THEORY OF DESIGN ⮚ THEMATIC THEORIES

Instructor: Architect Jose Juson ● CLASSICAL

- Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
● Research of Architecture ● MIDDLE AGES
- Research contributes to Design Theory - Medieval (read: Dark Age) anonymous tradition of trade
● Nature of Design Theory guilds
- Design Theory states facts ● RENAISSANCE
- Design Theory aids design - Alberti, Vignola, Palladio, etc.
● Scope of Architecture Theory ● STRUCTURALIST
- Includes all that is presented in the handbooks of - Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc.
architects ● ART NOUVEAU (Personal Style)
- Includes legislation, norms and standards, rules and - Eugene Emmanuelle Violett-le-Due, Le Corbusier, etc.
methods ● FUNCTIONALISM
- Includes miscellaneous and “unscientific” elements - Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc.
● Why Design Theory? - modern architecture
- To aid the work of the architect and improve its product ● POSTMODERNISM
- Proven theory helps designers do work better and more - Robert Venturi
efficiently ● SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE
- “Skill without knowledge is nothing” ● ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE
(architect Jean Mignot, 1400 AD)
● Understanding Design Theory ⮚ CLASSICAL THEORIES
- Theory does NOT necessarily mean PRECCED design ● Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
- PARADISM : every new or established theory applied - Author of the oldest research on architecture
: STYLE - 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)
● Vitruvian Rules of Aesthetic Form
 - Based on Greek traditions of architecture ● Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola
- Teachings of Pythagoras : applying proportions of numbers - “Regola delle cinque ordini”
- Observations of tuned string of instruments - Concise, facts and easily applicable rules of the five column
- Proportions of human body systems
- PLEASANTNESS : in accordance of good taste - Based his design instructions on four things:
: parts follow proportions : idea of Pythagoras
: symmetry of measures : proportions of small number
: properties and other instruments
⮚ THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES : good taste
- no documents ● Andrea Palladio (1508-80)
- no person can be attributed for theories - “I Quattro libri dell’architectura”
- The father of modern picture books of architecture
● Monastery Institutions ● Philibert de L’orme
- Most documents retrieved from the Middle Ages - One of French theorist who are critical of italians
- However, archives contain only few descriptions of - Prove that Pantheon’s Corinthian columns had 3 different
buildings proportions
- Described only as “according to the traditional model” - Rejected the doctrine of absolute beauty of measures
- “There’s no accounting for tastes” was the rule of thumb
● Development of Building Style ⮚ CONSTRUCTION THEORY
- With hardly or no literary research present
- Villard de Hannecourt’s “sketchbook” in 1235 Building Material Architectural Form
- Rotzer’s Booklet on the right way of making pinnacles Amorphic material: Spherical vaulted
- Only through guidance of old masters Soft stone; snow construction
- Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of builders Sheets of skin or textile Cone-shaped tent
construction
⮚ RENNAISANCE THEORIES Logs of wood Box-shaped construction

