The Architectural Project (Studies in Architecture and Culture)

The Architectural Project Number Six: Studies in Architecture and Culture Malcolm Quantrill, General Editor i Foreword...

Author: Alfonso Corona Martinez

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The Architectural Project Number Six: Studies in Architecture and Culture Malcolm Quantrill, General Editor

i Foreword

The Architectural Project

By Alfonso Corona-Martínez Edited by Malcolm Quantrill Translated by Alfonso Corona-Martínez and Malcolm Quantrill

Texas A&M University Press College Station

Copyright ©  by  (Center for Advancement of Studies in Architecture) Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved First edition The Studies in Latin American Architecture series of CASA’s Studies in Architecture and Culture is published with supporting grants from the Graham Foundation for the Advancement of Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago, and the Office of the Vice President for Research and the College of Architecture, Texas A&M University.

The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, .-. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

For a complete listing of books in this series, see the back of the book. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Corona Martínez, Alfonso. The architectural project / Alfonso Corona-Martínez ; edited by Malcolm Quantrill ; translated by Alfonso Corona-Martínez and Malcolm Quantrill. p. cm.—(Studies in architecture and culture ; no. ) Includes bibliographical references.  --- (alk. paper) . Architectural design. . Architectural design—Study and teaching. I. Quantrill, Malcolm, – II. Title. III. Series. .  —dc 

Contents

Foreword, by Marco Frascari Preface

vii

xiii

Introduction 3  . Design Processes

7

. Description Generation . Design Education

25

41

. The Two Faces of Functionalism . Typology

60

79

. Development of the Project: The Elements of Architecture . Elements of Composition 124 . Changes in Design Method: The Future in the Present Notes

187

Index

199

164

99

Foreword Lege feliciter

Unhappy thoughts have dominated most contemporary architectural thinking, and this has forced the basic components of the architectural discipline to separate out in the same way that the oil and the egg-yolk break apart when a mayonnaise curdles. My grandmother, who was an astonishingly good cook, had a secret method for saving the situation when that happened. Meanwhile, my job was to continue whisking the eggs and oil. I will try to convert her time-honored method into an analogical tool by pointing out that this essay by Alfonso Corona-Martínez introduces a powerful recipe for overcoming the present curdling tendency in both the practice and teaching of architecture. CoronaMartínez’s own “secret method” succeeds by explaining the material nature of architectural imagination. The crucial question raised by this extraordinary book is: “What does the author mean by “an essay on the architectural project” (from the Spanish title Ensayo sobre el Proyecto, or An Essay Concerning the Project)? Corona-Martínez’s book is certainly not an essay about architecture— our bookshelves are already full of such architectural essays. Instead he has written something quite different. His essay is rather concerned with what goes on within architecture, or, to be more precise, in the use of architectural composition. At the deep level of description, the processes of architectural composition are universal; the elaborations of a few simple structural values and principles result in a great variety within the scope of the architectural imagination, which can cut all the way through temporal, spatial, and cultural divisions. If our quest is to understand architecture by thinking within architecture rather than thinking about architecture we have to understand the workings of the mechanism that drives compositional thinking. Otherwise, we will be condemned to watch in despair as the architectural world created in the past continues to slip further and further away from our awareness and intellectual perceptions. Modern architects do not make buildings as such, rather they compose them in drawings. Two processes of “essential polar intelligence” characterize architectural drawings. These are the categorical and inferential processes.

viii Foreword

Thus drawing might be considered as a form of “predicament deciphering” in which some of the input happens to come in part through the senses and in part through needs, expectations, and beliefs, and in which the output is the category of the building being perceived. There is no distinction between drawing and thought. Because of this, drawings are the main expression of architectural theory, and this expression takes place through the process Corona-Martínez refers to as “composition.” In the real project of architecture, drawings and buildings exemplify and suggest rather than determine or impose, integrating the art of composing well with the art of living well. Reflective architects should always concern themselves with the art of composition. The appropriate use of composition is indispensable both to the disciplinary relationship between theory and practice and to the professional relationships between architects, builders, and clients. Representing clients, users or any other conglomerate that generates a request for construction, the architect cannot be the builder. Instead, his task is to control the making of buildings by means of well-constructed graphic compositions. These mediate between those powers which govern every design; namely, the client, the contractor, and the building concept. A building can be designed only through a continuous creative, intellectual mediation between the imagination and imagining, and both these mediations are performed by means of well-tempered compositions. The idea of architectural composition implies, if not demands, this performance. Virtually any form of drawing is a kind of composition, and any form of drawing is a type of performance. Drawing is an intensely physical art, one that activates several senses at once. In visual societies drawing has traditionally been accompanied by facial movement, gesture, manipulation of symbolic objects, the wearing of costumes, and so on—all of which, in a tribal context, are part of a cultural vocabulary. Composition is a physical talent using multiple senses: the body as a whole. Drawings make use of a particular sensory conjunction—that between touching and seeing. By looking at and feeling the surface of a drawing, designers are in contact respectively with the outward appearances and finish of edifices and the interior inauguration and sturdiness of their constructions. The chasm between the two senses makes the designers aware of the complex interplay between the inside and the outside by providing a new locus of architecture, since to draw is to enter into participation with the inscriptions and compositional essays that mark the surface of the drawing. However, in the mainstream culture of the western world, during the twentieth century, architectural drawing and consequently composition has become an ever more ephemeral,

dephysicalized act. At the same time contemporary drawings work against this tendency, rediscovering drawing methods from other cultures and other periods, while discovering new ones of their own. Though for most people drawing becomes more and more a system of simple data transference, architects attempt to find alternative notations and to expand the range of their performance. For Corona-Martínez, the mystery of architecture is all in the divinatory nature of the mirroring metaphors that rule the acts of composition. The composition of buildings in drawings (a recollection), and the composition of drawings in buildings (a foretelling), is a speculative chiasma, a hypogean structure, on which the project of architecture must be erected. This project recognizes and confirms architecture as a trade with an intellectual tradition. Composition is the locus of the transmutation of recollection in foretelling intelligence: it generates the quasiarchitecture of the dream, the Heraclitean idios kosmos that undercuts empirical discernment by refusing the scientific separation of past, present, and future. To compose means to recognize or guess at what has instituted an imagined state into a composition. This involves instituting an interpretation. A translation is the result of the univocallity of the interpretative scheme and the ambiguity of composing. The architect who is composing a building in a drawing or a drawing in a building proceeds by alternating schemes and corrections. These translations are not abstractions but steps in the process of successive definitions: they constitute an architectural project. Embodied in the drawings, architectural imagery acts as the generator of architectural expression, which is the beginning of any architectural composition. In the practice of architecture, the most ingenious segment of the process by which our constructed world comes about has always involved a characteristic act of composition. Unfortunately, now, this intriguing and desirable projectile operation has been disguised beyond recognition within the meanderings in the back rooms of professional practice. This critical segment of the art of architecture has been reduced to a prosaic activity. The problem with its negative connotation begins within the educational realm, and Corona-Martínez clearly indicates how the distrust and the destruction of the power of architectural virtues are predicated not upon ideas of design value, which unfittingly always becomes “valuedesign,” but on a sense of wonder made real through elegant design principles embodied in compositions elaborated by knowledgeable architects. These are the practitioners who are respectful of the edifying and beatific measures of human dwelling. The quasi-doctrine of composition in the architectural project is the fundamental and necessary

ix Foreword

x Foreword

premise to rediscover genial and substantial architectural cosmologies and cosmographies. These are predicated on a moral imagination rather than on an inapposite mix of aestheticizing social and behavioral predictions. In the architectural project, the integration of the art of building well combines with the art of composing well, and both drawings and buildings exemplify and suggest rather than determine or impose. The union of dream and “solid stuff” in architectural events becomes an expression of pleasure, a subjective presence rather than an objective procedure to which both the user and the architect must be subjected, in which the details and the fabricated devices are playful demonstrations of events that are cosmologically part of an edifice. A building can be designed only through a continuous creative, intellectual dialectic between the imagination and imagining. Using this bipolar condition, architects do not make a sensory phenomenon out of an idea. On the contrary, they shape the sensory phenomenon into an idea using composition and “character.” Architects with their graphic dreams do not open the doors for the spirit to enter everyday life. On the contrary, they raise everyday experiences to the sphere of the imagination, converting mere imaginings into the dimensions of physical reality. The grasp of happy beginnings that is the core of the architect’s moral imagination, is expressed through the conjuring act of drawings, which elaborate the relationship between the mundane and the sacred in a transhistorical condition. Questioning the pseudo-completeness of present CAD drawing techniques, which cannot even perform the fundamental act of establishing the indispensable cosmological relationship between material being and cultural order, a composition remains the necessary component of these inaugurations. Corona-Martínez’s comprehension and explanation of the transhistorical condition for the architectural project provides a common ground for future actions, not only in the pedagogy, but also with the aim of achieving an appropriately elevated level, by establishing criteria that permit countries, schools, and professional organizations to evaluate and improve on the quality of architectural production. As embodied in a transhistorical understanding of the relationship between people and buildings, and between buildings and environments, composition calls for exchanging human scale to needs. Well-tempered compositions create a constructive approach to the realization of quality in building through the medium of graphic ideas. Composition is not just a manual skill, or as Corona-Martínez puts it “a mere technique,” but a manifestation of a design sense acquired through appropriate exercises of prudent observations and temperate explorations through architectural storytelling.

The most difficult assignment for architects is to draw a construction (project) through virtuous reflections. In other words, to extract from the blank surface of a sheet of paper the inauguration of a future building. This demanding task is based on the art of assembling and converting invisible configurations into a visible drawing. This is achieved by concretizing in a set of lines, marks, and strokes, the future potentiality of an edifice, which cannot be fully expressed initially, but is present, suspended in architectural thinking. Only through these thoughtprovoking procedures, can drawings become callimetric technographies that weave thoughts into those magical projections of buildings. The grasp of architectural beginnings, the core of the architect’s professional imagination is expressed in technometric tracings, i.e., tempered and prudent analogical drawings that make possible the construction of edifying edifices. Well–tempered compositions elaborate the relationships between the mundane, the sacred, the dream and the more solid stuff into an elegant transhistorical condition. An elegant transhistorical condition implies that certain features of causation remain invariants. Architecture is formed within a tension field of these invariants, between reason, emotion, and intuition. Correctly, Corona-Martínez points out that it should be the mission of architectural education to foster the conceptualization, coordination, and execution of those constants of building that are rooted in human traditions. The understanding of the transhistorical experience of architecture remains the key issue for architectural education. In transhistorical pedagogy, learning and teaching are based on ongoing historical examples that have been meticulously documented during the various stages of development as a narrative of the immanence of environment, or as a full-fledged experiment in mastering the art of the well-tempered drawing. Within the degraded state of theoretical sentimentality and visual vulgarity that dominates the ostentatious and pretentious architecture of today, the idea of composition might be proposed as a novel, and at the same time as a venerable approach to the project. Quality in architecture relates to and respects natural and built environments together with the expression of collective and individual cultural heritages. Well-tempered procedures cannot be abstractly constructed or described; they are the result of a process of assimilating heritages and environments that can be exemplified through moral tropes, geometric ordering, and constructive analogies that are embodied both in buildings and in drawings. Cognitive appropriation, rather than disciplinary justification serves as the base for well-tempered compositions, the ideal locus where a condition between rationality and non-rationality results in a cosmography that sustains the making of places. They are

xi Foreword

xii Foreword

instruments capable of integrating the solid stuff of the spaces that encircle us with the dream stuff that takes shape in human minds. The cognitive composition advocated by Corona-Martínez is productive and inference-based on instinct, just as the oral tasting of children is an instinctive part of cognitive appropriation. Architectural composing is an illuminating and elegant dream of cognitive appropriation. We can master and teach these elegant design procedures only through what Pascal has called “esprit de finesse et esprit de geometre.” Fostered by fluid mental attitudes, these procedures dwell among the classical dichotomies proposed by philosophy and the puzzling but powerful paradigms generated by imaginal thinking. Following the tradition of many medieval authors writing about theoretical matters, Leon Battista Alberti closes his preface to De re aedificatoria by wishing his readers a joyful grasp of his theories. “Lege feliciter,” or “Happy reading,” Alberti implores. I would like to extend the same wish to the readers of Corona-Martínez’s essay, feeling confident that they will not be disappointed. —Marco Frascari Virginia Polytechnic Institute Alexandria, Virginia

Preface

In The Architectural Project I aim to show that in the nineteenth century, by freeing composition from the elements of classical architecture, a new and almost invariable form of design practice was created. It is the practice of an abstract “composition” which is, however, a composition of architecture. In this way, a succession of styles becomes possible, within a compositional methodology that essentially changes very little. The idea underlying this text is to show that the revolution in architecture leading to modernism—which took place at the end of the nineteenth century or the beginning of twentieth, depending on the authors considered—does not correspond to a change in design methods. Design methods had been silently revolutionized between the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The design methods produced by that revolution were applied in the schools of architecture established at that time. These methods persisted in the twentieth century and they have proven adequate as the basis of modern architecture. This idea contradicts prevailing myths about the origins of the Modern movement, but it has been with us for a long time. Reyner Banham demonstrated in  how for design practice, the original Modern movement is no more than a new style.1 This condition continues. I am not suggesting that all the stages of modernism, up to the present, are no more than so many styles; I am merely saying that in operative terms they are so, because the design process has proven to be adequate for various formalizations. It also coincides with the utilitarian ideology of the two centuries following the Industrial Revolution. The design process remained almost immune to stylistic change in the nineteenth century and also in the twentieth. It is perhaps riskier to say that those of us who teach students to design buildings, following the tradition of elementary composition, are working to perpetuate this relation of method and style. Unwillingly we work to make the successive styles of this long end of the twentieth century—no matter whether we judge them to be superficial fashion or

xiii Foreword

xiv Preface

transcendental movements—behave as no more than trends that are added to the top of the permanent discipline of composition. Perhaps it is our design method that preserves the status of styles through the succession of the moments of modernism. Perhaps our design methods condemn them to be like the styles of the nineteenth century. We should not despair: a change in the techniques of representation is taking place. Whether we like it or not, there will probably be a change in architecture. This is not prophesy—only an extrapolation from the past, an analogy. We dare to expect another revolution in architecture, perhaps as extraordinary as the ones that took place in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Architects as we know them first appeared in the Renaissance. Their new professional competence was based on the exact representation of space and on a revival of Roman architecture. Computer graphics provide us not only with new forms of representation but also with a change in the mode of production and in the use of drawings. Therefore, this new mode should be capable of changing architecture. The present book, written initially as a warning against the tyranny of representation over imagination, addresses a particular stage in the architect’s life, the formative years: schooling. It is written with precisely that moment in mind when the student’s effort is centered on appropriating a technique for design. Later, students will center on the architectural values to be incorporated in their designs or those they want to incorporate. This book deals with design theory, not with a possible theory of architecture. When we have overcome design technique, when we “already know how to design,” we will be free from this stage of learning, from the tyranny of representation. Or perhaps we shall be forever chained to this obstacle, to the identification of design with architecture itself. The technique of design is not simply instrumental, one tool that we could possibly exchange for another. It has the same status as the socalled media. Perhaps there is no mere instrumentality in human actions. As the project is an act of invoking an object so as to make it exist, Marco Frascari has poetically described it as an act of magic: “The role of architects is to produce design, an act of graphical magic, a kind of divining that describes a future built event. This architectural prognosis is later translated wisely into a building.”2 Design “summons” a nonexistent object and relies completely on our belief that representation can make this future object exist, or preexist. In the words of Robin Evans: “Without the architect’s faith that a few lines geometrically defined will engender something more substantial

than the drawing, but discernible through it, without that faith in the genetic message inscribed on paper, there is no architecture.”3 In The Architectural Project, we hold the view that the way we learn to use these instruments both conditions and sets boundaries for our conception of architecture; it defines what architecture will be for us. We learn procedures for designing, and these will be our first routines in the making of successive new projects. If we are successful, these will become for us the way to design; we will believe we have learned the correct way of inventing the nonexistent building, and this practice will become second nature to us. We may escape being victims of this magic if we don’t possess it. If we learned at the same time to represent existing buildings and to create new ones, we would create in our minds a just correlation of representation with real, experiential spaces. To learn this method we must first draw existing buildings. Unfortunately, this is an element of tradition (rélevé) that we have almost completely lost. As Herman Crowe and Steven W. Hurtt put it: In the pedagogical system of today, partially transformed by the impact of Modern Architecture, the habit of making visual (graphic) notes and keep them, as a necessary part of the education in design has practically disappeared. . . . For an architect with experience, the relation between architectural form and its graphic representation is intuitively understood. Most of us, however, can remember the enormous difficulties we experienced not so long ago, when we tried to translate our experience of a building, a space or a detail into a drawing; or, conversely, when we tried to understand the reality represented in the abstraction of drawings.4 The experienced architect has overcome many of the limitations that come from taking representations for reality, from believing representation to be the final reality; or perhaps has accepted these limits without ever thinking about them. In professional practice the traditional motto of the Modern movement becomes true: architects do create spaces, but only then do they gain understanding. The architecture of a mature architect can really be spatial. Through experience our architect escapes, up to a point, from analogic tyranny, from the power of the means of representation over our imagination. The architect is building real spaces and, given a few moments of reflection, will correct and refine them in successive

xv Preface

works. Only then can architects become reunited with the world of inhabitants, with the people who will live in their buildings, with the world they have left to be trained as creators of new objects. This is the role of The Architectural Project. It is a book of warnings for students and their teachers. It is also a book aimed at provoking readers to become experienced in architecture by a firsthand knowledge of spaces—ideally, spaces they as architects have already built and occupied.

xvi Preface

The Architectural Project

1 Design Processes

2 The Architectural Project

Introduction

Design is the invention of a new object through the mediation of another object that precedes it in time. The designer operates on this, the project, modifying it, confident that it is satisfactory. Then its characteristics are translated into a code of instructions that can be understood by those in charge of realizing the second object, known as “the work” or building. A design process, then, has as its result the production of an ensemble of representations and specifications circumscribing the construction of the object they represent. The ways of representing and specifying vary through time and from one cultural environment to another but are always conditioned by two factors. () The separation of designers and executors, as different persons or groups, began in the Renaissance. This division of responsibilities created the need to make the ideas of designers explicit and to have them stated in a language that executors can understand. As Richard Neutra notes: Historically speaking, drawings and blueprints are a rather recent development. In past periods, the originator of a design usually communicated his idea directly to his working crew, and clarified it by showing them what to do. His success in effectuating his design depended also on imponderables of personality. Musical productions long followed a similar pattern of immediate transference. The first full score of a composition, leaving almost nothing to be filled in and “ornamented” during execution, is only about two centuries old.1 () The need for a design arises, depending on the complexity of the object being designed and its greater or lesser degree of novelty compared to others existing in the same class: that is, its proximity to a known “type.” Graphic representations of the future object constitute the main part of the project. They are made by using projections in plan, façade, and section, which have been described since antiquity and were made rigorous by descriptive geometry in the eighteenth century.2

