn’t a creative process in architectural history.
Realism
It is an extensive consideration of real conditions in creating a building. One must meet the demands of functionality, comfort and health.
Take into consideration local building material, landscape, and the historical characteristics of the region.
Avant-garde
-New
-Unusual
-Experimental ideas
-Especially in the arts (Ex. Manifestos)
German Werkbund
It was created due to the large push of industrialization from modernism to new arts.
A new revolutionary in the arts.
Because of new technology they wanted to push for mass production and Werkbund takes a step back and thinks about the arts hence the Exhibition.
How to unify industrial and art.
Expressionist architecture
Uses form of a building to express the inner sensitivities and feelings of the viewer and/or architect.
Inspired by manifestos after WW1.
Not considered futurists.
Futurists
Emphasizes innovation, movement, and vitality.
Inspired by the expressionists.
Considered expressionists.
What era is the expressionists and futurists?
The era where a bunch of voices say “this is what modernism is…” but everyone thinks differently. Everyone is is trying to figure out what is modern.
20th Cent
De Stijl Movement
The organic combination of architecture, sculpture, and painting in a lucid, elemental, unsentimental construction.
Big push for manifestos, fine arts, sketches, drawings, technical artistic styles, etc.
Taylorism
aka Fordism
Emphasized production of commodities, but ignored how objects were distributed to consumers.
Scientific efficiency. American industries took on these ideas.
What is the relation between architecture and the socio-political aspect of today’s world?
Gropius believed that art and technology can be used to change the destiny of the physical environment.
Cubism
A fine arts movement.
(Not part of architecture.)
Purism
People want order, so how does representation bring order to the world? By using primary forms and shapes for universal meanings.
(Is art, not architecture.)
“Towards a New Architecture”
-Lots of pictures and symbolism with the writing
-Architecture will redeem society
-Creating social order
-Le Corbusier’s manifesto
-Mass produce housing
-House as a machine for living in
-Regarding architecture as the aesthetic side of engineer and expressive aspect of economy.
(Giving engineering an aesthetic)
Industrialism
Building materials being mechanically produced for particular building situations such as weather resistant’s or soundproof materials.
International Style
-Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe brought tall, glass, and steel structures
-Skin and bones architecture
-Less is more
-Many critiques say the international style strips architecture so bare that it removed its humanity.
CIAM
-International Congress of Modern Architecture
-Le Corbusier started the organization
-Pushed for modernism
-Conceived of as a machine to change the mind of the people
-Set urbanism as a role for architects
Urbanism
-Town-planning
-Architecture would align with betterment of the general welfare society
-thinking about architecture in the physical context of the city
CIAM’s 4 functions
the 4 criteria of Urban Form
(Starts functionalism)
- Dwelling
- Work
- Leisure
- Circulation
Functionalism
Buildings should be designed only based on their purpose and function.
“Criticism”
The criticism that the cities core wasn’t representing or lost its monumentality.
-The city core has always had symbolic buildings like churches and city halls.
Monumentality
Louis Khan stated that monumentality is quality not a scale, it’s a spatial quality that conveys the feeling of eternity.
CIAM 10
-Team 10
-They tweaked the modern movement
-Make Le Corbusier’s ideas more humanistic
-CIAM was dissolved
“Urban Reidentification”
4 criterias
- House
- Street
- District
- City
What happens to CIAM when dissolved?
Modernism becomes Americanized
Modernism thinks for the general public and in the U.S. that was the middle class
Modernism in the U.S.
-Transformed functionalism from socialist to capitalist.
-A corporation demographic
-Function does not follow form, form follows form
Neo-Avant Garde
-Information rather than form
-Who is in control of you and your environment
-Regain control by embracing complex technology
-Embrace scientific methodology to advance architecture
-Jane Jacobs states that architecture should align with the city and make people feel an identity with a city
Post-Modernism
Opens architecture to other fields, like history to promote mannerism.
-Critique of Modernism
Mannerism
Architecture forms to emphasize solid and spatial relationships.
-Seen in Renaissance architecture
-Played around with symmetry, order, and harmony
Mannerism in Modernism
-Complexity and contradiction
-Façade wall, arch for entrance and flat bar (elements)
-Things that don’t make sense next to each other can become companion pieces
4 themes of the city
(Post-Modernism)
- Perception
- Messaging
- Meaning
- Modern image
Populism
Was a form of protest:
-Against the war
-Large scale urban order and planning
-Composition on Modernist training
Aldo Rossi’s: 4 Artifacts of the city
(Made the city successful)
- Permanence
- Monuments
- Memories
- Locus (singular place)
Neo Liberty Style
A turn to history in the 1950’s.
-A return to Italian culture in historicism.
Operative Criticism
(by Manfredo Tafuri)
A critique of those who misread the past to serve the ideology of the present.
-Ideology= false consciousness that prevents achieving revolutionary potential
-Criticism= a tool for ideological (false) thinking
Socialist
Challenging an institutional structure
-A theory in a university setting. Example: Human rights and equal housing
Language VS Speech
1970’s-90’s people in the modern community thought Modernism failed because of its limited vocabulary
-Critique of Modernism
-Failed to connect with the people, not just architects
-Because that failed architects turned to language to speak more thoroughly/extensive/accurately
Carboard Architecture
Practice and theory becomes interchangeable with each other.
-Shift focus from existing conceptual form to practical and functional system
-You shouldn’t put a column where support isn’t needed
-
Carboard Architecture
Practice and theory becomes interchangeable with each other.