● 1948 – a copy of Virtue manuscript found at St. Gallen ● Before Written Construction Theory
Monastery - Architecture created without the help of architects or
● Leon Bautista Alberti (1404-72) theory
- Person in charge of constructions commanded by Pope - Builders used a model instead of mathematical algorithms
- “On Building” : De re aedifficatoria now used in modern construction
: one of the greatest works of the theory of - Inverted “catenary” model
architecture ● Semi-Circular Vault : Theory by Virtue
: completed in 1452, published in 1485 “ When there are arches… the outermost piers must
: more emphasis on decoration of building be made broader than the others so that they may have the
exteriors strength to resist when the wedges under the pressure of
● Sebastino Serlio the load of the walls, begins to thrust to the abutments.”
- “Regole generall di architectura”
 ● During Middle Ages
- No written documents survived about theories or models to ⮚ ART NOUVEAU
describe the magnificent vaults of medieval cathedrals
● During Renaissance - The first architectural style independent of the tradition of
- From Alberti onwards, architects began specializing antiquity after the Gothic style
- Mathematical models by Francis Bacon and Galileo - The example set by Art Nouveau encourage some of the
Galilei most skillful architects of the 20th century to create their
: considers load and scientific studies private form language
contributed to constructions
- 1675 : Marquis de Vauban founded a building THEORETICAL TREATISES
depatment in the French army called “ Corps des Ingenieurs”
- 1747 : Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees, special school - Five points of Architecture (1926, Le Corbusier)
founded in Paris where new profession specializing in a. pilotis
construction was organized. b. free plan
--- first engineering school c. free façade
- Other figures of mathematical construction theory d. the long horizontal sliding window
: Robert Hooke e. the roof garden
: Jakob Bernoulli - Architecture as Space (Bruno Zeri)
: Leonard Euier “The crux of architecture is not the sculptural pattern, but
instead the building interiors. These can be seen as
⮚ PERSONAL STYLE “negative solids”, as voids which the artist divides, combines,
repeats and emphasizes in the same way as the sculptor
● Copying from Antiquity treats his “positive” lumps of substance.”
- Architecture form antiquity came to a print of perfection - The “personal style” of architects are not necessarily
- Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1863) based on laws of nature or on logical reasoning. More
: the first theorist who set out to create a totally important is that they exhibit a coherent application of an
new system of architectural forms independent of antiquity idea which also must be clear that the public can find it
out. An advantage is also if the style includes symbolical
“What we call taste is but an involuntary process of reasoning whose undertones.
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 ⮚ MODERN ARCHITECTURE
method that they could use to develop even radically ● Industrial Revolution (1768)
new form language - Arts and Crafts Movement
- Owen Jones : used forms inspired from nature, especially a. conservative
plants b. William Morris
 c. John Rustrin d. Frank Llyod Wright
- Electicism 1910’s
a. architecture of borrowing - Office of Peter Behrens
● Fruits of Industrial Revolution a. Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe “less in more”
Joseph Paxton – Crystal Palace, 1851 b. Walter Gropius
Elisha Graves Otis – Elevator, 1857 c. Le Corbusier
Manufacturing of “Rolled Steel” - 2 Art movements that influenced
1. Futurism – simultaneity of movement
1870’s 2. Cubism – interpretation of space
● The Great Fire of Chicago, 1871 1920’s
- downtown in Chicago was burned and in needs of ● The Bauhaus
construction of new buildings - “Art and Technology, the new unity”
- place where first tallest building was constructed ● Established architects
● William Le Baron Jenney a. Frank Llyod Wright “organic architecture”
- made the first skyscraper b. Le Corbusier
● Daniel Burnham c. Mies Van Der Rohe / Gropius
- “make no little plans, they have no magic to stir man’s 1930’s
blood” ● International Style
● Louis Sullivan
- “form follows function” 1950’s
● The period of Reassessment
1880’s - Universalism
- Chicago School became the concentration of architectural - Personalism
development
- introduce Chicago Window ⮚ POSTMODERNISM
● The center of Postmodernism:
1890’s Robert Venturi “less is bore”
● The World Columbian Exposition ● Philip Johnson
- built in 1863 - say that a portion of Chippendale building in New York has
- chief architect: Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law no function
Olmsted ● Introduce the element of “Discovery”

⮚ SYMBOLIC ARHITECTURE
1900’s - “Building as a message”
- European architecture was notified
- Person to notify: 1. Mathematical Analogy
a. Otto Wagner 2. Biological Analogy
b. Adolf Loops “ornament is a crime” - use of plants and ornaments
c. H.P. Berlage 3. Romantic Architecture
 - uses exotic language of form
- vastness; trying to surprise; huge
4. Linguistic Analogies
- grammar; uses words with proper grammar
5. Mechanical Analogies
- Buckminter Fuller
6. Ad Hoc Analogy
- any materials that you can get or available in your
environment such as wood in forest
7. Stage Analogy