3 Design Processes


The representation of the project displays the properties of the object as such, the physical object: its forms, dimensions, and materials. It does not include what the designer imagines as the use of the building, the actions of its future inhabitants.3 This manner of representing buildings, in which geometrical qualities and reference to materials dominate all stages of the design, is strictly necessary for communicating with builders. Because of this, the building as object is predominant in the mind of its designer, quite independent of its practical and social objectives. The architect tends to work like an artist, concentrating on analogic models.4 For architects, the function or use of the building is part of the external relations of the work, in spite of the fact that they need those relations to bring a creation into being. The designer invents the object in the act of representing it. That is, a designer draws a nonexistent object, repeating the process with everincreasing precision. This precision depends on an increase in detail, always within the rules of the representational system. Design is therefore the progressive description of an object that does not exist at the beginning of the process. This progress in the knowledge of the future object has its correlations in the stages of the design process. Those suggest moments in the communicative interchange with the client. The client is first shown preliminary drawings, containing the general idea of the design, then a schematic project, and finally the working drawings. The architect’s fees are generally coordinated with these stages of the process. The working drawings are intended to facilitate construction. As we can see, the ideational process advances from general schemes to particulars of the object, ending in defined detail of configuration of parts and materials. Following this pattern, the final design is derived from a schematic design, and this in turn has an “essential structure,” which was traditionally called a “parti” (from the French prendre parti, taking a decision between possible alternatives). From the same parti, different projects can be developed. The design process then is a progression from stages of greater generality and lower definition to others of high definition. Definition means a finer specification of parts and their relations. Generality points to the extension of the field of objects that could be designated by the same program. The greater the precision, the more the field of possible objects will be circumscribed. Finally, the project will point to a single object. Greater definition should eliminate all ambiguity and make it possible to build an object in which all parts and relations are controlled before realization. Although this condition has been achieved by industrial serial production, it is seldom found in architecture. Definition has to be

Fig. 1. Villa Zeno by Andrea Palladio, circa 1560. The design defines the shape of the building and contains indications about the dimensions of its parts. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from Palladio, Quattro Libri dell’Architettura 5 Design Processes

helped by the interpretation of its author, who follows its realization as a kind of latter-day version of the medieval master-of-the-works—who was a part of the building team, as Neutra observed. The growth in definition is effected through successive representations, not by modifying the same drawing. Each new drawing makes the earlier ones redundant and they are discarded. Along the way the successive stages of transformation disappear, until finally, working drawings bear no traces of the generative process. It is as if the architect had conceived the whole building entirely in mind, even down to the last details. It appears as an infallible act of creation, neither progressive nor based in representation. This professionalization is also the architect’s apotheosis: it seems merely a case of copying the plans of a complete building already held in mind. But such a fantasy conceals the design task, the architect’s real skill. It also hides the dependence of that mental image on the series of drawings in which it is really founded. In the writings that make up this book, the focus is on the process and its instruments; on the real operations involved in design. We are less centered on the real ends of architecture: satisfying the need for shelter; social utility; or the symbolic expression of collective values or of those of the subjective sensibility of an artist. Design drawings and models, as we have remarked, are analogic models of physical objects. One arrives at the determination of the object by employing these models within the design process. There is a necessary selection of the more apt representations for each stage of the process as well as the coordination of all stages and drawings. From our present perspective, it is hard to imagine the importance


of making the design free from the imperatives of construction. This separation, which looks natural to us now, transformed the practice of architecture. It changed even the way architecture is defined, the values it seeks, and the social status of architects. It could be argued that toward  architecture entered the era of written language, just as natural spoken language entered the era of alphabetic writing about , .. In the same way as alphabetic language “accurately represents” the sounds of spoken language, since the Renaissance architectural drawing has accurately represented objects in space. The written word tends to become free from spoken language and to substitute for it as the “natural” mode of existence for discourse. In the same way, drawings claim to contain the essential values of architecture. The properties of buildings are transferred to representation, and only those better expressed in drawing are deemed relevant. The written word stops the flux of words and makes it visual; in this way the character of discourse changes. The “written language” of drawing compresses time, showing the final result of building; it hides the work of construction; and it shows the future object in all the ways it will be possible to see it as well as in many other ways in which it will never be seen. It makes design work the private property of its author, who can ponder in solitude the alternatives of this creation to the point of believing it is to be purely his or her own. Representation changed architecture, leading production toward what looked best in drawing, what could be controlled best through drawing. It also changed the status of the architect, providing an intellectual dignity that is clearly defined by Alberti (see chapter ). It has been suggested that Renaissance architects invented their professional competence as based on drawings, stressing formal problems that could only be solved by architects using the new tools of design. Although this analysis exaggerates the professional cunning of architects in the s and s, it meshes with my view concerning the importance of representation as the trigger of the architect’s professional transformation. As Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis observe: “The new formal abstraction of building was a problem-solving tool. So, too, the drawing as an object became an implicit assertion of the autonomy of architecture. It contributed to the production of a formally perfect plan while it silently argued for the right of existence of the formal problem. It assumed the architect to be the guardian of the rules of beauty, the proprietor of special problem-solving instruments, and the dextrous negotiator in the conflict between the canon of form and deformation.”5

CHAPTER 1

Design Processes

The design process consists of a series of operations that will generate a model from which a building may be “copied.” There is not one single design process, one unique way to advance that progression. Most design processes progress from a state of lower definition and greater generality to one of lesser generality and higher definition. Yet this does not mean that the approaches from one state to another follow a single road. Even if we could imagine that the road from preliminary sketches to working drawings was always one of sustained improvement in the definition and in the precision with which the designer makes drawings and models—if it were a linear process that produced the object—there would always subsist an unknown fact: how was the first configuration produced that will later be “developed”? Using the terms we have earlier adopted: how did the designer arrive at this general configuration that we usually call a parti? If we ask ourselves about the possible alternatives for the production of this basic scheme, we will identify different types of design process. We will further be led to an interpretation of words like composition in order to name the design act. We must also question the idea of a building’s functionality, an idea that has been dominant for the last century and a half. We will then have to evaluate the importance of preexisting forms and dispositions in the design act; forms and dispositions which constitute for architecture a repository of knowledge that remains available for each new design; in other words, the problem of type. It should be made clear that this subject not only describes what an architect does in designing; it also concerns the question of how to teach design. Design theory and the teaching of architecture go together. Many of the texts quoted in the present work were written with a didactic intention. The first we shall consider deals with E. E. Viollet-le-Duc’s “ideal” architect involved in designing: An architect has a building to build; he has received a confused brief (as many written briefs are) and his first task is to put order

7 Design Processes


into this document. There are different requirements and services to be satisfied; he will study them separately, and he must not think of the architecture—that is the skin with which he will wrap these different aspects; he will content himself with ingeniously putting each thing in its place. In each part of the brief, the architect will perceive a main point and underline it. His complicated, intricate work is simplified little by little (because simple ideas are the last to arrive). After a while he will try to solder together these parts he has studied separately and he will carry on his work of simplification. However, this ensemble of studies, to which is added a statement of economic resources, will not satisfy him. He senses that the new “body” lacks unity, because the seams are too visible and the overall result is clumsy. He continues seeking, putting to the right what was to the left, back what was forward. The details of his plan will go through a hundred permutations. Then—and I am assuming he is a conscientious architect, a lover of his art, who is strict with himself—he withdraws, leaving aside the papers covered with sketches. Suddenly he believes that he sees a main idea in his program, a dominant trait (you must observe that no one puts it there). Fiat lux: instead of beginning by the details to arrive at a combination of the whole, he turns the operation upside down. He has briefly glimpsed the edifice, the way in which the different services must be dominated by a general composition that fits all. Only then do those details which have tortured his spirit fall into their natural place. Once the general idea is established, secondary ideas set in at the right moment, as if organizing themselves. The architect is now the master of his program, he dominates it, he remakes it with order, he completes and perfects it.1 What is Viollet-le-Duc describing? He is telling us about the actions of an architect who has to “satisfy a brief ”—that is, who has a commission for a building and is approaching it in the first moments of the design. The brief is seen as confusing. This is not because the client does not know the needs. The reason for the confusion is that the written brief is just a list; it does not have any correspondence with the spatial order of the future building. The architect will introduce order into the brief—this happens at the beginning of our quotation—until the brief has the same order as the design in the making, at the end of the passage quoted. In Viollet-leDuc’s story we see the architect first solving the building problem bit by bit (we suppose it is a complex building), devising sectors and attempting to join them into a whole. Finally a general idea forms, an order de-

9 Design Processes

scribed as simplifying complexity. It has been born in the architect’s mind (“no one puts it there”). Some things are implicit in the passage quoted: all the events described take place within a drawing. We discover this when the architect “puts to the right what was to the left.” Then in his plan, the details go through a hundred permutations. For Viollet-le-Duc, it is not necessary to say that the project begins with a plan. From the plan the architect will deduce all the rest, because in the plan will be the organization of spaces demanded by the brief. In the passage following the quoted text Violletle-Duc says: “Once the plan has been determined, the building rises in his spirit; he sees how he will build it and the dominant idea of the plan is reproduced in the elevation, the idea of the plan reappears in the elevation, indicating the parts that have to be enriched and those that must be sacrificed. This is the way the architect composes.” We have watched the architect at the moment of creating the general scheme, the parti. In our quotation this is a plan of the building; a schematic plan. For Viollet-le-Duc the act of design, or at least this first stage of the design, is called “composing.” Fifty years before Viollet-le-Duc, J. N. L. Durand had declared that his text dealt for the first time with composition, a subject that “astonishingly, has not been treated by other authors.” In his Précis des Leçons données à l’Ecole Polytechnique we find his instructions on how to begin a design: The way to proceed in the Composition of any project. Combining the diverse elements together, then passing to the different parts of

Fig. 2. Holkham Hall in Norfolk, England, by William Kent, 1734. A complex building design constituting the sum of units of the same type as those in the Villa Zeno. Redrawn by Libertad Vigo from J. Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830


the ensemble—this is the way we must follow when we are still learning to compose. When we compose, on the contrary, we should commence by the whole, continue by the parts, and end in the details. Given a building project, we must first of all examine whether, according to the use for which the building is destined, all the parts that compose it should be joined or separate; and in consequence, whether it should offer in its plan a single mass or several masses. We must determine if the mass, or masses, should be full or emptied in the center by courtyards; if the building, no matter its disposition, should face the public street or should be separated from it by an enclosure; if all its parts are devoted to similar or different uses and, in consequence, should be treated in a similar or dissimilar fashion. Second, we examine which are the principal parts and the parts subordinated to these. The architect should determine what the number of principal and secondary parts should be and their respective sizes and situations. He should recognize, finally, whether the building should have only one story or several, or one floor in some sections and several in others.2 At the beginning of Durand’s passage we again find the requirement later stated by Viollet-le-Duc of conducting the design process from general matters to particulars. We also find the didactic indication that learning must follow the opposite direction: one should first become familiar with simple elements and their combinations to understand how they compose ensembles. At the beginning of his lessons, Durand warns us: “Elements are for Architecture as notes for music, as words for language; without a perfect knowledge of them it is impossible to advance.”3 In Durand’s text we find the word element and the classification of parts into “principal” and “secondary.” What Durand calls elements are the physical, constructive components of a building. He uses the term parts for the different spaces and their groupings, constituting what Viollet-le-Duc called the “different services” that compose a building. In a general sense, the word composition implies the notion of putting one thing next to another—that is, of relating parts to form a whole; deciding the relationship between those parts, creating a structure for the future building. The design method set forth by Durand at the beginning of the nineteenth century is not a revolutionary innovation. Rather, it is a legitimizing of the design practices in the decades before he taught his course. They can be characterized as a growing independence of the parts of buildings and a decrease in the perfect subordination of Baroque archi-

tecture, this supplanted by a new kind of structure in which components are relatively autonomous. There is then a progressive dissolution of the ties of traditional typology—a subject to which we will return. It is not only in architecture that we find this trend toward substituting the logical order of components for the formal subordination in which hierarchical order mimics the visible order of living organisms, as characterized classicism. It is in fact a movement that can be perceived throughout all culture, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Following this trend, any complex object is interpreted as an orderly grouping of relatively autonomous elements: What is the cognitive style intrinsic to technological production? It is important to stress that the cognitive style is fundamentally given in the relationship of this type of work to a machine process and the logic of the latter. It is not necessarily present in the consciousness of the worker in terms of this logic, in phenomenological terms, the cognitive style is not necessarily at hand in a thematizable form for the worker, but it provides the background of his thematizations. A strategic element in the cognitive style in question is componentiality. The components of reality are self-contained units which can be brought into relation with other such units— that is, reality is not conceived as an ongoing flux of juncture and disjuncture of unique entities. This apprehension of reality in terms of components is essential to the reproducibility of the production process as well as to the correlation of men and machines. Thus, everything is analyzable into constituent components, and everything can be taken apart and put together again in terms of these components.4 For the theory of architecture of the nineteenth century, which we can here consider as a single corpus made up of the writings of Durand and Viollet-le-Duc as earlier quoted, parts or components exist at two clearly differentiated levels, which belong to different moments of design practice. These correspond to the building conceived as an organization in space of useful rooms, the composition of parts or “elements of composition”; and the building as a construction of physical parts, the “elements of architecture.” Parts or elements of composition have been deduced from the decomposition of existing types, the isolation of individual rooms to create new groupings. Each room will have a usefulness of its own, and the ensemble will be the reason to design and build. Elements of architecture are the means to realize the limits of those spaces.

11 Design Processes


In any Art, before composing one must know what to compose with; as the composition of buildings is nothing more than the result of the assemblage of its parts, one must know these before dealing with the other. As these parts are nothing but a composition of the elements of building, those elements should be the first object of study. We shall deal with the elements of building—that is, isolated and nonisolated supports, walls, the different openings pierced in them, foundations and vaults. We shall later see how it is possible to arrange them one in relation to another. Then we shall see how it is possible by means of these combinations to produce the diverse parts of buildings, such as porticoes, porches, vestibules, stairs, halls of every class, courts, grottoes and fountains. When all these parts become rather familiar to us, we will see how these are combined in the composition of the ensemble of a building.5 By the end of the century, Julien Guadet’s book established a normalized terminology. The parts of buildings are called “elements of composition.” Addressing the student, this last great academic says: “As he has to construct his building with Elements of Architecture, so he must establish his composition with Elements of Composition.” The term composition does not apply to the development of the building’s form as a material object. It alludes to the general disposition of its spaces, a basic structure over which the work on form will later take place.

Academic Teaching At its outset, the curriculum of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which was to be imitated in most parts of the world for more than a century and a half, was centered on the instrumental mastery of architectural design as it was then understood. Some traits of this concept are: (a) The method affirmed the deductive character of design. The student had to produce a project, starting with a schematic design that had to be made in isolation (en loge) on the same day the student was introduced to the subject. This subject was stated at first in just a single line. In a few hours the student was expected to produce a general scheme (esquisse) fixing the overall composition. This involved deciding upon the disposition of the parts and volumes of the future building and not being allowed to depart greatly from this parti pris. The final design would thus be the development of a general decision taken in haste without any detailed study of the problem.

Fig. 3. Le Corbusier’s successive schemes for the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow. Here the same set of Elements of Composition produces different partis. From Oppositions 15/16

13 Design Processes

(b) This was a “training for unreality.” Graphic skill was overvalued; the final presentation would be of a design with a generally conservative disposition but finely rendered for consideration by a jury. The system was established by the middle of the eighteenth century, but only by  did detailed briefs gradually appear. Real sites were more the exception than the rule. Many generations of architects would graduate from the school before the pressures of reality forced the development of a written brief. Peter Collins registers as a historical date the year in which a project was rejected because it did not follow the demands of the brief.6


(c) Building science was not taught at all, or if taught, it was not up to date. At the very time when new iron structures were being introduced and developed, students of architecture were still accepting the old stone construction as valid, leaving in their section drawings blank areas where the real structural elements would be hidden. (d) From known and published examples it is easy to deduce that the elegance of plan drawings reflecting symmetry was valued over the practical merits of spatial distribution. Absolute symmetry was still the rule, only moderately challenged at the end of the century by Guadet. (e) “The materials with which the Ecole student composed were precisely congruent interior spaces and exterior volumes. The manner in which the student arranged the spaces and volumes was by grouping them along axes, symmetrically and pyramidally. The basic solution for the composition of a monumental building on an unencumbered site (the sort of building and site usually specified at the Ecole) was discovered almost at once: two axes embodied in two enfilades and intersecting at right angles at a major central space, the whole compressed inside a circumscribed rectangle.”7 (f) The invention of the architectural object, as a disposition of masses or volumes, was registered on paper in two dimensions; this would give birth to a plan as the result of the esquisse. The development of the esquisse within the discipline of a fixed style or in the loose catalog of eclecticism generated a sequence for the design process. Not only does this sequence go from the general scheme to the details; it promotes as a normal design sequence the successive consideration of projections, the plan being the first and leading projection. We should also bear in mind the indifference to structural form already mentioned; this reduces the interest in section and façade that will be drawn later as a verification of decisions taken in the plan. Three-dimensional characteristics are supposed to be implicit in the plan. Even Le Corbusier, a confirmed enemy of Beaux-Arts, agreed that “le plan est le générateur.” The same plan can be implemented with different elevations, as if the object the architect imagines could really be segmented in its projections and not in its parts. To consider the different projections as independent is tantamount to accepting that these are the parts of the project and that it is somehow “natural” that they should not coincide with the parts of the building we are imagining.

This way of considering composition is not limited to academic practice. The following quotation from a text by Renato de Fusco is a description of the design sequence of the Rationalist decade of –:

There is no doubt about the priority of the functional factor.The typical models of architecture and urbanism, the dwelling cell and zoning respectively, were schemes born out of function and function prevailed in their configuration. The functional scheme allowed for all hypotheses, elaborations and experiments suggested by function, leaving open many successive formal possibilities. Through intermediate factors, schemes and types, this process led from function to form. The different kinds of schemes led to another architectural category, that of typology. Types were still another field in which functions played the role of constants while forms were considered variable. If the scheme could be considered as a practical instrument to go operationally from function to form (this refers to the typical transformation of a bubble diagram of functions into a plan), typology both included and preceded the thematic phase of the design: it was even more remote from the formative phase of materialization. It should not be that Functionalists, having defined the schematic-type to be more adequate for the function, would admit that there was a wide margin between the schematic and its material, volumetric definition. On the other hand, having to materialize types and schematics, the suggestions provided by cubism, neoplasticism, constructivism and so on were appropriated.8 De Fusco is going to the core of the problem we have just described. For functionalists, as for academics, the plan is the basic scheme or element of the project. Over the plan forms will be raised, relatively indifferent to the influences of previous architectural styles. The principle influence over forms derives from contemporary art. Sometimes, as is the case with Le Corbusier, these forms appear in someone’s work as a painter before becoming elements in his architecture. It would be wrong to deny the importance of the formal revolution that took place in twentieth-century architecture. Liberation from styles was an important step toward a new architecture, but we should also observe that there was no equivalent revolution at the time in design practice. The Beaux-Arts system of teaching has a more general effect beyond the particularities surviving in other systems of learning that at first sight seem quite dissimilar. First of all, there is the general postulate that you learn to be an architect by producing a series of theoretical designs. Projects develop a conventionally growing complexity, without ever having a practical verification. A tight relation with other subjects taught in the schools dealing with the material aspects of building is not standardized and is still a matter for discussion among different groups of professors.

15 Design Processes


The Beaux-Arts system still constitutes the basic structure of the schools of architecture, although permanent tutorship has been incorporated into it. Tutorship inside the studio was an Anglo-Saxon contribution that gives present-day studios their character. Technical subjects have grown with the addition of all kinds of installations as well as the increase in perfection of the study of structures and materials. Other subjects have grown also, in parallel with their own independent development. This is the case for the history of architecture, which assumed a theoretical leadership in the s and s in many schools in the Western Hemisphere. None of the influences felt in the second part of the twentieth century have been able to displace the autonomous, selfcentered design studio created almost two centuries ago. It is still the axis around which the learning of architecture turns.