-Shift focus from existing conceptual form to practical and functional system
-You shouldn’t put a column where support isn’t needed
-Doesn’t have a meaning unless it’s at an abstract level
Univalent Architecture
Foundations of mathematics and outlining the main ideas.
Polyvalent Architecture
When there is more than one meaning to architecture.
New Culture of Post-Modernism
No longer a theory to be practice in schools, it was a bigger phenomenon.
How does the Pompidou fit in Neo-Avant Guard?
It stands out from the urban fabric in which it sits, it has no reference to other buildings.
Culture is now information rather than traditional views on art.
The French Royal Academy
Teachings: They critique Baroque style. Rebelled against classicism.
The school inherited the ideas of Serlio and that set the tone for all of Europe.
Started in 1670’s and closed down in 1793.
Late Mannerism
A style between the Renaissance and the Baroque period.
Very ornamental.
Vitruvius’s Theory:
Buildings should be relate to the human body because the human body was created by the divine being (God).
Alberti’s Theory:
“We are nature” and we should proportion buildings from nature.
Nature= product of god aka the human body.
Laugier’s Theory:
“Man wants nothing but shade from the sun and shelter from storms. Like the Primitive Hut”
Alberti is wrong. He based his own theories off of Alberti and Vitruvius.
The Pantheon
As an example/symbol of the transition of divine thought to rational thinking.
It was a church and then it became a meeting place for the French who took over the Pantheon after the French Revolution.
The transition between divine thinking to rational thinking:
Studies derive from divine thought and write about architecture as if it’s in the science field.
Regionalism
a way to confront the invasion of European aesthetic in America.
Baukunst
Art of building
Critical Regionalism
“Deconstructs the superficial world of culture and makes it more responsive to the needs of people.”
A mix between the ideas of Modernism and Regionalism. Giving place to the International Style, giving identity to Modernism, and rejecting ornamentation of Post-Modernism.
Mix of techniques and uses materials from the regional area.
Rear-Gardism
Architecture should not be meaning oriented but rather about how we come into contact with it.
Bauen
(German)
To build
Buan
(German)
To dwell
Ich Bin
(German)
I am
Structuralism
Is critical of Rationalism’s lifeless expression, which lacked identity. Rooted strongly in language, single idea/meaning.
Univalent (Language)
Started in the 20th century
Post-Structuralism
Is critical of Rationalism’s lifeless expression, which lacked identity. However Post-Structuralism believes that there can be multiple meanings being interpreted from the same thing.
Polyvalent (Language)
Eclecticism
A mix of styles form the 19th and 20th century.
Socialism
Is a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates production, distribution, and exchange that is regulated by the community.
Marxism
Advocated against capitalism.
Capitalism
Is a political and economic theory in which a countries industries are controlled by private owners.
Deconstructionist Philosophy
Based on Post-Modernism, fragmentation/distortion.
(Illogical)
Constructivist
Modern architecture in Russia, abstract and aimed to reflect industrial society.
(Illogical )
Tschumi, Parc de la Villette
Pairs, France 1983.
Example of Deconstructivism.
Creating a sensory experience.
Revivalism
Echoes the style of a singular previous era.
OMA
Office for metropolitan Architecture.
Architecture is human based. It doesn’t mimic but it engages. Data vs architecture.
-Rem Koolhaas started it
-Pragmatism, is where OMA entered the business agreement with an engineering practice.
Pragmatism
Argued belief for practical engagement with forces as they are int the field.
-In other words their design decisions are based off of data.
-Logical
-It critiqued deconstructivism (Which was illogical).
Traditionalism
A style where one designs using familiar symbolic forms of a particular culture or place.
Beachside, Florida
The developer was interested in using regional wood frame housing to create a sense of community, wanted the house to be part of the street life, and the streets to be oriented towards public places.
-Public buildings had arcades.
-Housing has white picket fences.
-Architects: Andres Duani and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk.
New Urbanism
Goal: Create a sense of nostalgia through innovation.
There was a need for denser neighborhoods, built around public spaces, pedestrian activities, mass transit, and energy strategies.
It became tied to the environmental movement in the 1970’s.
Pedestrian Pocket
At any point, you are a 5 minutes of walking distance from public transit.
LEED Credit Categories
-sustainable site
-water efficiency
-energy and atmosphere
-material and resources
-indoor environmental quality
-innovation in Operations and Regional priority
Post Humanist
skeptical of “nature” and underscore a more constituent role of technology in the environment.
Humanist
Nature VS Man
Sets out to describe a political ecology that was destructive even to nature.
Scientific Sachlichkeit
(aka Scientific Realism)
-Hermann Muthesius
-Stricter
-Abstain from any ornamentation
-Only show form and purpose
The Royal Academy
-New ideas that were inherited by Serlio
-These new ideas set the tone for all over Europe
-Critical of the Baroque style
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
-Otto Wagner (taught Renaissance architecture) (1894)
-Emergence of what is known as the modern movement when he introduced the modern track
-Foundation of Werkbund
Frankfurt School
-School of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for social research.
The Bauhaus
-Started off with a rejection of technology after WW1. Return for crafts.
-Gropius then started a new program that oriented the school away from just craft
-Takes no position on politics
-Art would not be threatened by technology, but be part of the achievement of technological goals.
-Focused on production of commodities
-Architecture as construction
Les Beaux des Arts
-Royal Academy was closed by revolutionaries and replaced with this school
-Returns to an art-based architectural education
Wagner Conservative School
-Taught renaissance and gothic architecture
-Otto Wagner specifically taught the Renaissance course