Composition as Distribution: The Early Nineteenth Century We are assuming as a fact that the disposition of the plan, the master element of composition, has been guided by functional considerations. This means that the useful organization of the ensemble will be the main reason to devise one kind of plan and to prefer it to an alternative. We also suppose that this useful organization of parts has been deduced from a detailed study of the brief. The study of the brief will have been conducted in the stages described by De Fusco, through the mediation of a bubble diagram. Such a description might be valid for many designs of the first part of the twentieth century, but it is not true for the beginning of the age of elemental composition. Another description of the design procedures, once again taken from Durand’s Précis, shows us the differences. Durand exemplifies his recommended design process with the design of a building he summarizes as devoted “to the reunion of the wise, men of letters and artists”: Having recognized that such a building must have only one mass, and that this mass should be complete (meaning: without courtyards); that the building can be conveniently located in the center of a public square; that many of its parts must be similar and others different; that among the last, the hall for public assembly is the main one; that the parts for the three classes and the common vestibule are the next in importance; that each class demands three assembly halls of equal importance; then by a conventional sign the center of the public assembly hall will be determined somewhere, as in point A. From it the two main axes of the building will be traced by hand, as the lines BB and BB. On four points of these

axes, such as B, B, B and B, and at equal distances, by a conventional sign we will indicate the center of the place for each one of the classes and the common vestibule. The axes of these parts should be then traced. Finally, on each of these secondary axes, we will mark the middle point of the halls for each section, with the letters b, b, b, b, b, b, at equal distance from the points B, B, B and B. Having in this way indicated the number and situation of the main parts of this edifice, we will deal now with the disposition of accessory parts.9 If we are unwilling to accept this procedure, wholly dependent on symmetry, as the appropriate way of obtaining a parti, we will be acting correctly as twentieth-century functionalists. We would want the disposition of parts to be guided by rational considerations instead of repeating existing monumental configurations. We would reject the a priori formal relations of parts and demand a better composition of its elements, probably expressing function in what we would consider a more vivid way. It is not in academic teaching that we will find the model for this freer composition. In the nineteenth century there is another architecture that is a bridge between the early, Durandesque formal composition and the liberation of the disposition of elements of composition of the twentieth century. A change in the ideals of architectural form was needed to allow for the liberation of the parti, and it was provided by the Picturesque movement. For the Picturesque, vernacular architecture was an inspiration that would supplant the rigid, monumental composition inherited from the Renaissance. In such a “free” style, total symmetry is abandoned, as is the concept of unity produced by the total subordination of elements.

Composition as Distribution in the Twentieth Century During composition the parts of the building are determined; these parts are the inhabitable spaces, and their relative position is fixed by drawings. Some spatial dispositions are recurrent in design processes and it may be useful to relate them to general notions. The proximity of the parts in a plan generally indicates the need to circulate freely from one to another; in modern buildings it often indicates a similitude in the use of these rooms. The idea of “zoning” a building is implicit in Violletle-Duc’s designation of such clusters of rooms as “different services,” as discussed earlier. Zoning becomes almost automatic in routine functionalism, grouping rooms of similar use even if they are not to be used in

17 Design Processes

Fig. 4. The approach necessary for the execution of any project. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from Durand, Précis


any foreseeable sequence of acts. Viollet-le-Duc’s conception of a “service” was more adequate than mechanical zoning. By itself, proximity is a pregeometric, topological characteristic. We can find it in the groupings of single-room dwellings, be they tents in a modern camping area or villages of remote tribes. Proximity becomes a problem in composition when many rooms compete for proximity to a privileged one or for access to outside space. Clustering rooms produces a conflict between proximity and accessibility; but this last only enters the problematic field when we have many-roomed buildings, and in the former example it is outside space that takes care of access to each “unit.” We may imagine that this exterior is the origin of public space as we know it, and some authors have studied in detail the progressive growth of more complex urban systems.10 Accessibility leads to the consideration of distribution, which as we have seen was already established as one of the problems of architectural design. The word distribution alludes to the idea of a space considered as somehow unified; parts are distributed in that space, or the space available is distributed between them. The existence of many different rooms is the expression of a multiplicity of uses. A certain set of specialized rooms constitutes, for a moment in time, the program of a class of buildings. Only in the nineteenth century was it accepted that different architectural programs demand building forms that are greatly different. This difference lies not only in the “services” and their grouping but also in the image these buildings show to the public. Thus, a new meaning for the term character as the image of the different programs supplants the old “character as temperament” of the eighteenth century.11 In the nineteenth century, architectural programs multiplied in accordance with social, technical, and scientific evolution. This process was accelerated not only by the appearance of hitherto nonexistent building types but also by a change in cultural orientation toward utilitarianism. In this sense the early nineteenth century is already a part of our time. The progressive appearance of functionalism as the dominant ideology of the twentieth century is heralded by the primacy given to the program by Viollet-le-Duc. The notion of distribution implies dividing the spaces of a building according to their use and defining a special class of spaces that give access to all others. Circulation spaces will become a special class of elements of composition, created to accomplish accessibility and at the same time marking the appearance of privacy. As we have noted, accessibility becomes problematic as the number of parts and their relations increases—this number is the definition of

19 Design Processes


complexity in systems theory. The increase in difficulty of distribution is greater if what grows is the number of relations, and not the number of parts subject to the same relation. Because of this, the differentiation and hierarchy of circulation makes its appearance; it was practically unknown in the seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century a new conceptualization was on the rise: the building was conceived as subordinated to its internal circulation network; this network became the main part to be designed. Main spaces were in fact elements annexed to this circulation network, rooms strategically located by the sides of corridors. If we look at a succession of plans of complex buildings from  to , we shall see the gradual birth of that new entity, the circulation network within the building. This new interpretation of the building with a circulation network as the basic structure of form allows for a new interpretation of type. A typology of functions is born, having its foundation in the differences in circulation between different kinds of buildings. Still another functional typology can be perceived: one based in the shapes of elements of composition according to their internal needs. Examples of this are the shapes of opera halls or concert halls, derived from acoustic factors. Some of the most brilliant examples of architectural composition in the twentieth century present both kinds of configuration, the overall structuring in accordance with circulation and the specialized configuration of some parts. A progressive abstraction is involved in the gradual liberation of the circulation system. It is first a group of parts included in the general layout of the plan. Gradually the circulation system gains continuity and geometrical identity; finally it becomes optimized and a typology of circulation systems emerges. Those may be applied in the design of very dissimilar kinds of programs, often remote from the type that gave them birth. This process has been fostered by Louis Kahn’s theory about servant and served spaces—an echo of Durand’s principal and accessory parts. An example of the autonomous growth of circulation spaces can be found in the plan schemes devised for flexible hospitals in the s and s; for a short time these schemes became a model for many other building programs. Another instance is the urban metaphor, in which urban circulation models are employed for complex buildings (as in the Berlin Free University plan by Candilis, Josic and Woods, a very influential example in the s). The Metabolist trend in Japanese architecture produced many designs for city buildings where the circulation and structural system were explicitly the fixed elements of the scheme and habitable spaces formed changing additions to this skeleton.

Fig. 5. Berlin Free University by Candilis, Josic, and Woods, 1964. This design can be read either as an analogy with the square-blocked colonial city or as an extension of Durand’s compositive method, a pattern of circulation that feeds functionally disparate spaces. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo

21 Design Processes

Fig. 6. School of Engineering at Leicester University, England, Stirling and Gowan, architects, 1959–63. Courtesy J. Wojtowicz and W. Fawcett, Architecture: Formal Approach, 1985 22 The Architectural Project

This approach to distribution is characteristic of contemporary architecture and can be called “additive composition.” It has its origin in the eighteenth century and constitutes the main practice of the BeauxArts tradition. However, we can find in twentieth-century architecture many examples of the opposite procedure, of which some of the more obvious are the latest work of Mies van der Rohe: buildings like Crown Hall at Illinois Institute of Technology or the National Gallery in Berlin. In “subtractive composition,” parts for different uses are defined within a preconceived limit, generally of a pure geometrical shape. In such layouts the possibilities of freedom for the circulation network are severely

Fig. 7. Le Corbusier’s second floor plan for the Villa á Garches, 1927, showing subtractive and subdivisive compositions. From Oppositions 15/ 16. This Cottage Picturesque shows an additive, relatively indeterminate plan composition. Redrawn by Libertad Vigo from Cloquet, Traité d’Architecture

Fig. 8. Charles Percier’s A Building for Assembling the Academies. Compare with the proposal by Durand as the approach to designing any building. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from Arthur Drexler, ed., The Architecture of the Ecole 23 de Beaux-Arts Design Processes

limited. The total form of the building is given more importance than the particularities of the circulation scheme as a definer of form. In many normal cases, the combinations of the parts and the whole are designed according to different types of composition. Parts of the ensemble organized “subtractively” are combined in an “additive” whole. A famous example is the scheme of the Bauhaus building designed by Gropius and Meyer. Regular parts have simple structural dispositions and a more economical perimeter wall, compared to purely additive compositions. We should remember that in the practical conditions of many cities, where buildings fill the width of lots from one party-wall to another, a maximum volume allowed by regulations has to be filled by the designer, who is therefore obliged to undertake a “subtractive composition” within that volume. It is as if the classical prejudice in favor of compact, regular built volumes has been perpetuated in building regulations. The growth in the importance of circulation and the subsequent study of circulation networks produces the conceptual identification of

a “circulation determination” within the composition as a whole. This conceptualization is remote from the origin of the term and represents the hypertrophy of one of the aspects of design. However, it should be borne in mind that an autonomous circulation system makes its appearance at a very early date in “school architecture”; it is in Charles Percier’s design for the Grand Prix de Rome of . Van Zanten describes Percier’s design:


Percier’s configuration was something new in the Renaissance tradition and introduced possibilities important to the Beaux-Arts composition. The reduction of almost all spaces to rectangles adhering to a continuous modular grid greatly increased the ease with which they might be combined and manipulated. Furthermore, the rectangle-within-rectangle figure produced a system of communication quite different from that of the Renaissance and Baroque enfilade. It introduced a web of multiple readings over the surface of the plan and created a system of secondary axes along the lines of juncture of the principal spaces of the enfilades. These secondary axes also became lines of movement and of sight—a phenomenon vividly demonstrated by a visit to the Panthéon (the church of Ste. Geneviève by Soufflot)—enfilades of a sort, not monumental, but of varied and rather picturesque spaces between the monumental spaces. And these secondary axes were also, conveniently but secondarily, corridors. The rectangle-withinrectangle figure and the overlapping of the outer rectangles introduced the possibility of the separation of functioning spaces and communications, which by the time of Guadet () had become one of the cardinal rules of Beaux-Arts composition.12

CHAPTER 2

Description Generation

It is the function and duty of lineaments, then, to prescribe an appropriate place, exact numbers, a proper scale, and a graceful order for whole buildings and for each of their constituent parts, so that the whole form and appearance of the building may depend on lineaments alone. Since that is the case, let lineaments be the precise and correct outline, conceived in the mind, made up of lines and angles, and perfected in the learned intellect and imagination. Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books

Design is the description of an object that does not exist before that description. This description is achieved by successive approximations. The first descriptions refer to the behavior of the new object in the world— the contextual relationships it has to enter, the needs it has to satisfy. These descriptions are verbal or written and parts of them will be registered in the design program. After this approach some graphic attempts are made to suggest the kind of object intended. These graphic attempts simulate the kind of drawings usually made to represent existing buildings, but the building represented will be new, with characteristics of its own. The result of the design process is an object, or rather the description of an object. This description consists of an ensemble of analogical representations: drawings, models, and specifications about the materials proposed for the building. The invention of the object is achieved through the use of these “representations” of the as yet nonexistent object. The representations are coded not very precisely in a graphic system, the syntax of which “resembles” that of the drawings that will be made for building. Each new representation is commenced to solve an aspect of the

25 Description Generation


problem as perceived by the designer upon beginning that particular drawing or model. The designer’s understanding of the problem changes with completion of each of these tentative solutions. Producing each drawing results in a representation in which the designer reads more information than he or she introduced. This new information deals with possible spatial configurations, compatibilities or incompatibilities between partial solutions, and new formal proposals. In the process, the designer also finds unexpected kinds of kinship in the growing solution with other already familiar but for the moment forgotten, architectures recalled, which that from now on will constitute a part of the context of the new design. Michael Graves said, “That a certain set of marks on a field can play back into one’s mind and consequently bring forth further elaboration is the nature of this quite marvelous language.” Ideally, the process will continue by increasing the definition of the object. As the graphic syntax becomes more precise, the possible number of objects represented by the models is reduced; in the end it comes down to a single one. Each drawing added to the growing project implies discarding many possibilities that are no longer compatible with this new drawing. The new drawing also opens many options for the development of the final object; among these possibilities the designer must choose. The final complete representation of the architectural object, then, is not only a determination but also the elimination of other future objects that will not be born. If from the beginning we try to represent the object as if we were sure of it, either the process will fail completely or the new object will be impoverished. This also happens when the designer concentrates on a single projection—usually the plan—and expects to have the plan fully defined before tackling the other projections. Premature definition can likewise result if we try to draw what little we know with precision. In that case the object would “crystallize” too fast, losing its flexibility to incorporate into the design all the aspects of the brief, because only some aspects will have been taken into account in arriving at a first scheme or parti. This could occur either because we extrapolated what appeared to be the essence of the program (as in Viollet-le-Duc’s account) or because in response to the proliferation of requirements, we may have paid attention only to the most evident. If we pay attention only to the plan, we will likely produce a scheme with walls, which will satisfy only the most elementary connections and measurements. This is the meaning of Viollet-le-Duc’s criticism of the first schemes of his architect, which he calls “clumsy” and in which “the seams are too visible.”

Fig. 9. Studies for the design of a church by Baldassarre Peruzzi. The simultaneous development of the work in plan, interior perspectives, and detail drawings can be seen here. From Manfredo Tafuri, L’Architettura del Manierismo nel 27 Cinquecento Description Europeo Generation

The plan produces the illusion of control over three-dimensional reality; an illusion that the student is too quick to fall for. Control over all three dimensions is quite difficult for the student, and the plan is misleading. It can be misleading for buildings of large scale, where the intuitive grasp of the designer tends to fail. This happens often in urban design. In urban design projects, where the size of the “object” to be controlled is quite different from that of a single building, even experienced architects make serious mistakes due to this habit of controlling the object from the plan.


The analogic pressure is stronger in the functionalist project, because it acts like a “hidden operator.” In the functionalist project, the formal result of the design is unforeseeable. Also, the graphic medium is stronger here in its power to define the shape of the future building. Once this influence is discovered, the argument of this book springs into view. “Means of representation” are seen not to be neutral at all, nor merely instrumental. The alternative to the functionalist project, the traditional employment of typological precedents, reduces this dependence on graphic media. The schemes selected are in fact synthetic references to classes of existing buildings that may even be known firsthand. The complete separation of design and construction in the teaching of architecture makes the influence of representation over design even stronger. In spite of the fact that very few designs are free from typological precedents, when taught, these precedents more often crop up as drawings or photographs than as the experience of real buildings. This may appear to be a problem of our time. However, we can see that it was already present by the late s: “Very little profit will be obtained by those who study the design of ancient buildings without seeing the works themselves; bigger or smaller height, distances, the angle under which the building is seen, and so many other factors can give it an appearance entirely different from that represented for our eyes by drawing.”1 For a better understanding of the mistakes produced by premature object definition it is useful to return to the subject of the kinds of representation we employ and to inquire into the links these representations have with the world of objects. Let us insist on the project as an ensemble of representations of a nonexistent object. Representation is perhaps not the right word, as there is no actual object as yet to represent. It is more a case of imagination pretending to represent an object as though it did exist. This fictive nature of the project is more acute in the design studio; the teacher’s role is to comment on the imaginary object and to modify it with criticism. As the object is in the making, hypotheses pile one on another when the teacher evaluates the qualities of a “building” as if it were real and part of an actual context. In fact, what the teacher sees is the transient, mutable register of a moment in a creative process. There is in operation a convention that endows the transient with the character of the irrevocable; this can be shown by comparing the status of the drawings made for the survey of an existing building with those of a design in progress. Even if they display the same precision with respect to the definition of the object represented, distinct differences are present:

Fig. 10. Studies for the Neuestaatsgallerie in Stuttgart, Germany by James Stirling and Michael Wilford, 1977– 84. From The Architectural Review


Survey

→

Necessary relation

→

Design (project)

→

Conventional, modifiable relation

→

to a real, physical object to an imaginary object

The representations on the left are joined by a syntax; that is, they must be correctly constructed expressions of the same “language” or graphic convention: the graphic convention used to represent three-


dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface, such as a sheet of paper. The plans in the survey must be consistent with one another, plans and section and elevations, as well as with the object described. The plans of the project must also have concordance between the different projections—that is, in syntax—but as they do not denote any object of the real world, they can be modified indefinitely as long as the syntactic laws of the graphic system are respected. If the plans representing the survey have less than complete coincidence with the real object, they are false. That can never be said of design plans. At most, if the different projections lack coincidence, they can be called “impossible” or said to represent an object that cannot be brought into being. If we modify the plans, we are at the same time modifying the ideal object. These modifications constitute what we call “development of a project.” We should keep in mind that the goal of the design process, from a practical point of view, is to produce a description of the object that can be understood and accepted by clients, in the first instance; and then by the builder who will later give it material form. The codes of representation accepted for the second task, communication with those who will build the design, tend to be used also for other purposes of communication. In the last two centuries they have become the universal representation of architecture. Perhaps they will be displaced by computer graphics, which in the past few years have introduced other, more naturalistic representations for the consideration of clients and potential building users. Composition in architecture consists of the manipulation of entities to which the value of a sign is given. These entities are disposed one in relation to another over the surface of the paper. Their disposition depicts or “means” something similar to three-dimensional entities in space in the real world. Sometimes it is a three-dimensional model that refers to a larger reality. In both cases, the entities employed are not strictly “signs” because they designate open classes of objects. The extension of the class meant by the graphic sign can change suddenly through a minor change in the drawing. The marks indicating elements of composition are perimeters that can be modified; they are the suggestions of rooms or areas that still lack precise limits. These representations operate over ideation itself. The provisional fixation of a design idea is made visible by such systems of marks on paper. If we were to observe an architect designing, we might say that this involved describing an object in a code that lacks precision. This code will gradually converge into another, more precise and conventional one, the code of working drawings.

In order to save time, the architect designs from the beginning in the “same language” as will later be used to translate the design. This language is a system of conventions that can be understood by third parties, all those who share the codes derived from projective geometry. In this way, an identity is achieved between the languages of the first and last steps of the design process. The architect engaged in this process is socializing the creative activity, by externalizing it step by step, as though still in the architectural studio where learning to design involved revealing every stage of the effort to an assistant or a professor. That architect is also working like an artisan, feeling from the very first moment that the work engages with the material from which the object will be made. The plans constitute this material.2 It is from the beginning, then, that the final reading code is introduced into the process, as though the ideation preexisted, purely mental and independent of successive graphic traces. Yet it is not so; we have seen the designer making and modifying a series of diagrams. In spite of this, designers will not accept that their ideas have participated in dialog with their own inanimate creation. They will say that their drawings are impossible for anyone but themselves to interpret, and that the diagrams they trace are no more than verifications of partial aspects of the problem. And they will probably also deny that these seemingly casual traces may have provided them with a guide to the final form of a project. Designers will not accept this influence because they believe drawings and models are simply the vehicles of a content they will perhaps call “mental images.” They will have formed in their minds images of the buildings before even looking for pencil and paper. Perhaps we should not embark on a discussion about the existence and quality of mental images. It will be enough to say that in the case of a project in the making, a mental image is enriched by successive partial appearances. These are embodied in the drawings made by the architect alongside the design process. In each of those a new formulation of the design is set forth, and a new mental image is sure to appear on the screen of the mind. Image 1

→

Diagram 1

→

Image 2

→

Diagram 2, etc.

→

We can accept that if the drawings are subject to a code and this is established and strong, any drawing will have a large proportion of the syntactic components of the code, perhaps more important than the specific demands of the brief. If we take into account that the design process develops over a long period—days and sometimes months—the


continuity of these drawings in their socialized code, a pile of tracing paper on the design table, will be more effective than the fleeting mental images from which they spring. Very few architects have made concrete references to this process. The following anecdote in an article by Michael Graves is a distinct exception:


In a recent, rather tedious faculty meeting, I made a number of marks on my pad which resembled the beginnings of a plan organization. After making several passes at my drawing, I found that I had reached an impasse. I handed the pad to a colleague who added a corresponding number of marks and returned it to me. The game was on, the pad was passed back and forth, and soon the drawing took a life of its own, each mark setting implications for the next. The conversation through drawing relied on a set of principles or conventions commonly held but never made explicit: suggestions of order, distinctions between passage and rest, completion and incompletion. We were careful to make each gesture fragmentary in order to keep the game open to further elaboration. The scale of the drawing was ambiguous, allowing it to read as a room, a building, or a town plan. After each of us had taken several turns we realized that the drawing had once again faltered. A third colleague was brought in. He casually dropped in a rather large stair on his first move: the ambiguity was lost. It seemed that either the game had been so well understood that the jump in scale had reversed the rules, or that the third player had missed the point altogether and his set of marks had subverted the preceding ones. In either case, the speculative aspect of the original drawing could not absorb the shift of meaning which the figure of the stair produced. The game was over.3 In Graves’s anecdote, the nonexistent object is attained by the modification of its “representation.” It is ideally modified, but the two alternate designers cannot see immediately after each modification if it is possible for the object to continue developing. There is doubt about whether the object is still coherent, even if some properties of the new object envisaged by one of the designers have not been canceled by the other. After each intervention there is a sort of taking stock, a revision of achievement and damage. The power to modify the object through representation is fearful. It is the possibility of spoiling everything, the possibility of degrading the new object instead of perfecting it. There is a new tool that allows us to see this power dramatically: graphic computing. With this tool we can make almost instant changes

in the object we are beginning to imagine. We operate on the screen over an object we create, which behaves almost as real objects do. We can modify one of the projections on the screen. Magically the other projections follow and adapt to the change. The trial-and-error process of architectural invention is accelerated by this slave that accepts changes in things and portrays the consequences, increasing the designer’s power over the incipient object. Each new tool for representation has two faces. It makes easy a task hitherto difficult or even impossible—and therefore ignored or left aside. It opens new horizons and at the same time subjects us to its own rules. All we have said has meaning only in the modern domain of design and in the way an architect is trained within the tradition we have inherited, a tradition we carry on. Let us for a moment recall its traits. The project is an analogic model of the future building, preceding it in time and executed within conventions in a predominantly graphic medium. The model is discontinuous from the reality of the future building, be it considered as an object or as the environment of human life. Learning to become an architect consists of passing through a succession of fictive design processes under the guidance of an expert, making designs for buildings that may never exist. The question of the means of representation in architecture is that of using them for our goals without becoming an unwitting victim of what looks better in drawings. The plan exerted great fascination as an instrument for distribution; the cost was that composition became distribution. Buildings ceased being aesthetic compositions and became “wrapped distributions.” Robin Evans writes: “In the Renaissance, perspective permitted the exact control of the appearance of internal spaces. The cost of this new tool was that, for a long time, interior spaces became just like one-point perspective drawings. Descriptive geometry was a mathematician’s generalization of architectural drawing, the powers of which were vastly increased in some respects and reduced in others. Pictures became more abstract, losing much of their illustrative character as solid bodies dissolved into a nexus of trace lines. Ageometric bodies could not be represented, but on the other hand a wider range of more complex geometric figures and their intersections could be represented with much greater ease.”4 Computer systems allow us to use their power to see our designs in perspective and even in the dynamic perspective of animation. Gone are the days spent in search of the best viewpoint and the tedious geometrical



constructions. Although computer perspectives are universally inferior to those drawn by hand, these new systems reveal their own tyranny over our imagination. Representation has many virtues. Innocence and neutrality are not among them. Each work of architecture carries the marks of the means of representation by which it was created. Surely it would not be possible to avoid analogic models in the creation of buildings. It is not a question of avoiding being conditioned by media. What we should do is be conscious of the existence of media conditioning. This has two goals: first, not to lose sight of the external relations of the architectural object, the reasons for its existence. We have a tendency to be fascinated by intrinsic, formal relations of parts within the objects we create, in emulation of artists and artisans; and second, not to mistake the formal relations that appear in representation for those which are valid for the real buildings and spaces. I have already suggested that with the complete representation of the project in the Renaissance, architecture achieved something like the era of writing achieved for language. This analogy can be shown explaining the consequences writing had for language: Sound and sight, speech and print, eye and ear have nothing in common. The human brain has done nothing that compares in complexity with this fusion of ideas involved in linking up the two forms of language. But the result of this fusion is that once it is achieved in our early years, we are for ever after unable to think clearly, independently and surely about any one aspect of the matter. We cannot think of sounds without thinking of letters; we believe letters have sounds. We think that the printed page is a picture of what we say. . . . The speaker or writer can now hardly conceive of language, except in printed or written form.5 The quotation is from H. J. Chaytor, as quoted in Marshall McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy. McLuhan declares that Chaytor’s From Script to Print is “a book to which the present one owes a good deal of its reason to be written.”6 I would add a similar statement, this time regarding McLuhan’s work. His conception in Understanding Media of the “Narcissus myth” as the complete subjugation of the whole of conscience by one single sense was revealing. And the paragraph quoted here contains the clue to my argument about representation if we substitute for a few of the words: the architect can now scarcely conceive of representation except in drawings.

Fig. 11. A design for a centralized-plan building by G. B. Montano including plan, perspectival section, and partial façade. The building is conceived as an object over which the designer has complete control. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo 35 from Tafuri, L’Architettura Description del Manierismo nel Generation Cinquecento Europeo

Drawing—representation—creates another world, and the artist is prone to believing it is more real than reality. Artists are magicians who fall for their own magic. Consider what Michelangelo wrote: “Sometimes I imagine that among men there is no art and science other than drawing and painting, from which all others come. Considering all we do in this life, I think that each one without knowing it is painting the world. This he does by producing new forms and figures, but also when dressing


and when occupying space with buildings and houses; when working the earth according to a design; when sailing the seas, when fighting with weapons, and finally in funerals and death; in most of our actions, feats and movements.”7 Each architectural conception, every architecture we can imagine, will be a prisoner of the medium we use for imagining. The prison is not in architecture itself; it is in the representation. If you paint a picture, it can be a representation of the thing itself. But when you draw a plan of a building, it is not the real thing. It is an “intermediary object,” as Norberg Schulz calls it. Musical notation is not music itself but the convention for representing music, a “blueprint.” Beethoven was deaf: he could write music using the pentatonic scale. He had to guess what the sound would be like. But music is more conventional than architecture—at least, it was in Beethoven’s day—and he had not been born deaf. He was a composer before he became deaf. Students of architecture have never built anything, but in a sense they are asked to write a musical score. They are worse off than Beethoven. As architects acquire real experience, they make an effort to overcome the difficulties imposed by this intermediate language. They try to make their architecture against representation. They must go beyond representation to reach architecture itself. This is the opposite of the situation of the student. While learning to design, students willingly erect around themselves the prison of representation. It is the way they have of speaking the language of those in the know: they are obliged to make their statements in that language. While the language remains alien for them, they cannot make it “say” what they want. In the beginning the language will “speak its own mind” and the students’ own conceptions will almost disappear, eclipsed by the syntactic code. This code is more real than their desires and their imagination. And if representation takes flight, if perfection in representation is more important than the links with represented reality, the students’ attention and devotion will be bestowed on images and not on real architecture. Architecture and representation have stronger links in the world of values than do architecture and construction. And the links of representation and use are even less strong. The graphic harmony of the project— architectural calligraphy—feeds on other kinds of graphic harmony, on painting and graphic design, assimilating and integrating them in an old tradition. The geometric tradition of architecture is much older than descriptive geometry. Can we untie this knot, which seems to be identical with architectural culture? We probably cannot, but it is our duty to give it a new life, to transmute it. We have to remember that until some two centuries ago,

great buildings were the prototype and model of human achievement. Buildings were the privileged artifacts, the largest and most enduring. The design practices for other kinds of objects were born mostly from the way architecture is designed. Even the geometry that until not so long ago was enough to explain the universe was born and developed together with architecture. It was perhaps created for architecture. Today another world of artificial objects, produced by different methods and conceived for a world of dynamism, has displaced the static permanence of architecture. Architecture is a cultural relic—and not because humankind has succeeded in freeing itself from the artificial environment, which has never been so vast. It is a cultural relic because the media we use to imagine the buildings, as well as those employed to bring them into being, are both in crisis, and we do not have a replacement. We are no longer designing for eternity; but we use the same methods to design and very similar ones to build. Our goal in design is not only the beauty of the object; we try to improve the net of relations between society and its physical environment. However, we try to achieve this new goal using the same media devised in the Renaissance to produce and to define Beauty. The media used to design architecture and the values we attribute to architecture developed together. Their correspondence was not problematic as either could be seen alternatively as a value and the representation of a value. Perhaps the best demonstration of the loss of value in these media is that we have discovered their presence. Our design procedures were there all the time, during the lapse in which the architects of the nineteenth century went through the gamut of the meanings that one could attribute to architecture without substantially modifying it. To make architecture and to make it using a certain graphic code were one and the same thing. Only in the twentieth century did we perceive that what we can represent as architecture cannot at all show the evolution of the object through time, the changing relations of the building and its context in time. Our representation techniques are unable to control very large dimensions that were hitherto beyond the designer’s scope; the only precedent we can claim for large scale lies in the times of absolute kings, when architects subjected territorial extensions to the same simple geometry of royal edifices. Our means are also insufficient to account for the perception of architecture by its users, as we have had to acknowledge that perspective was not the mirror of reality but only one of the visual components of that perception. Perspective mirrors only a part of reality, a fixed point of view that has been much criticized in the twentieth century by proponents of “serial vision.” The other aspects of space



perception—temperature, air movement, kinesthetics—are excluded from the fixed viewpoint and visual basis of perspective. Architecture in the twentieth century has become loaded with mechanisms providing heating, cooling, air, and light. We are forced to admit that these appear in our drawings only as machines and ducts, things that occupy space. Their effects are not represented in our drawings. The “built environment,” if it is to supplant “architecture,” has certainly not yet found its graphic correlation. No matter how much we architects pay lip service to these intangibles—I should say “undrawables”—still, we try to keep our domain within the limits of the drawing. It is there that we feel at ease, claiming the essence of architecture to be in values we can control in drawings, like proportion, clear lines, harmonious façades, and similar virtues. This graphic product freed from the hindrances of reality is transmitted intact from one country to another, from one magazine to another. It is transmitted instantly by the World Wide Web; it is ever more available. When somebody finally achieves the goal of giving material existence to those images that transmit architectural ideas, the resulting building is already well known through those images. It offers only a verification of an “old” image. Architecture used to be the prototype of permanence. Through the diffusion of its representations it has entered the circle of fashion. Buildings, however, are not produced in quantity, or so quickly as to belong effectively to the world of consumption. Only through the medium of print can architecture enter the world of premature obsolescence. In this way, architects will design without conviction something that they know will be dated before it gets built. Conversely, other architects will try to escape the tyranny of Time by reducing architecture to a play of simple Platonic volumes; those are expected to be eternal. The graphic codes of architecture possess great precision for defining a physical object. This object is unreal in the design stage; but it is clearly one and only one object. Here lies the great strength of design— but also the difficulty of assimilating values other than those of the aesthetic object. From this springs an inversion of the design process, one we take for granted. In the beginning of the design process, the designer’s conjectures are focused on the behavior of inhabitants in the future building. These conjectures lead to preformations, to the adoption of elements previously subject to a typification. They also lead to the adoption of distribution schemes in a space as yet unclear that develops within seemingly available limits. In the beginning this is an organization as shapeless as possible. It is as yet quite far from the development of form and from the precision of materiality. After a certain moment, this informal

Fig. 12. Progetto Venezia by Patricia Rabino and Alfonso Corona-Martínez, architects, 1984. The design sketch as a conciliation of site data with a typological repertoire assumed for the parti. Used with permission of the author


scheme will find its parti, its synthetic diagram. From that moment onward, a long return into the world of geometry as applied to architecture begins. Through successive representations, the incipient object is reintegrated into the domain of geometry. From the parti on, the process becomes deductive, firmly guided by the laws of representation. These laws help it “to become.” They also decide what it will be.


CHAPTER 3

Design Education

In schools of architecture we find subjects called “Architectural Design,” “Design,” or as was usual in the past, “Architectural Composition.” All these course titles point to a single although varied reality: the design studio. The design studio is where the student learns to design; and design is considered the key activity for an architect. Therefore, the studio is the most important piece in the set of subjects; the essential activity, offering the main chance for the future architect to become a good designer. Other courses in a school of architecture are usually termed theoretical. This means that studio is deemed to be practical: the student will “feed” on the other subjects in order somehow to translate this wide spectrum of knowledge into the only thing that matters, design. The design studio can be a single unit that accompanies all the other subjects throughout the whole curriculum: this is the “vertical studio” that brings to the present the traditional atelier of the Ecole des BeauxArts. In the Beaux-Arts, the student entered the atelier of a “patron” and usually remained there during all the formative years.1 The student’s designs would bear the imprint of that particular master; the hope was that this would lead the student to win the coveted Grand Prix de Rome, which would assure a career as a designer of state architecture. In modern schools this continuity is rarely the case. The student goes through a succession of studios, sometimes spanning one or two years of the period of schooling but more usually only a semester.

Simulation However, the practice itself is very similar in all cases. The student— sometimes a group of students—produce a simulation of a real design for a building. This will happen time and again in successive studios. The same professors and assistants who guide and follow the development of the design conduct the evaluation of it. In some cases ad hoc juries decide on the value of the design, evoking the Beaux-Arts prix

41 Design Education


d’émulation. Gaining the favor of the jury or obtaining a good mark from the professor gets the student promoted to the next level. Juries and evaluations take the place of theoretical exams, of which there are none in the usual design training. Studio is considered an essential part of the architect’s training. The key activity of the architect is represented in the studio where he or she designs buildings. In spite of this, seldom do we find a specific doctrine expounded in the studio. It is a case of learning by doing, because you learn to design objects by designing objects. That is, you learn about something in the exercise of that something.2 What matters in the studio is not having knowledge but being able to deploy that knowledge (which often remains implicit) in the design product. It is not a discursive knowledge but one that experts identify in the product and approve of when acting as a jury. Design knowledge makes its presence felt in practice, or rather in the simulation of practice. It is an incomplete practice in which design and construction are “naturally” separated, still following the Renaissance conception of architecture. If we believe that architecture resides in every building and can be identified in the project, it follows that in the process of making that project, everything meaningful for architecture will somehow happen in the design studio. Through the minds of the students and over their drawing boards must pass everything that is relevant for architecture. It is not enough to learn the routines of a practice the student still cannot master. Students must also learn there, and through the same medium, what architecture is or should be. The autonomy of the project as a substitute for “live” architecture reaches a maximum in schools of architecture. Students are set apart from the environment in which they live, from that with which they are familiar. This is judged to be “bad architecture.” Experience cannot overcome the good examples of modern architecture. After graduating, students have a mission: to impose upon reality a parallel world of Architect’s Architecture, which they know mainly through representations. If they fail, they become skeptics: they have not succeeded in imposing the Good. If they are successful, it is because they have imposed over their own environment an exotic product that is perhaps rejected even in the land of its origin. Instead of knowing what there is in a particular environment and trying to design the evolution of that environment, the prospective architect is led to adopt fashionable forms. Although buildings belong to the place where they are built, teaching—at least in the informal sense—does not help students to understand this simple fact. Projects, the designs made in the studio, are not simply drawings of buildings according to usual conventions. They are simulations of a de-

sign produced in answer to real demand. But in fact they are only a part of the real process of design, abstracted and deformed in the act of being separated from other requirements; finally they become self-sufficient. The would-be designer finds out about a “real” design problem and undertakes a design process; this will produce the description of the building that would “solve the problem.” The student has a counselor or mentor who helps, as if the student were intended to face the prospective client. In fact the mentor is the client. The “other client” seldom appears on the scene. Clients who did appear would be confronted with representations of objects quite far from what they imagined—perfected “for architecture,” not for clients’ personal needs. The design responds to the dialog between the student, who is learning architecture, and the tutor/pro-fessor, who knows a lot about the subject. It is common to forget the strict demands of the brief somewhere along the way. After all, it was only a pretext. The modern academic design process shares many of the shortcomings of the Beaux-Arts routine. Both lead to the formal perfection of the building instead of dwelling on the intricacies of professional practice. The formal values of architecture have changed since , and theory declares them to be of secondary use; the design procedure that led to the perfection of form is still in command. Unity is required of a design; so it must be “complete.” Every design assignment is done starting with a problem conceived as a whole: from this intuition of the whole, the project has to be created. Very seldom will we find parts of a building as a design subject. That would not be adequate, as the new project is considered proof of the student’s creativity. His or her artistic personality is reflected in it. Selfrealization as an artist is a strong component in the student’s selection of this career. Beginning from the whole product—the complete design of a building—means that the student is expected to produce a model of a building that would satisfy a real program in the real world. Projects are made in answer to needs described by analogy with others known in the social milieu where we are teaching. So the general pattern remains: you learn to be an architect through the imaginary design of buildings, buildings that will never get built but will be judged as if realized. Some of the difficulties that naturally arise in connection with this relation between studio problems and real problems are addressed in the rest of this section. How is the “real case” reduced to the design assignment? That is, what parts of the real problem are omitted in the design assignment, and in what way are others reduced or schematized? In The Design Studio Donald

43 Design Education


Schon lists the items dealt with in the studio. He finds that cost considerations are absent. “The designer’s repertoire of domains has a structure of priorities for attending to features or situations. In our protocol, there are many references to the organization of space, several references to scale, building elements, program/use, and the sense of form. But there are only single references in each of the domains of precedent, structure/technology, and explanation. The domains of cost and building character do not appear in the protocol at all.”3 The case observed is a “first Studio”; the part of the process Schon has observed is the establishment of the general schema or parti. We can suggest that the “domains” listed as having few or no references are inactive in the determination of the parti. The apparent absence of precedent mentioned by Schon reflects the fact that precedents are mentioned casually by the teacher, as “examples” that spring to mind, apparently provoked by the student’s performance. Construction matters will be left until later; meanwhile they are entrusted to geometrical regularity. Costs—budgetary matters—very seldom appear in a design studio. This answers our question in part: in a design studio, although the work is conceived of as a simulation of reality, practical matters that constitute much of real practice are not allowed to distract students from their main task, which is first learning to design, then acquiring excellence as designers. This conception also guides the selection of programs. As Durand pointed out long ago, it is not possible to train students in the whole variety of programs they might face in their professional lives. It would take too long. More important yet, much of what they had learned would refer to other contextual conditions, and the student “might be tempted to adapt his school project to this new situation.”4 What had to be taught was design method—the way he conceived it—and that was the school’s task. Today the problem of selecting programs for studio exercises is still with us. Will we propose to students only up-to-date programs that will interest them and make them feel they are being trained “for reality”? Or will we insist on other programs, not very frequent as real commissions, but providing comprehensive knowledge difficult to replicate with other types of building? Other questions are important for design education in this framework of the studio. Every system of schooling has implicit answers to all of the following; few are subject to scrutiny, and the answers each school has are considered “common sense.” How do we subdivide training into levels? How do we create a gradually more complex sequence of design problems adapted to the years or semes-

ters of learning while always keeping the pattern of simulation of a “real case”? It is normally accepted that the student should solve problems of growing complexity in the course of advancing in successive studios. This may seem obvious, as architecture has this in common with any type of learning. The problem resides in the definition of complexity. Traditionally, the growth in complexity is translated as designing larger buildings each time: from the garden shed to the hospital. This betrays the lack of a theoretical framework already mentioned. It is also traditional: the grande composition came last in the Beaux-Arts tradition, so that the student in training would begin with small buildings and even ornamental fragments. Often the studio has no explicit program; work co-incides with the enunciation of the design brief. In this case, the studio is defined as the place where people are taught to solve this or that design problem. This “program dependency” implicitly reflects the functionalist trend that has dominated most of twentieth-century teaching. Complexity can be confronted—for studio teaching—by approaching it in several ways. At least two of these can be suggested: complexity as intrinsic to the object itself, and the complexity of the process that has to be followed. The first—complexity of the object—can be defined according to systems theory as the increasing number of parts and their relations in an object. This is close to but not necessarily the same as growth in size of the building. Complexity can also mean an increase of the explicit conditioning factors in the environment of the design. This narrows the field of possible choices, or it may be a spur for creativeness. Complexity can simply be the need to go a long way to gain knowledge of the context; and in this sense a more complex object serving a familiar context can be less difficult than a simpler one that demands more contextual research. However, in large programs, complexity increases with the number of free options; while, on the other hand, many practical restrictions may help an innovative designer, as is usual in the programs proposed in early studios. A material restriction, such as designing a small building employing only wood as a building material, will allow the student to concentrate on small-scale functional and ergonomic matters and learn simple frame construction. More generally, a restrictive repertoire will guide learning other aspects of the problem at hand. The problem itself will have to be “designed” in large programs approaching those of urban design and planning. The upper-level students will be allowed more freedom and they may be allowed to choose the subjects for their final designs. These definitions of complexity pay homage to the conception of the growing creativity of the student. The prize simultaneously placed on

45 Design Education


creativity and on the importance of the program point to the importance of the parti. Even if the parti is not finally developed, it is still valued as proof of the creativity of the student. It is assumed that he or she will be a high-quality architect.5 If this way of approaching teaching is modified by more sophisticated thought, growing complexity should be reconsidered. Less complex subjects would be those based in wellknown types; a more complex assignment would propose designs with less familiar precedents. How do we incorporate the types of knowledge provided by other subjects in the curriculum? It has always been supposed that these subjects would provide help for the design studio.6 It is not clear if that knowledge is broadly conceptual or applied, as is the case when teachers demand that students make structural calculations or constructional details of their projects (seldom with success). Technical courses in the second part of the twentieth century have provided students with information about new materials and techniques. The other alternative—applied knowledge—faces some difficulties. The first is translating the data of presentday construction systems into the general plan of the building: this is discussed more extensively in chapter , Development of the Project: The Elements of Architecture. There is also the question of actively incorporating service systems in the “creative” phase of the design. To make nonvisual considerations active in the early design process, it is probably necessary to add other kinds of design assignments, different from the complete building in some of the projects. Teachers of short studios— those that last only for a semester—are usually reluctant to abandon the “integral” design assignment, which gives the studio masters the chance of deploying their architectural stance. Only very recently has computer simulation been tried to reinforce the relation between design and construction in the design studio. The authors of a course in which students undertake “virtual” construction projects register as a reason for their studio the same complaint we have heard already: “It is often suggested that architecture students do not gain much practical knowledge of construction methods and management during their education. Although students typically complete courses in construction methods, many studio projects lack any semblance of cost or project management and may indicate only a rudimentary attention to construction.”7 Some interesting issues appear in their paper. For instance: “The discipline of creating D models that are precisely sized to match actual dimensions helps students to obtain an awareness of construction materials. The creation of D models of details drives home the issues of assembly and construction in a more powerful way than does conventional D drafting.” Later they suggest that the way to show con-

struction will change too: “These methods are also a nascent approach to innovative construction documentation. A D model of a building, sequenced to illustrate construction and hyper-linked to specifications and product information, may be a very effective way of communicating to contractors and trades people.”8 Courses dealing with representation—what used to be called the “drawing studio”—promoted the employment of abstract shapes and two- and three-dimensional grids. These were apt to be translated directly into the “megastructures” of the s. In this sense, it is quite telling that the practice of free drawing was centered in drawing simple solids instead of the classical models of statuary employed hitherto. The separate consideration of perceived qualities like color and texture follows along similar lines. Sometimes knowledge is expected to be manifest in the design in the same way that other cultural content appears in the work of an artist, who is considered an interpreter of culture. That would be the case for disciplines like history of architecture, very influential for modernists and Postmodernists, although in a different sense. History of architecture was strangely subject to a kind of schizophrenia toward . Architectures of the past were presented as a reflection of the social structures that “caused” them, while modern architecture was presented as the work of a few heroes who had made discoveries leading to our own “period.” Urban planning was presented as a geographically enlarged version of functionalism, joining single-use areas with circulation channels. Of course, more recent decades changed this scenario, especially in history of architecture. When historians consciously adopted their role of heirs to the theory of architecture, this was strongly influential in the rise of self-conscious movements, of which Postmodernism is the most evident. How do we make comparable the work of different students in order to evaluate them? This is a consequence of the freedom of design accorded to each student in the studio to solve a problem in his or her own way. People who have different prejudices about the problem will produce designs with different emphasis. In theory at least, the relative success of each student’s proposal will be measured by its adequacy to address the requirements set out in the brief. It will also be measured by the quality of the representations the student shows to communicate the design; those deemed adequate to represent buildings change very much in time, giving rise to “styles” well beyond the simple technical representation of objects. A third and surprising criterion is the originality of the design. The first item is largely a theoretical matter, because the design really will be evaluated by its similitude to other designs serving similar functions.

47 Design Education

Fig. 13. The continuity of Durand’s method of composition: above, Paris, 1824. Below, Buenos Aires, 1936.


That is, it will be judged by more or less explicit, more or less partial analogies with established type. The second requirement in fact refers indirectly to the possibility of building the design, if we consider trivial the requirement that projections coincide; that is, that they point to a single hypothetical object. The first criterion—adequacy to the brief— defines architecture as functional; design teaching is generally within the frame of functionalism. We have earlier seen that the design procedure was invented before functionalism became the dominant ideology; it

Fig. 14. Henri Labrouste, Grand Prix de Rome, “Un Tribunal de Cassation,” 1824. From Drexler, The Architecture of the Ecole de Beaux-Arts Fig. 15. Carlos A. Pereyra, “A Building for the National Archives.” 49 From Revista de Design Education Arquitectura Taken together, both projects form examples of the interdependence between plan composition and the Elements of Architecture employed for the façade design.

should not be surprising to find that buildings designed with the best functionalist intention often fall well below their expected performance. In school, a strong distinction should be made between the usefulness of real buildings and the expectation of usefulness derived from students’ designs. What is the role of precedents in the design process and in the evaluation of results? Our former question introduced this consideration. There are two kinds of functionality: that of real buildings and the one designs are supposed to have. If there is an established functional type, an accepted one, then functionality in a design could be measured simply by the conformity of the new design to that type. This is barely the case today—we might even say it is against the tacit rules of modernism to allow the existence of types. However, the studio teacher will give continuity to established precedents simply to concentrate on the real task of teaching the student to produce an orderly, unified object. Many studies have been made of buildings in use to assess whether they met the expectations existing during their design.9 Only a few of those have gained wide public dissemination. They are not used in design teaching and are seldom found in bibliographies concerning design methods.


Fig. 16. The Schröder House by Gerrit Rietveld, 1924. A formal re-elaboration of the design employing the same Elements of Architecture. Student work by Mariano Akerman used with permission by the author, Universidad de Belgrano, 1986

This kind of study would constitute a solid foundation for perceiving the potential functionality of designs in school. In chapter  I examine Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language, which is an attempt to create or to confirm the validity of a repertoire of solutions for identifiable problems. It is hard to recall another book in this area that has become as widely known as Alexander’s. We can deduce that there is not much real interest in finding out whether buildings are functional or not, whether they are fit in the way their designers imagined. Studies of this kind should be distinguished from those produced in the s establishing measurements of spaces adequate for human actions in relation to definite equipment. Those studies postulated what people should need to carry on their activities but did not incorporate the verification of user experience of such spaces. If we accepted, even on a provisional basis, the results obtained in the studies made by Alexander and other recent authors, we would have a definite base for evaluating the probable performance of as yet unbuilt structures. As a profession we do not accept these results; therefore our evaluation of the probable performance of a design is really based in its similitude with models, selected from the subjective repertoire of teachers. This applies to the global evaluation of a design. However, this is not the only type of evaluation a design in the making receives. In observation of design studios, co-workers and I found it useful to distinguish between what we called “formal rules”—what makes up the “house style” referred to in the next item—and “practical rules or traits.”10

Practical rules seem to be taught in most studios independently of the architectural ideology of professors. Some examples of practical rules are the dispositions that assure that opening doors will not hit furniture or fixtures, or the design of stairs that will reach the next level without difficulty. Professors looking at the designs in a strange environment (as guest critics, for instance), if they are not sympathetic to the studio “style,” will safely concentrate their comments on practical rules. Practical rules make sure that the design, if built, could be inhabited conventionally. In this case more than in others, the plans shown by the student are read by the critic as if they represented an existing building. The practical rules to be applied are unambiguous and are slow to change. Many professors apply conservative criteria, rejecting alternative solutions to established practical devices. Thus, much of the design can be judged on a yes/no basis, limiting innovation to formal additions to a practical disposition. Practical rules make buildings apt for habitation. However, there is a general agreement that on their own, they are not adequate for making a building that qualifies as Architecture. We have divided practical rules into four kinds: () Elementary rules state the minimal conditions to make a building inhabitable, such as the height of doors, sizes of stair treads and risers, the existence of windows in most of the rooms, and others matters of that kind. These rules are supposed to apply to any building over a long period; at least until technical innovation makes them obsolete. () Program-specific rules are incorporated for particular programs, as in hospitals, fire stations, or laboratories. They are explicitly written into the brief. () Graphic rules are the conventions that rule the making of plans and sections in such a way that they can be understood by architects (and supposedly by contractors). There are also conventions to show building detail dispositions, structural devices, etc. () More complex practical rules are those coming from specialist studies that have gained some acceptance; they are incorporated as a kind of folklore in studios. These include ideas about adequate proportions for large rooms, the use of light colors to suggest more depth in a room, and so on.

Which are the design methods to be taught to the students and how will they be taught? There was a time around the mid-twentieth century when there was a definite demand to interpose in time, between the linear text of the brief and the graphic disposition of the parti, another construction, the bubble diagram.11 This was also a graphic device but one that

51 Design Education


presented only the names of the rooms required by the program. Those were written inside circles, later to be joined by lines establishing the most important links between the future spaces of the building.12 Needless to say, this is yet another portrait of additive, elementary composition in the Durand tradition. It postulates without questioning that spaces will each have a single function. It also tends to reduce all kinds of links between spaces to circulation. Thus it strongly suggests that the functionality of a building rests in its spaces having adequate dimensions and in creation of a circulation network strategically joining a constellation of points in a plane. At most, such an occurence and the need to enter the ensemble from somewhere at the perimeter will limit the neutrality of points in the horizontal plane. The bubble diagram will not show the conditions that make a space inhabitable. Sound isolation, heat interchange, and the proportions of spaces are absent from this first scheme. Therefore, they will not enter the group of considerations leading to the parti. The design process that follows the sequence needs– bubble diagram–parti assures no functional qualities other than those derived from circulation links and exclusions; these are eloquently described by Robin Evans in “Figures, Doors and Passages” and are discussed in chapter  of the present volume.13 Spatial values, cultural meaning, and environmental considerations are counted out of this process.14 In spite of that, these values are important in the real experience of buildings; they can also be perceived in the project, but it seems from the process that they should enter the design surreptitiously, by accident. What fills this gap between the apparently rational method and the final form of the design? It is obvious that it is the help of precedents, whether admitted freely or with the concurrent guilt of copying models. Training the student in a purely functional “method” does not have as its goal the pursuit of functional efficiency, as was the case for the Design Methods movement of the s. It is instead a kind of moralizing approach, stressing use as the foremost value. The intention of teaching these processes is architecture as social service, apparently as opposed to architecture as art. Where will the architect’s creativity go? If it is functionalism that dominates the scene, and it is understood as those aspects of architecture that can be controlled by these schemes and diagrams, then creativity will concentrate in the design of parts. These parts will be elements of composition, odd volumes if function lends to their adoption. Or they may be elements of architecture, if something like extreme climate can justify new devices. Mechanical functionalism leads to the overstressing of plan design. The architect—and the student—are always tempted to seek new plan dispositions; they will try to create novel “architectural organisms.”

Fig. 17. Relations between buildings, be they actual or known only through their representations, student designs, and theories articulated by teachers. Designed by the author

53 Design Education

How do we evaluate a student’s design when it is still in the making; that is, not yet really codified as architecture? This is one of the central aspects of the skill of a design assistant or instructor—and also one of the least neutral. Design instructors play a very unusual role in the students’ design process, sometimes giving psychological help, sometimes playing the leader or client. By doing sketches, the designer translates some aspect of the problem (or the assignment, in the case of a student). This already suggests a possible disposition of parts in the solution. The portrait of the problem is on its way to becoming a possible, although still blurred, portrait of the solution. The role of the teacher in the first studios consists precisely in guiding students to “read” their program graphics as possible architectural representations. Students are making tentative drawings or models; the instructor “interprets” these sketches, suggesting the next step that the students should take to “clarify their ideas.”15 Graphic clarification proceeds by way of geometrical order and unity. Clarification has at least one other definite goal: the drawings must


finally be of the same kind as those conventionally used for representing buildings. That will help the instructor to be more “objective” about the design. Instructors will find it easier to read a student’s project but at the same time more difficult to transmit their own ideas through the student’s hand. These conventionalized drawings are necessary for collective criticism of designs in the making, for the “studio crit.” Designs by different students must be comparable and must therefore be coded as though they were complete and real buildings. This causes premature crystallization of the design; students have to fill the gaps in their ideas with conventional parts of which they are still unsure—all the more so in the present studio, where computer representation of plans and elevations makes use of “catalog items.” These are the equivalent of prefabricated parts—or the elements of architecture and stylistic ornaments of the nineteenth century.

Communication in the Studio Some authors hold the opinion that the graphic codes employed by architects in “self-dialog” are private and not communicable.16 I do not share this opinion; trained architects may use “reduced” codes, but having been trained as architects, with professors and instructors, they will inevitably use shorthand versions of the traditional projections: plan, section, elevation. To my knowledge, there are no studies showing what deformations or influences are exerted on imaginative, private sketching by formal architectural education. That is, in school there is no purely private dialog between the author and the work; the assistant is there to intervene in that soliloquy from time to time—sometimes daily—so that there is a kind of teamwork between unequal partners. The assistant reads into the student’s sketches much more than was originally intended, because of being able to anticipate consequences of some “manipulation” of elements that the student does not yet understand. This also means that the assistant can transmit preconceptions of architecture to the students; that is the instructor’s secret role, over and above the overt mission of helping students find their own way. The instructor will provide the models mentioned in the previous section. When these models (reflecting “house style”) conflict with those admired by the student, we will have a clash of referents: the favorite authors (architects) of the assistant on one side, and the latest magazines on the side of the student. Thus, architectural magazines have great importance for students. Just like the designs the student has to make, they present architec-

55 Design Education

ture as representation. They provide examples codified just like his design and quickly become substitutes for real buildings. Whatever we try to teach is compared with the content of magazines. Each student soon becomes the pupil of a remote Master. That famous architect will never know of his self-appointed disciple. The “real” professor becomes a mediator between the student and that famous Author, verifying that he is a good imitator, and the student will respect him if he is a good guide to lead him on the road to perfection. That is, if his design is an appropriate imitation of the Master’s designs. If the chosen Master is not acceptable to the professor, the student will fall into disgrace. He will be considered someone who does not listen and tries to follow his own whimsical preferences.”17 Before this predominance of magazines, the design studio was really the heir to the art studio of the Renaissance. There was a master to be followed: architecture (or Art) was “what we do here.” Still, entering a studio—and all the more so if it is a “vertical” studio of several years’ standing—is something like joining a religious group. In the studio apprentices learn many conventions that will shape their convictions about architecture. Authority is exerted informally in the master-apprentice

Fig. 18. Physical study model made from cardboard, wrinkled paper, and scraps of corkboard. The student builds an intuitive representation of a project in progress. Student work used with permission by the author, Universidad de Concepción del Uruguay, 2000

Figs. 19a and 19b. Design for an existing, difficult environment. The model of buildings around the site—Museum of Fine Arts in the foreground, School of Law in the background— is common to all students. In the following photo one of the designs 56 for theThe extension of the Architectural museum is in place. Project Student work used with permission by the author, Universidad de Concepción del Uruguay, 2000

relationship. Conventions are transmitted fragmentarily and often remain implicit. Schon states that the teacher of the first design studio has a double task: simultaneously teaching the student to design and teaching a vocabulary to describe that process. This contrasts with higher studios, in which students and teachers are supposed to share a common vocabulary. Teachers introduce at most some “new words”; of these, students will ask their “proper” meaning and adopt them—at least when dealing with the professors in that studio. The language used to describe designing is not unified. First, there is a denotative lexicon to refer to the parts of the building as a physical

57 Design Education

construction (column, beam, ceiling). There is a second lexicon, equally denotative, which refers to types of representation (plan, section, axonometric). These two “dictionaries” are more or less unknown to students at the beginning, but they very soon become aware that they must learn these in order to communicate at all. These vocabularies coexist with another one, more closely related to the design process itself. This contains words referring to actions, properties, virtues, and faults: words like parti, sketch, rhythm, control, and order. The student soon learns that a “strong” composition is better than a “weak” one. Clarity is opposed to confusion, and so on. Authority will also be used to eradicate commonsense preferences of taste, substituting modern abstraction. Each studio is like a magical realm from which students look at the production of other studios—when there are “parallel studios,” for example in France, Argentina, or at the Architectural Association school in London—without fully understanding the logic of the production of that alien subculture. For the teaching group, the studio is an environment in which instructors can define architecture in their own way, and therefore a comfortable, pleasant environment. If there are heretics in the studio, they must be expelled from time to time: the best instructors are those who understand the master almost without words; they excel at teamwork. It

Fig. 20. A perspective set up by hand that tries to be mechanical (early 1970s). The stick-on human figures and dot textures are later reproduced as machinemade perspective drawings. Student work used with permission by the author, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Figs. 21a and 21b. Large-scale models help students understand how buildings are put together. They also become a temptation for the student to try his or her hand at theoretically high-tech designs. Student work used with permission by the 58 author, Universidad de The Architectural Belgrano, 1999 Project

is not necessary that they be the best didactically, as students are a secondary element of the studio. They are “hands” who execute the designs of their teachers. This comfortable, intimate environment was becoming threatened toward the end of the twentieth century. For studio masters, experiences in shared design studios working at a distance, showing the progress of their designs on the Internet, pose the threat of strangers. It is not through magazines that different shapes and opinions enter the magic circle. They will be on screen and in real time. The uncomfortable situation of the studio crit, in which teachers and students alike feel judged by external

critics, is now possibly a permanent situation. Once the students become proficient at dealing with both CAD and the Net—and this last happens long before they enter a school of architecture—they can be “nongeographical” students. The days of the traditional studio under a leading professional seem to be at an end. The adoption of new goals in design should imply new instruments. Conversely, the appearance of new design tools will push to the fore some values instead of others; and this may or not coincide with those explicitly willed by practitioners and theorists of their day. The Beaux-Arts system of composition was independent of the styles of the nineteenth century and could also span most of the twentieth century without serious problems. The last two centuries are in their turn included in a wider, post-Renaissance way of thinking and of making architecture through representation. The final decade of the twentieth century has given a new strength to the identification between architecture and its representation. This will provide the link to the future, even if the design studio we have known is suffering a profound transformation. We are heirs to many traditions of design. In teaching designers, we reinterpret and transform these traditions; we reinvent design traditions.

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CHAPTER 4

The Two Faces of Functionalism


Even if everything has to be done for the sake of ornament, yet he (the architect) should furnish the building in such a way that you would not deny that utility was the principal motive. Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books

The idea that the usefulness of the building should be its most important value is clearly stated by Durand. He defines what architects should deal with: According to what we have said, we should not try to make architecture agreeable; because if we endeavor only to make it fulfill its real goals (usefulness and economy) it is impossible for it to provoke dislike; also if we try too hard to please we might fall into ridicule. We should also not seek for variety, effect, or character. Because it is impossible that a building will not have those qualities in the highest degree if, using only the true elements of this art, the building has all that is necessary, nothing but the necessary, and that disposed in the simplest manner. It is therefore only with disposition that an architect should occupy himself, even he who loves ornament and wants to please.1 Durand is here showing his extraordinary utilitarianism. He arrives at a conclusion that would be surprising were it not for the fact that it is a principle that has now ruled over composition for more than a century. This is the conclusion: usefulness resides in distribution. The functionality of a building is something that can be studied in its plan. In Durand’s day such an idea would have had revolutionary value, as a break with the immediate past. In time this would become a dogma, overestimating with its “clear circulation” and “correctly dimensioned spaces” many buildings that are uninhabitable for other reasons.

61 The Two Faces of Functionalism

In the moralistic style of his time, Durand redefines architecture as a social service. In so doing, he displaces the nucleus of architectural knowledge. The classical architect controlled form, mastering the art of creating beauty, even if that meant leaving aside or postponing utility and construction. In the future, the architect would be the one who knew how to make useful buildings; that is, how to make efficient distributions. The most efficient and economic building would be the best. In the pursuit of usefulness and good construction, aesthetic attractiveness would inevitably follow. The process of composition described in chapter , detailed step by step by Durand, is the tool we use to design/compose/distribute rational buildings. The different programs translate into different distributions. Each theme is reflected in a plan type. In this way a new typology begins, wherein each of the multiple functional attributes that proliferate under the rhythm of Progress finds its new type. The generation before Durand had certainly begun this process of functional differentiation. Sometimes this happened on request, the result of actual instructions. On other occasions those new types issued from the speculative imagination of men like Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Etienne Boullée.

Figs. 22a and 22b. J. N. L. Durand’s “Hospitals and Prisons” is an example of an early nineteenth-century attempt to establish a typology of functions. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from Durand, Précis


This first “functionalism”—the term does not appear until the end of the nineteenth century—would then point to a normalization of the relations between use and form, and thus to a “functional typology,” which in due course would lead to the reproduction of buildings by industry, giving them the same status as other goods produced as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution.2 Modernity, however, is not only utilitarian and egalitarian; it is also individualistic. This individualism is particularly visible in its artistarchitects, who had to go through a gradual metamorphosis from courtiers into free “liberal” professionals who have to compete for commissions; among other things, this competition is based on a display of their creative talents. For this reason, functionalism would also provide the opportunity for each author to show a personal interpretation of function, that “service to society” which justified the author’s existence. This attitude would be reinforced by the ever-deferred industrial production of architecture. Buildings are still mostly produced one by one, the product of craft rather than industry. This invites architects to consider in depth the circumstance of the site where the building is erected, be it interpreted from the demands of the program and the client or from a particular determination of the geographic or urban environment. Possibly those who thought of architecture as something capable of industrialization forgot the traits that make architecture different from other artifacts: fixity in space, long life, and high symbolic significance for its inhabitants. The proto-functional attitude that starts with the search for a new, stable typology ends as quite the opposite: namely, an underlining of particular cases, extending even to the justification through “function” of uncontrolled personal expression. Meanwhile, another design process continues to be the source of most of the built production, creating new and stable types and models.3 The academic system prized a certain originality, which was limited by retaining those precedents deemed valuable. Modern architecture would transcend those limits by denying all explicit precedents, in a process reaching its zenith around . On the one hand, then, functionalism is the search for new types or models; on the other, it is an endless search for innovation through the rejection of all typologies—even those of the Modern movement itself. In view of this contradiction, the Design Methods movements of the late s and s is an attempt to make functionalism more rigorous, to circumscribe the problem of design by focusing on the design process from the viewpoint of the program.

The term program has already made its appearance in chapter . When explaining design procedures, Viollet-le-Duc declared the origin of the design to be a program, although this was expected to be a “confused brief (as many written briefs are).” Viollet-le-Duc could not have imagined that a hundred years later, the last important theoretician of functionalism—Christopher Alexander, in Notes on the Synthesis of Form— would take up his point about the writing of briefs. In its traditional form, the program as developed during the era of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts is a brief statement, specifying to which class of general uses the building will belong; where it is to be implanted (a museum in the center of a capital city, a leisure residence by the seaside); and giving a list, ever more detailed as the nineteenth century runs its course, of the parts or elements of composition the building must have. From the first interpretation of this “confused” document, the architect will produce a parti; that is, a general layout that will satisfy the requirements of the brief. We have read Viollet-le-Duc’s description of this search for the parti. Then ensues the development, that part of the work devoted to the resolution of all kinds of details and coordination of parts. We will finally have a completed design, a document to guide and control building operations. The existence of a written program reflects the novelty of many of the buildings of the nineteenth century, either because they were needed for activities that did not exist before (as in the case of a railway station) or because of a change in the user and client (public libraries, art collections). Some would make their appearance as a result of a change in social habits (as in the case of the bourgeois apartment for the rising middle class) and others due to radical transformations in activities (industrial buildings, hospitals, and office buildings). The celebrated English historian John Summerson said in a  lecture: “The programme as the source of unity is, so far as I can see, the one new principle involved in modern architecture. It is part of my case for a theory of modern architecture that it is the source.”4 Viollet-le-Duc had said almost a hundred years before that the architect “should be respectful of truth in two things: respect for the program and respect for construction.” As already noted, the program indicates the needs to be satisfied in the project, giving an enumeration of the useful parts or rooms of the design. It does not specify their relations clearly. This leaves a certain freedom for the architect, that of determining the relations of parts in distribution. Viollet-le-Duc described this special skill of the architect as establishing a kind of order: transforming the lineal order of words into the spatial order of the parti. If the program is only a text, the architect is free to design. Writing the program is not the architect’s task. Guadet



tells us explicitly that the architect should not be the one to elaborate it, perhaps to preserve the absolute mastery over form and the magic of the translation of the written document into the incipient form. The program is thought of as previous to the design process: in that case the architect has to answer to a well-defined need, stated by the client. The program can be synthesized by its generic name: a house or a hospital. This would be the name of a type of building. But in modern times a functional typology of buildings has never really been constituted. We have already mentioned two opposite tendencies in the architecture of the twentieth century, typification and particularity. The architectural program is enfeebled by this conflict. The text of the program often reflects the doubt about the validity of existing solutions. If a simple list of the elements of composition required—a list of standard places—will not be enough, then the designer’s attention is directed to study of activities that will take place in those spaces. The early twentieth century was the time for a detailed study of all human activities: including the most representative and solemn but, above all, the most mechanical and trivial. From this another impossible attempt at typification would ensue, involving the minimal necessary spaces for each activity. The impulse comes from two different fronts: the economic imperative of sparing space and materials, and the desire to carry all the benefits of well-designed spaces to all social groups. To do this, architects will return to a programmatic stage of design: that of determining and codifying of minimal spaces and dimensions. The grouping of functions into the most elementary activities and their study is complemented by an attempt on the part of the architect to encompass the range of scales in the built environment. As the environment of modern humankind becomes more and more artificial, architects have claimed as their design field all the fixed parts of the environment. This goes far beyond the attempts to design monumental buildings and urban perspectives as well as the general layout of parts of cities, as in earlier centuries. The intention is now to design all the buildings and all the surrounding territory through a new discipline derived from architecture—planning. Designing all the buildings substitutes Architecture for its more popular forms. Or, perhaps, Architecture can disappear in the domain of popular architecture. If architects must design all buildings, then everything will aspire to the status of Architecture. There will be no plain building. Or perhaps all buildings will be what used to be “plain building” and Architecture will disappear, its symbolic role becoming unnecessary for an egalitarian society. The complication involved in determining patterns for the “correct functioning” of buildings is

increased with the functionalist interpretation of the city. The ensemble, buildings and city, are envisaged as a single system of circulation and the spaces it serves—at all scales—and the architects believe they can control the whole of the city with their design tools. Many of the grandiose urban designs of the s bear witness to this aspiration of controlling the whole of the artificial environment with the tools of architectural design. This grandiose professional aspiration goes hand in hand with a methodological reductionism, the roots of which I have tried to show. At the microscale of the building, the analysis of functions and their decomposition, the questioning of the habitual ways of carrying out human activities, has yielded good results. These results can be found both in the fine quality of many functionalist buildings and in many technological advancements that arose thanks to the functionalist attitude to building. At the urban scale the desire was to reduce the whole built environment to specialized locations and segregated circulation systems. The attempt to materialize this model literally led to the failure of cities and of urban areas built as the renewal or extension of existing cities. The model propounded by functionalism is that of either the machine or the organism. It is a set of places devoted to specialized use joined by circulation; finally, it is essentially a very differentiated circulation system. Specialized locations are “clipped” to it. The need for these specialized spaces to be adjacent disappears as the path from one specialized space to another is by the appropriate channel; juxtaposition of spaces is accepted as a necessary evil because of constructional convenience or simply lack of space. Following the same logic, in cities and regions, specialized spaces will be located at an ever greater distance from one another, and the circulation systems grow accordingly. At the scale of the building and also in the city sector, there are other very different reasons for making spaces adjacent. There is a desire to create sequences. Sequential spaces often contradict mechanical functionalism, but they tend to keep built space in a compact form. At the city scale, if this sequential character is lost, urban space is completely dispersed for the sake of rapid circulation. The result is finally to exalt an old component with mechanical characteristics. In the s the failure of these urban models entailed a condemnation of functionalism as a whole. New trends of thought challenged what had been the dominant ideology for half a century. We have been using “functional” as a synonym for “useful.” Functionality would be the contemporary image of “utility,” one of the three virtues of architecture, according to Vitruvius. But there is more than that to function. Function is a metaphor that declares buildings to be like


physiological organisms or, as we have said, like machines. Metaphors were devised in the nineteenth century to explain a new viewpoint about architecture. There is a classic development of this subject in Peter Collins’s Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture. It will be sufficient to remember some of Collins’s argument:


The biological analogy is based in an interpretation of a certain theory of evolution, presented by the French biologist Lamarck. This theory had been abandoned by the time Charles Darwin published a different vision in The Origin of Species; this did not prevent artists and architects from becoming Lamarckian in their own fashion. Louis Sullivan’s “Form follows Function” is a lateLamarckian enunciation of the idea that birds develop wings “to” fly. Sullivan’s motto, however, maintains its power; probably because buildings don’t grow, reproduce or evolve except in metaphorical terms. They are designed.5 The analogy with mechanisms has already been commented upon in relation to the idea of “component.” The usual mechanical analogy is not so profound. It simply postulates a functioning of buildings following the image of the machine. And this was a very suggestive image for the late nineteenth century. Each part of the machine serves a function and one only. Taken together, all of them make their contribution to a general function. The machine means economy, performance, no concessions to ornament or tradition. In the imagination of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architects, everything happens as with the design of machines, function passes directly to the forms of mechanism; as if machines made themselves without any designer involved. Some thinkers believe that such objects, being a direct reflection of utility, cannot be anything but beautiful. Others—and this is the case of Le Corbusier—defend the architect, saying there is another, more elevated beauty to be sought. All moderns admit, in one way or another, that this Brave New World of machines is in some aspect a model for the architect. As Viollet-le-Duc puts it: “The locomotive is almost a living being. Its exterior form is the expression of its power. The locomotive, therefore, has Style.”6 Both mechanical and biological analogies present architecture as an activity called upon to solve practical problems, namely “functions,” and the designer is concealed behind the screen projected by objective needs. Ideally, the creative personality of the architect will be eclipsed by the appearance of an operator of a design methodology that will yield “objective results” in solving the needs of human habitation.7

Fig. 23. An example somewhere between architecture and urban design: structural and circulation systems carrying habitable space as additions. This seems to be the logical limit of the functionalist model. “Plug-in-City” by Peter 67 Cook. From Archigram Magazine The Two Faces of Functionalism

The contradiction between the desire for subjective creation and this pretension to objectivity has already been mentioned. Creative artists present themselves in the twentieth century in the guise of functionalists. The shapes they create, no matter how strange they look, will have been generated by a devout attention to functional needs. Otherwise, they would be formalists, a terrible indictment in the first half of the century. The shapes they invent—no matter how strange—are the products of their sensitive creativity. They have a better sense of function than do others. Both the mechanical and the biological analogies give permission to invent buildings that are circulation assemblages (physiological) of highly differentiated parts, characterized in answer to particular uses. And these parts are interchangeable—as in a machine—when they have the same use. This leads to the refinement of “standard parts,” but these parts will not be parts of the construction, the elements of architecture. They will

be the “minimal bathroom,” the bedroom, or the office clerk’s workstation. In the new dialect of designers, these are called “cells.” Another consequence is the creation of ever new dispositions of those cells or of homogeneous assemblages of such cells, according to the physiology of each ensemble. Complete buildings will be called “architectural organisms” in the mid-twentieth century. Thus, the metaphor is completed. Only some architectural programs will have the right to develop strange organs, to serve very special functions. This viewpoint about architecture reflects the notion of interchangeability of human beings. In this sense functionalism is egalitarian, as 68 Fig. 24. A bedroom in Le The Architectural Corbusier’s Weissenhof Project apartment house, Stuttgart, Germany, 1927: an example of minimal space. From Oppositions 15/16

Fig. 25. Rationalizing distribution of space in low-cost housing. Rooms are designed on the basis of equipment and furniture, not as the spaces themselves. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo

Fig. 26. Interior arrangement of a sailboat by J. G. Alden, 1934. Minimal size of accommodation depends on the need to distribute equipment into the reduced space of the hull. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from 69 Yachting Magazine The Two Faces of Functionalism


befits an ideology that originated in the late eighteenth century. We have seen this trait in the passages of J. N. L. Durand. For him usefulness is located in the same way as in contemporary buildings: in the presence of spaces adapted to defined uses. Before Durand’s time, a building was not considered fit for use simply because of the presence of those rooms. Well-defined typological precedents confirmed that a given building was a palace or a monastery, and confusion was impossible. In the same way, class and birth distinguished the inhabitants of different building types. From the nineteenth century onward, function does not belong to a type in which it is “immanent” but resides in the elements of composition and their links. These elements and links define different design responses to different architectural programs. We can see now why there were no programs as such before the nineteenth century. Function is impersonal, as it belongs to the situation of any human being. Anyone can, in principle, be the one who lives in “this situation” and therefore conducts “that use.” Hitherto persons and their roles corresponded to each other, and that link could not be broken. By the ascent of the middle classes, those links have been dissolved. Thus we see that Durand’s treatise does not contain any revolutionary social information: it merely makes public a condition already established. Laugier, in the mid-eighteenth century, writes about the parts of which an appartement in a palace should consist, but he makes clear that this applies to those who can permit themselves a palace, not to people of modest means. Durand’s treatise is egalitarian in more than one way. The method he recommends—designing the plan over grid paper—dramatizes this rising reality. Each square on the paper is the exact equivalent of every other square: the most important or the most insignificant of spaces can be located on it. If this does not happen in designs done in the early nineteenth century, it is only because inherited values preserved a formal hierarchy of composition. In the twentieth century all a priori hierarchy of spaces vanishes. Gradually functions become more permanent and concrete than both personal traits and special spaces. The people who assume certain functions may change, for better or worse, in the social scale. Others will take their places in the social scheme that is gradually assimilated to the productive scheme. It is not only social mobility that is reflected in architecture; the differentiation of spaces and buildings according to functions also reflects the segmentation of people into their different roles, public and private, exposed and solitary. All these different transient roles demand different spaces in different kinds of buildings and urban places: all are distinguished according to function.

Social mobility does not have a correlation to the way activities are developed. These tend to become static and mechanical: “An extreme example in which I was involved was the design of a School of Electrical Engineering. In it a computer, arriving at the most efficient “free form” optimized “elections,” movements, structural criteria and services. This was later translated into a “built form” that also reduced to a minimum initial costs and maintenance. Retrospectively, the final product limited the user’s free election. He was assigned an efficient space in a totally efficient structure. In it movement was reduced to a minimum, but also his capacity for choice.”8 In this way we can understand unifunctionality, which for the better part of the twentieth century was considered synonymous with functionality. I want to show that it does not depend only on an extreme individualization of “function”—of what it must be possible to do in a certain place—but also on the depersonalization of the actors. The actors must use only that part of their egos that is relevant for the accomplishment of the function. What portions of their subjectivity may be left out are really of no concern for the designer. An example of a physical disposition invented for a function illustrates the limits of the concept. A few years before Durand wrote his Précis, the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed a novel architectural disposition that he called the “panopticon.”9 With this layout a single individual could survey many others without being seen. The scheme could be adapted for many different kinds of buildings in which such supervision was considered necessary. Bentham offered his design to the Revolutionary Assembly of France in  for new prisons, although he thought “it could be adapted easily for schools and manufactures.” The panopticon creates a condition of extreme inequality between any person who occupies its privileged center and those in the peripheral cells.10 Hierarchy is clearly inscribed in the plan of the panopticon, but it is not simply the accepted hierarchy of symbolic buildings. It is the brutal domination of one person over a group based on location in space. The person in the center is the master of those observed. Modern functionalism was born complete and perfect in . We can conclude that two apparently opposing tendencies rule the functional disposition. On the one hand, every part of the building and all the persons who occupy it are equally important for the functioning of the whole. This is the most important consideration. But on the other hand, the functional consideration of the roles of users and inhabitants reduces them to single-function individuals, and at one extreme they can become—functionally—mere prisoners and wardens in that “perfect machine.”


Fig. 27. A school in Hertfordshire, England, Norman and Dawbarn, architects, 1954. In a large site the plan is almost the direct translation of the “bubble diagram” coordinating specialized functional areas by the use of circulation links. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo from The Architectural Review


Functionalism and Popular Architecture From the eighteenth century onward, architects have taken an interest in indigenous or vernacular buildings. In the beginning this attraction depended on natural sites and the use of materials considered unusual. In fact, they were simply the materials country people used for their dwellings and barns before being attracted to cities by growing industry. It was an aesthetic interest related to the Picturesque movement. Rural architecture was part of landscape, and landscape painting was rising in esteem. Popular, rural architecture also provided a model for composition. Its simple volumes freely composed by adjacency present a parallel to the more formal parts of Durandesque theory; but the rules of symmetry, unity, and subordination of academic composition naturally do not apply to vernacular buildings. A new possibility makes its appearance: imagining partis in which the rules of grouping are dictated by


Fig. 28. Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon,” circa 1790. A strictly functional plan arrangement is obtained by emphasizing one part of the building’s use over all other considerations. In this case, the surveillance of those occupying “A” spaces from the central tower. Redrawn by Haydèe Barrionuevo


convenience or by a picturesque appearance of the whole. Picturesque composition would provide a bridge spanning the divide between academic composition by elements and functionalist grouping of parts. Indigenous vernacular architecture would also be considered to possess other virtues that were more in harmony with a new age. Sincerity in the use of materials, functional efficacy, and a respect for the demands of climate: all these are traits that fit the utilitarian idea of architecture postulated by Durand. Indigenous architecture, according to Amos Rapoport, proceeds with its task by the repetition of a model or icon, usually another building that is immediately accessible to the builder.11 This icon is perfectly integrated into the way of life of its users; therefore, no maladjustment can be produced, either in function or in construction. The forms of indigenous building seem to blend better with the landscape than do those that make up “cultured” architecture, which is always set in contrast to nature. This adaptation is not due to a special sensitivity of the builders to landscape—an eighteenth century concept, and therefore inapplicable. Rapoport shows that it is the scarcity of materials other than the local ones, and the difficulties encountered in changing the shape of the land, that force buildings to bend to the particularities of topography. Modern societies in their turn have a repertoire of types adapted to their different groups. These types have a slow evolution, perhaps following the process described in the next chapter. We can say that in spite of many changes in the productive structure of society, the design processes of indigenous architecture survive. We can even say that, as in all previous periods, a kind of popular architecture constitutes most building production. An Argentine theoretician, César Janello, called this contemporary production “sociotecture,” to distinguish it from architects’ architecture and from an impossible popular or “spontaneous” architecture—impossible, that is, in the urban environment of present-day society. Today, as in the eighteenth century, the interest of critics and architects focusing on indigenous architecture is directed to remote and exotic developments of arrested civilizations. In this sense it is anachronistic and romantic, attributing to such human groups an instinctual functionalism, an infallible feeling for materials and landscape, both poetic and practical. It is interesting to note the possible consequences of considering indigenous architecture as a model. Adopting the procedures of indigenous architecture would make the design process disappear; at least, the process as we know it, as a sequence of decisions about the building as a global matter. This would happen if the procedure adopted were the one described: namely, the

repetition of known, socially accepted forms as being valid for architecture as a whole. Those forms would be modified only in part and only when local conditions dictated the need for such an adaptation. Faced by this option, modern architecture has preferred to keep indigenous architecture at a distance, maintaining it as an “ideal,” while holding onto the evolution of design acquired over the last five centuries. At the same time, modern architecture has made an attempt to absorb indigenous architecture by adopting what are believed to be its modalities and values: an attentive eye focused on usefulness, the lack of classical ornament, and the use of “practical” materials instead of those deemed to be “representational.” This attempt goes hand in hand with the intention of substituting indigenous construction for academic architecture. The evolution of Christopher Alexander’s theoretical work offers a clue to understanding this attitude. From Alexander’s  Notes on the Synthesis of Form to his more recent works, his thought defines his way as an attempt to restructure the practice of cultivated architecture over the pattern of indigenous building.12 In Notes Alexander avoids the dissolution of cultivated architecture into an indigenous practice by declaring that the complexities of modern society and its unceasing transformation demand the use of systematic design methods. These last will have to incorporate those part-by-part adjustments considered the main value of spontaneous architecture; but it will be objectified by a reflective methodology. Alexander’s central thought is the belief that it is the correlation between a problem and the form that solves the problem: a functionalist faith. This is also the germ of his future development of “patterns” or fragments of a solution. However, in the Notes he portrays the ideal, creative functionalist architect, devising a novel solution for each problem. It is only in the epilogue that he announces the direction of his future research: My main task has been to show that there is a deep and important underlying structural correspondence between the pattern of a problem and the process of designing a physical form which answers that problem. I believe that the great architect has in the past always been aware of the patterned similarity of problem and process, and that it is only the sense of this similarity of structure that ever led him to the design of great forms. The same pattern is implicit in the action of the unselfconscious form-producing system, and responsible for its success. But before we can ourselves turn a problem into form,


because we are self-conscious, we need to make explicit maps of the problem’s structure, and therefore need to invent a conceptual framework for such maps. This is all that I have tried to do.13


Here lies the core of problem and its physical answer: for Alexander, design is defined as the correspondence between two parts of reality that he calls “form” and “context.” The part he calls form is not the appearance of the building or the laws that define its structure. For Alexander form is that which the designer can modify, the part on which the designer can act. The context is not the total environment where the new object will take its place but that part of it that cannot be modified by the designer and also those parts of the new object that the designer is not allowed to design. Form and context force us to consider the new building as part of a system, and the dividing line between the two does not coincide with the conventional building/environment distinction. The limit between form and context, then, cannot be determined before considering the problem. This limit will also change within the design process, as earlier decisions will incorporate into the context more and more features limiting the later decisions about form. (If this reminds us of Beaux-Arts partis and development, it does so rightly.) Fourteen years later, Alexander has even firmer convictions about the similitude between the pattern of the problem and that of the solution: “The elements of this language are called ‘patterns.’ Each pattern describes a problem often repeated in our environment. Then it describes the hub of the solution to that problem, so that the solution can be used again a thousand times without exactly repeating it.”14 Alexander’s later theories are expounded in A Pattern Language and two other books, The Timeless Way of Building and The Oregon Experiment.15 Taken together, these constitute a trilogy of his evolved design theory. Experimenting with the method he had propounded in Notes, Alexander perceived the existence of constants in architectural problems, or rather in the design of the physical environment. “Misfits” between form and context reappeared in many different circumstances, and their solution was to be found in generic physical dispositions. In an essay by Alexander and Poyner called “The Atoms of Environmental Structure,” we find an elaborate description of the misfit produced when two people walking along the sides of a rectangular building suddenly find themselves face to face at the corner.16 As a solution to this potential conflict, or collision, they describe in a meticulous if circuitous manner the chamfered corner. (As literature, this description deserves a place alongside Julio Cortázar’s “Instructions for Climbing Stairs.”)

Alexander has detected a recurrent problem or misfit; he delineates the class of physical solutions to avoid it. This class of solutions will surely include the “true solution” to the misfit. From this starting point in “Atoms,” Alexander writes the monumental Pattern Language, a repertory of  units classified into three groups. The first group involves urban and even regional scale. In the intermediate group, items pertaining to the scale of the building are found; the last group deals with building. The problem of producing a general scheme or parti, so difficult in the method put forward in Notes—one had to arrive to the general scheme by adding particular detail solutions—is now solved: patterns are included in other larger patterns. The design process becomes a progressive selection of patterns to be applied according to the “level” of the problem within an existing hierarchy. The program will take its place in the appropriate level of this hierarchy. With the appearance of a large dictionary, A Pattern Language has a system of cross referencing, so that each pattern refers to others of smaller scale, which it “contains,” and also refers to larger ones, of which “it is a part.” By reading this book, designers may find answers not only to the problems they perceive but also to others that the system suggests they will encounter: “In a word, none of the patterns is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only in the measure in which it is backed by other patterns. The largest patterns rely on those included by them, the medium one in the others surrounding them, and the smaller ones on the earlier. This is a fundamental viewpoint about the world.”17 The “fundamental viewpoint about the world” is none other than the systemic outlook: the built environment at all scales must be harmonious. This harmony is guaranteed by the compatibility among patterns, and this is the fruit of many years’ work by a team of Alexander’s associates. Alexander, however, still perceives the arbitrariness underlying any selection of components and the impossibility of eliminating subjectivity. He tries to attenuate this by classifying patterns according to the degree of certainty their own authors believe them to have. He appeals once more to an analogy with science: “You will see that the patterns are alive and in evolution. In fact you can consider each pattern as a hypothesis, like the hypotheses of science. In this sense, each pattern is our best bet in the present about the arrangement of the physical environment that will work to solve the problem at hand. Empirical questions center on this problem: does it happen and it is lived as we have described it? About the solution: does the physical disposition we propose really solve the problem?”18 Consequently, Alexander invites readers to reexamine the “language of patterns” and to enrich it with their own experience, but he never



loses his faith in having found real constants that can be applied to any built environment: “If we succeed, it is possible that every person will embark in the construction and development of his own pattern language, perhaps taking as a starting point the language contained in this book. However, we believe with certainty that the language here presented is more than a handbook or a possible version of a pattern language. Many of the patterns here are archetypal, so deeply rooted in the nature of things that probably they are a part of human nature and the actions of men. They may be as valid in five hundred years’ time as they are today.”19 In the end, the attempt to produce a really functional architecture leads Alexander to a typology. It is either the typology that organizes buildings traditionally or a new one, a typology of “atoms of situations”: the synthesis of a need and the form that satisfies it. Although not declared as such, A Pattern Language is an attempt to constitute a new source of typology.

CHAPTER 5

Typology

The subject of type in architecture may be considered in two different ways. The first is directly relevant to design: typology as a form of knowledge that can be applied directly to design work. The other approach considers typology as a terrain of encounter between inhabitants and architects. The first of these aspects has been extensively treated and gained the attention of architects in the s and s. In the last two decades the question of type, which had in some way been linked to Postmodernism, has been abandoned as if a new wave of unlimited creativity had swept aside this probably reactionary attitude. In fact the question of type has its place in architectural design theory quite apart from trends. It is none other than the way to evaluate the greater part of the architectural production at any moment in time. The use of typological precedent also plays a major part in the way designs for many new buildings are made. The first step to take must surely be to clear the ground on the matter of creativity and repetition. Every building stems from a project. The project can be more or less explicit, almost to the point of being completely implicit, as we have seen in the case of indigenous architecture. The explicit design is an instrument of creation. Apparently we design to create something new and not to repeat “the same.” Architectural creation leans on the rejection of established typology. But we must also acknowledge that not every building is an occasion for integral creation. It is the same in music, literature, or painting. In spite of this reality, the work that interests the critic is the one that moves away from type. Originality is not always highly rated by the general public. Architects and critics give a higher value to buildings if they are original. For users who consider buildings simply as practical objects there is a certain fear of the new. Users expect to get something known and proven; certainly they do not expect some novel and impractical solution after having consumed enormous resources to produce a building.

79 Typology


We have to compare buildings with industrial production. In order to design a new product, industry is ready and willing to invest large sums of money although the result is uncertain. If the research was well structured, however, the cost of experimenting with prototypes may be more than offset by the sale of a large number of identical objects. Buildings, on the other hand, are made one by one. This means that a new efficient building will need to be more proven and conventional than a new airliner. And the design of airliners is verifiably conservative. It is quite understandable that if a new, “nontypological” architectural design happens to be successful, future clients will prefer a repetition of this “unique” design rather than risking a new experiment. We are avoiding the matter of cultural affections and repetitive needs that make users prefer what is well-known. In the preceding paragraph we only addressed some of the notions installed in the architectural debate by functionalism, with its insistence on unending creativity. Our answer is given in terms of the logic of production, which indicates the desirability of practical solutions based on standards, and thus based on typology. Another reason for buildings to belong to types is not only the evident resemblance of buildings of similar use but also that those buildings are in cities. In cities the sites of buildings of similar use resemble each other; they occupy equivalent lots of land, and those have similar positions in city blocks. This involves the relation between building typology and urban morphology, which saw great development in Italy in the s and which is still an important field for research. If we are going to think within this framework, we must acknowledge that the isolated building is an instrument to escape the limitations of type (and has been considered as such since the Renaissance) and also a way to escape the interdependence between the building and its position in the urban tissue. This became particularly evident in the residential suburb of the nineteenth century. The isolated house in the suburb became a field of experiment with new architectural forms, and the flowering of that program is recognized as one of the original moments of the Modern movement. The community ideals of the “garden city” are subservient to the detached house; but the garden city is in itself a source for urban open models of the Modern movement. Both led to a preference for the isolated building that became a rule rather than an exception in urban tissue. Urban regulations were rewritten in the second part of the twentieth century to open urban tissue even in central areas. Considering this evidence, it is unusual that the first histories of modern architecture have avoided showing any movement toward type in modern architecture, with the salient exception of social housing. They

emphasize instead originality and the individual values of particular authors and works. Finally, leaving aside typological matters when writing a history of architecture—be it of the twentieth century or not—has some clear consequences. Needs are hidden; it is the undisclosed that makes a work of architecture a part of human habitat—not the needs defined in a mechanical and acultural way, as functionalism used to state them, but needs and actions as they appear in reality, in the cultural and architectural frame where they exist. These needs are sometimes supplanted by the personality of the artist, sometimes by the Zeitgeist (spirit of the times), or by a not very definite sociocultural conditioning. In any case, between formless matter and the finished work we are presented only with the unexplained creative personality of the architect. Or the architect is shown as the unexplained interpreter of the Zeitgeist and social conditioning. The illusion that it really happens this way laid the foundations for the formalism of the generation that entered the scene toward —and for others that followed. The design act is also hidden. Preexisting elements and solutions that may be present in the new design—that should exist in any new design— are not explained, because they might show a kinship with normal building or with previous works of recognized architecture. Form is insistently attributed to the creativeness of its author. It is not surprising that for the new avant-garde of the s and s, the idea of type was again to be rejected. A fin de siècle architecture-as-art has no place in any explanation of the greater part of the built production. Things were more balanced for the classical theorist of type: The word represents not so much the image of a thing that has to be copied and imitated perfectly but that of an idea of an element that must serve as a rule for the model. The model, understood according to the practical execution of Art, is an object that has to be repeated just like it is; type on the contrary is an object according to which, for clarity, it is possible for one to conceive works that will not resemble each other at all. Everything is precise and given in the model; everything is more or less vague in type. Thus we see that there is nothing in the imitation of types that feeling and spirit would not accept. An antecedent is necessary for everything: nothing comes from nothing.1 The concepts of type and typology seem not to have existed in the s, the period in which modern architecture had won the war against

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Fig. 29. Adaptations of a traditional Argentinian residential building type (the half-patio house, in the center) for deeper lots (left) and a corner position (right). Courtesy Dardo M. Arbide

styles and eclecticism. In that decade every building aspired to be a new creation, and the history of architecture occupied the place of theory. This explains why an essay by Giulio Carlo Argan in his Progetto e Destino begins with these words: “Most modern criticism is founded on idealist thought and denies any value to the concept of an architectural typology.”2 In the s the concept reappeared and was affirmed in criticism. In design theory for the English-speaking world, it begins with Alan Colquhoun’s essay “Typology and Design Method.” In the Argan essay already quoted, we get some indications about the position of typology in the design process as well as about its formation: “In the process of comparing and superimposing individual forms to determine a type, the specific characters of each building are eliminated. The only ones kept are those that appear in the whole series.”3

Type is produced by a mechanism of abstraction: type is therefore something like an ideal building form different from all its models or examples. It is rather schematic, sometimes very abstract, in other cases quite defined. This depends on the number of features found in common in the series of examples. In any case, type is a schematic in which “everything is more or less vague,” to use Quatremère de Quincy’s words. What kind of schematic is that? Perhaps a plan? As Argan says: “Type is thus configured as a schema, deduced through the reduction of an ensemble of formal variables to a common base.” The type is presented here as a basic form, the basic form of many possible designs.4 Again Argan explains: “The basic form thus obtained cannot be understood as a mere structural frame but as the internal structure of the form or as a principle which in itself implies the possibility of an infinite number of formal variants. Perhaps it implies a later modification of the type itself.” We are contemplating a basic form: one that different designs may have in common, reflecting the moment in a design process that fixes the principal relations among its parts. As to the level of abstraction, type seems to occupy a place equivalent to that of the parti in academic composition. For academic composition, type has a precise disposition of elements of composition. Parti determination in Beaux-Arts teaching was, up to a point, a selection from possible types; it was also the recreation of existing types through the use of a new assemblage of elements of composition. A class of pre-existing solutions = Type ↑ Base forms → Project ↓ A disposition and ensemble of elements of composition = Parti

Building types reflect elapsed time, a kind of sedimentation of form. They are part of the tradition of architecture. Types are presented that way by Bernard Huet: “It will then be possible to see clearly that typological invention happens slowly and never precedes the transformation of social relations or the institutionalization of practices. Standard types belong essentially to a collective production on the part of social groups, or even to society as a whole when it recognizes the permanence of some forms.” Time has not passed in the “laboratory of architecture”; it has developed in a precise society after a certain time lapse. If this is true and types reflect the lifestyles of a society, then architectural types belong also to the area of user satisfaction. They belong to the synchronic

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dimension of the present. Huet limits severely the profession of the architect: “The function of the architect consists in discovering those types (very seldom) in determining them (sometimes) and paraphrasing them (always).”5 This viewpoint agrees substantially with that of Christopher Alexander. Architectural type is shown as possessing the quality of a present that has historical depth. At the same time it is the meeting ground of architects and building inhabitants. It does not seem that Huet takes into consideration possible variations in lifestyle, nor the intervention of design itself. Unless we imagine a constant repetition of architectural forms without any modification—an improbable happening in presentday society—the types we can find in the present will not be the constant types of a primitive culture. Types will be a basic design material, a repertoire of forms constantly being modified by the designs of many different authors. The “problem of typology” is thus installed at the crossing of two axes: the social present of architecture, which by evolution extends in a diachronic axis, and in the presence of architecture as the satisfying of needs extending in a synchronic axis. Each design operation today seems to entail an option: whether to develop a type, which is to design a building that pertains to an existing class of buildings with a recognizable referent, near or remote. It allows us to recognize in the design the figure of that referent. Otherwise, we can devise a parti that would eventually give as its ideal result a unique building. For academic design there is a fluent interrelationship between type and parti. To establish a parti, elements of composition must be employed. Those elements have to be studied in the theory of architecture. Where will theory find its examples? Established types, known by their exemplary models or cases, provide the natural source. Only later on will the transformation of the history of architecture, from an implicit system of types into a parade of particular cases, suppress these teaching resources. This attitude of modern architectural historians pushes the future architect into the position of an obsessive researcher. It requires that everything must be investigated before determining the elements, not only for the different functions but also for each and every one of the elements of both architecture and composition. Established typology had several different roles. It was a respected precedent for academic architecture. In the nineteenth century there was a will to establish a functional typology of buildings classified according to their use. This was distilled into attempts to teach “distributive characters” and, on a lesser scale in the twentieth century, through the study of specialized rooms, in the days of Existenzminimum.

The attempt to build new typologies confronts the designer’s freedom of deciding on a parti. A parti is defined precisely as the right to avoid typology in the general schematic. We have pinpointed the opposition between parti and type. It would not be correct to deny that following the Renaissance we can find the parti in architecture, although the term gains currency only with the onset of academicism. From the beginning of the Renaissance we find the equivalent of parti decisions: there is a decision of that kind in Brunelleschi’s constructional novelties in the dome of Florence Cathedral. However, inventing a new parti is not necessary for every building designed after the time of Brunelleschi. It is not a possibility for every new design. The parti as a seal of originality of a project tends to be confused with the personality of its author and confirms its quality of unity, of its being a work of personal craftsmanship. The set of buildings by the same author portrays that author’s biography; it shows the public this person’s unending creativeness as an artist. Once this idea was established after the sixteenth century, if typology were forced on the architect, it would be resented as a barrier to creativeness. Artistic freedom would express itself in the skill of being able to avoid repeating established patterns. As Francesco Borromini reputedly said: “I would beg to be remembered when sometimes I stray from the usual design, by that phrase of Michelangelo, Prince of Architects, who said that he who follows others never advances. To tell the truth I have not devoted myself to this profession to be a mere copyist; although I know that by creating new things the fruit of this effort cannot be received but too late.”6 The transformation of architecture, beginning with the Renaissance, can be interpreted as a movement from typological design toward invention. Invention would then be developed and formalized as “elementary composition.” We could assign a place to every artist from the s onward and even reduce their artistic production to a formula fixing the proportion between invention and typological redesign. This interpretation would help us to understand the coexistence of two design traditions that survive in present-day architecture. Modern architects trained in one of those design traditions—the elementary versus the academic tradition—have sometimes wanted to recover the values of tradition and the cities where they work. Their training did not prepare them to understand typology as a ground for design. Either they had to understand this “other tradition”—more accessible in Europe—or they fell into a superficial decorativism that constitutes a large part of so-called Postmodernism in architecture. The notion of type we have been entertaining assumes that types are “not created,” as Aldo Rossi says explicitly. Perhaps this is an excessive

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Fig. 30. A typological analysis of the schemes for Palladian villas according to Rudolf Wittkower. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo


reaction against the proliferation of arbitrary forms and dispositions of the s and s. Another definition of type can be found in the writing of Manfredo Tafuri, who suggests the existence of series or “typological cycles” in the work of some architects, like Palladio or Christopher Wren.7 Both Palladio and Wren would have created partially new types by the reiterative exercise of design for the same program: villas and parish churches, respectively.

This interpretation of the term type is interesting because it includes the activity of the individual designer. It brings us back to the normal contemporary condition of “architecture with architects.” It does not reduce the application of the term to traditional or indigenous architecture, displaced in modern society. Both interpretations are obviously valid. We will later review the interaction of the designer with commonplace architecture. The reason to evoke Tafuri’s vision is to remind us that there exists in the design of renowned creators a typological process at work, the progressive construction of knowledge on a certain theme by the reiteration of designs. “Palladio and Wren present us with cycles of architecture that can properly be called themes with variations.” A work by Jean Castex takes up this interpretation of type and applies it to the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright. At the beginning of his analysis, introducing the concept of cycle, Castex writes: “Each typological cycle in Wren, as in Palladio, develops like a research activity in search of those logic chains that nourish invention and provoke it. The same logic chains help the type to display the whole extension of its formal possibilities, the surprising richness it contains.”8 For Castex each typological cycle—and he can identify more than one for the different authors he analyzes—is referred to a spatial schematic. And the spatial schematic is a disposition and relative organization of spatial units. Castex’s spatial units correspond approximately to elements of composition. The spatial schematic can be described in the tradition of Paul Frankl; for our text it can be assimilated to a class of partis.9 This class, when found in the works of a certain author, has for that author the value of a type. It is not a type received from tradition but one composed deliberately and adopted by the author through time as the basis for a long-term development. Thus we can deduce the possibility of evolution and fusion of typological cycles.

Degrees of Abstraction in Typology Among the ambiguities of the term type is one that generates conflict. It is the decision about the level of generality or abstraction at which type will be considered. Sometimes a geometrical abstraction is called a type; on other occasions it is a very definite plan, almost the draft of a finished drawing. In a strict sense, a type can be described or named but not shown. An example or a case can be near to or far from the type, but it cannot be the type in itself; a concrete object is already a model. All this is well-known and no more than the logical consequence

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of the definitions given by Quatremère de Quincy, in which type and model are opposed. Even if we leave aside models, complete representation of real or imagined buildings, there remains the problem of the degree of abstraction in the type understood as a schematic. The easiest way to face this problem is by admitting a stratification of the world of type. There would be a highly defined level very near to a model; at the other end of the scale we would have schematics without any dimensional or functional precision, just below the maximal abstraction of geometrical shapes. It is certain that the first levels of abstraction are obtained by an inductive procedure, selecting common features from a sample of actual buildings. This would be the case of the residential typology for a particular region. On top of this level there is “another typology” made of schematics applicable to a larger and perhaps loosely definite corpus: and this is the sense the term has in most of typological literature today. These are the types we bring into the discourse when we want to illustrate the concept: the Mediterranean house or the Latin cross church. The location in time and space of those types is less precise. Types determined by induction starting from examples found in our environment will probably have more general referents. In the case of postcolonial countries, these will be found in Europeans precedents. For instance, the Argentine half-patio house is a particular subtype of the Mediterranean courtyard house, and in other Latin America countries also, different branches can be found derived from that Mediterranean precedent. In this way typology as a proper kind of architectural knowledge is articulated in diversified strata; some are quite general and are transmitted through the history of architecture; others belong to local phenomena and demand a study of regional architecture together with its evolution and influences. In such a framework a place is immediately found for “pattern language” research of the kind done by Christopher Alexander. Although less abstract than the usual studies on typology, it can be considered part of typological knowledge about architecture. There are more or less abstract interpretations of type. At the abstract end of the spectrum some authors use types to mean geometrical shapes and their combinations that can be used for architectural design; ideal forms that may be used for architecture but not only for architecture. It was traditionally supposed that when guided by proportional rules, these geometrical shapes would produce beauty. Cesar Janello worked for many years on the construction of a theory of architecture based on the study of this domain of geometrical shapes and their combinations. For him this was the proper domain of design.

Design for this Argentine theoretician was the world where two- and three-dimensional forms resided with their combinations; and it represented the origin of the design of artificial objects. If we were to abstract more than this, we would simply arrive in the domain of geometry. Geometry provides the basic material for all other levels.10 A few words must be said about the role of typology in the design process. First, we must accept that design has a place for typology. A very simple, nonproblematic design process, like the one practiced by those who build most of the houses on Earth, would operate over a direct and nonthematized knowledge of a type. It simply repeats with minimal variation the type or types present in the region where a builder operates. Modern architecture—that is, as practiced by professional architects formed in the tradition of the Modern movement—often avails itself of models rather than types. Properly typological preexistences are excluded from these architects’ design practice, so they are forced to copy entire solutions from the “great form givers” and try to adapt them—or to force them into strange conditions with the pretext of an “international style.” The only case in which the Modern movement takes for granted that typological precedent can be used is in indigenous housing; even there, copying famous buildings—like Le Corbusier’s Unités—has been more the case than taking the originals as typological precedent. After  the typological option is opened by theory. What Argan calls the “typological moment” of the design process is admitted. Ambiguities arise that make our discussion necessary. Where can we find a type to develop, to use as a starting point for the new design? Perhaps it is a regional type obtained by the inductive process described. At a more abstract level, it can be one of those types transmitted by history, sacralized into being atemporal, almost independent from any concrete history. More abstract yet, the type can be a geometrical shape, a prearchitectural configuration that can refer to more than one type of lower-level abstraction; simply a gestaltic referent for a new project. If understood this way, the typological framework is either too generic to provide real design support or it becomes an alibi for declaring that “somehow similar” buildings are completely different. If we are willing to find something deeper than figural analogy, we must decompose forms into parts and find correlations between the ways these parts are connected: this is the way to carry on the description of a type. Along the way we will find the circumstances that link a type with a kind of environment. The links among the internal elements of the type will find a partial explanation in environmental conditions of the class of buildings we are studying. We can say, for instance, that the half-patio houses making up a large part of the residential tissue of Argentine cities

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Fig. 31. Goldenberg House project, Louis Kahn, 1959. A particular interpretation of the patio type. From Brownlee and DeLong, Louis Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture


in the first part of the twentieth century really constitute a type. They have the same shape in plan; their interior subdivisions yield spaces of similar conformation and connection. Also the gallery and patio have a similar role in all the examples. And the relations they have one to another are similar. The relation to the public street is provided by access into the patio and only then to other parts of the house. All these features describe a type and the ancestry of that type in the Roman house. If all those conditions did not appear, we might be looking at a building of a plan resembling that of the half-patio house, but we could not confidently say that it was “of the same type.” We could reason by analogy about centralized or basilican churches or the opera house of the nineteenth century. Although we have defended the possibility of applying the term type to different degrees of abstraction, we must not fall into the trap of accepting any use of the term without clear specifications. Otherwise we might find ourselves calling a simple square shape a type or, conversely, calling the variation in the number of rooms in apartments “different typologies,” when in fact no distributive patterns have changed. Making use of the term to allude to simple geometrical shapes reveals a bad habit among architects, that of exaggerating the importance

of formal similitude and believing that if such a similitude is present, all the other qualities attributed to the building evoked will also be perceived by other people.

Privileged Parts Another matter that has a contentious status is that of the need for a type to have some elements of composition. It is not a question of a strong link, like that of the dome to a religious space for the Christian West. Other elements or parts would be necessary for the type; say, the courtyard for the Mediterranean house. If the courtyard is present, all the other elements would be a matter of “free choice.” Conversely, we could assume that only the disposition of the parts would be unavoidable. (Any group of closed volumes surrounding any void would produce a courtyard design—is La Tourette a patio design? And how do we categorize Stirling and Wilford’s Science Center in Berlin?) If all the parts of the type were unavoidable, the type would become more and more a model. If we also demanded that a certain set of ele-

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Fig. 32. Joseph-Marie Peyre, “Un Batiment qui Contiendroit les Acadèmies” plan of the central building project, circa 1750. A combination of space-types divorced from their original use and meaning. It precedes Durand’s theories by half a century. Redrawn by Haydèe Barrionuevo


Fig. 33. An example of an assemblage of types can be seen in the Berlin Science Center, by James Stirling and Michael Wilford, 1979– 87. From R. Maxwell, Stirling: Writings on Architecture

ments of architecture be used, then the model would be complete. No variations other than details in ornament would be possible. To our eyes, there would be no design process.11

Transformations of Type Now let us consider the nature of the “type” and its applicability in the design process. Type is an abstraction constructed over a determined set of buildings. Around this abstraction the building forms a constellation. However, studying a large series of buildings we find units or “cases” that imply the transition from one type into another. Then we need to introduce the notion of transformation. As we verify these transformations the constellation becomes a net. Using this criterion we could deploy a map of all types and all cases from which types have been established. We will also be able to say that there is a process of convergence leading to the constitution of type and a divergent process in search of new ways of life. These will eventually converge into a new type and the process will repeat indefinitely.12

The concept of type in architecture depends on the circumstances of its use. There is not a necessary level of abstraction that would correspond to the “proper use” of the word type. Carlo Aymonino says: “There is not a single definition of building typology. It is an instrument, not a category.”13 In an architecture produced by architects, as is the case for modern society, we do not find a single type of dwellings, for instance. There are many variations, transitions, and intermediate cases. Even intuitively, the field of study appears to be dynamic and changing, far from being a static and permanent typology. It becomes important to decide what the transformations are and to show the possible transitions between static types. While the periods of repetition define a type, it is lapses of variation that describe a typology, because they show the direction of a morphological change that in its turn reflects a change in meaning. It may also be that the morphological change will contribute to the production of a change in meaning. This unified vision leads to a comprehensive consideration of the field of architecture. It does not need the duality between indigenous architecture and architecture by architects. The latter is not different— in a typological analysis—for reasons of intellectual or aesthetic quality. The only relevant difference is the greater or lesser design intervention acting on preexisting type. Each new design is conceived as occupying a position after its antecedents. It is different to a degree but also similar up to a point. Each new building bears the mark of a previous referent. This reference mechanism is unavoidable; through it meaning is transposed from one work to another. We will call any building that precedes a new one and has this character of precedent a “typological referent.” The referential nexus can be understood positively or negatively. A new design can explicitly deny the referent as a compositional schematic while keeping some of its traits. This is the mechanism often applied by Le Corbusier, as in the house in La Plata in which the layout of the half-patio Argentine house is intentionally twisted.14 If we want to describe adequately the types present in the cities of Latin America, where atypical buildings are found at least as frequently as typical forms, we must be able to seek a link between the two both classes of buildings—those that can be deemed typical and the “anomalies.” Atypical buildings can be explained as variations of socially accepted types that are their referents. Variation is the way to produce new types; a variation is a new disposition of parts and/or the addition of new parts. The new design seeks through use to gain social acceptance. A succes-

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sion of variations will produce a new spatial layout; if this endures for some time, it will deserve to be called a new type. The permanent type for a certain interval represents the constancies in lifestyle. Atypical examples or variations represent the possibilities of change driven by changes in social practices and lifestyle. Variations are the mechanism by which new types are created, the architectural response to the social will for change. Periods in which variations are produced correspond to the transformation of one type into another. Periods of repetition correspond with the construction of a definite kind of building, which we usually associate with the term type. We have elsewhere suggested expressing shifts in graphic form: A graph can be drawn representing in its axes time and change. The horizontal lines are building types and the diagonals joining them contain successive buildings that cannot be ascribed to a type but are necessary to provide the transformations from one type into other. The succession of horizontal and diagonal lines can be called a typology. In this way we can explain and establish relations not only among typical buildings but also including a great number of buildings that share only some of the characteristics of “type.” Each point on a horizontal line represents an example of the type. Each point on a diagonal represents a building we call a transformation. We thus call “typology” the relation over time of a building with its multiple referents.15 Typological research is usually circumscribed by a theme, be it because we are dealing with monumental architecture or because we want to learn something about houses at a certain time and location. This tends to confuse the structural/spatial concept of type with a “typology according to function,” as attempted in the nineteenth century. It also leaves aside the interesting field of what we could call “synchronic typology,” the correlation among the different types which at a certain place and time serve the different needs of society. The evolution of these various types is not indifferent to the constitution of practices in everyday life; that is, to the way different building types allow for the activities of members of society and for how they divide their time. Examples include the Roman thermae, which played an important role in the urban life of the late empire, or the reduction of the house’s functions after the Industrial Revolution, expelling work to the shop, office, and factory.16 Government has dispersed since the eighteenth century, if we consider that absolutism concentrated all its functions in a single compound, such

as the Versailles of Louis XIV. Versailles was not only the government house but also a palace, housing a church and a theatre for the king. Existing types in a certain time and place form a system. They complement each other and each is an explanation of the others. Changes in one of the types will promote a reassignment of activities and therefore produce changes in the other types. This dynamic joins the one we have described as “internal to a type,” which is subject to more or less free variations.17 Some reasons for the transformation or variation of type are: () Adaptations of the type, or schema, to different dimensions, positions, and orientation of urban lots, without changes in the lifestyle; these changes are prompted only by the concrete siting of particular buildings but may provide inspiration for others. () Variations caused by changes in lifestyle or by expectations of such change (e.g., “futuristic designs” after the Second World War). These expectations act on the programs of buildings and the ratio of kinds of elements. As has been already mentioned, this can make some rooms fall into disuse and can also create a new relation of circulation to livable space, both at the scale of the individual building and at that of the city. () When an intrinsic relation exists between the production of variants and the activity of design. This has been growing since the first Renaissance, driven by the separation of design (in drawings and models) and construction. The architect is by definition a producer of new projects. Permanent invention corresponds with the growing autonomy of the project vis-à-vis the building.

Building types today, then, are not like the constants of a primitive culture. They are design material for the architect and the basis for understanding by building dwellers. Types are a repertoire of patterns always modified in concrete designs through design operations such as the selection of a type and adaptation and contamination of types. Even the reuse of existing buildings relies heavily on the perception of reading a building as capable of belonging to more than one type. If we accept that typology is a knowledge that can be accumulated, we will find that it is a powerful tool for design. We can also see that those creative artists we remember in the history of architecture are precisely those architects who have been able to create long-lasting variations derived from existing types; thus producing new types. Architects themselves tend to produce variations, prompted by their ability to design. Everything seems possible on paper. The social group—

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Fig. 34. Transformations from the linear house to the compact house can be seen in examples from La Plata, Argentina. Courtesy Dardo M. Arbide


and this includes other architects—makes some of these variations permanent. This permanence is given by repetition. Repetition creates more or less stable new types. We have an analogy with another biological theory, that of Charles Darwin: surviving mutations will be those better adapted to the environment. But here I should issue a warning: the world of the architect can endow a “new type” with durability although most of society might reject it. This is not a new fact, belonging purely to this

era of architecture magazines; it will suffice to remember those Renaissance architects who preferred centralized churches without a nave, against the evidence of the liturgical needs of their time. We can also find a parallel with Darwin’s ideas in Jean Castex’s study of the early work by Frank Lloyd Wright.18 Darwin’s ideas, Castex writes, may have influenced the variations Wright follows for detail in the design of the Prairie houses. Fig. 35. Transformations from the linear half-patio house and early 97 apartment buildings in Typology Buenos Aires. Courtesy Andrea Brigante


Fig. 36. General typology of the Prairie Houses. The diagram reproduced in part shows the different partis or basic compositional arrangements adopted by Frank Lloyd Wright and the houses that realize these schemes. From Jean Castex, Le Printemps de la Prairie House

To sum up: it is the frequency of repetition that defines a type, but to define a typology we must include also periods of variation. Typology shows the direction of meaningful, morphological change. A type can be defined by its position within a typology. This reference allows us to establish the scope and definition of the type, by fixing its differential features with respect to other types present in the classification and also with respect to atypical cases. It also allows us to establish the variations permitted within the type as well as the threshold where the variation enters a different type. Each type has a referent that is another type; they are separated by a variable number of transformations. I have tried here to span the two opposed interpretations of the notion of type; that which professes type to be a collective, nondesigned pattern and the “typological series” that can be attributed to an author— Palladian villas or Wrightean houses. In our time, most buildings are designed—more or less designed—by someone. The implication is that the production of buildings will entail a project, some kind of graphic model prior to construction. Even if the design reaffirms a typological pattern well established (as happened in much of European architecture in the s), there will be a design for its realization. Even this simple passage through the graphic model, connoting the possibilities of change, is enough to produce an acceleration in the evolution of type.

CHAPTER 6

Development of the Project The Elements of Architecture

We have seen that in the first part of the design process, the architect arrives at a general disposition considered satisfactory. That disposition is called a parti, and it displays the mutual relations among the elements of composition in the program. The disposition has perhaps been adopted by modifying an existing type. In either case we have what G.C. Argan calls a “basic form.” Elements of composition are only abstractions without the elements of architecture, the material substance of the limits that produce architectural space. There is, then, an essential difference between the elements of architecture and those of composition, but this follows from the succession of events in the design process. Elements of architecture are material things; they have a perceptual image preceding the existence of any their realizations. In classical times they could be found in the treatises of architecture published after . In modern architecture, elements are real things: standard windows and doors, bathroom fixtures you can buy. All the parts in the case study house built by Charles and Ray Eames in Santa Barbara () are standard elements readily available for purchase. Elements of composition are nearer to concepts than to things. They comprise rooms of a certain proportion and dimension bearing names that refer to their use. In the beginning, they are always far from the objective reality of elements of architecture. Elements of composition do not have a “natural” use; they are only pieces of virtual space ready to receive a label that will assign them a “function.” That function may change later. When a new architecture takes hold of a certain system of elements of composition, as when early Christianity appropriated the Roman basilica, the new use (the sacred cult) could occupy almost the same spaces as the old administration of justice. Form does not change with function. When the same Christian builders removed columns from Roman buildings, they meant to use them precisely as columns. It is hard to imagine that they could have done otherwise. In this chapter I discuss elements of architecture; in the next one we shall return to elements of composition. We have said that to make spaces

99 Development of the Project

Fig. 37. Ancient basilica and Christian basilica, according to Charles Blanc, Grammaire des Arts du Dessin. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo


exist, we must generate their spatial enclosure. The ensemble of the parts of that enclosure coincides with the set of elements of architecture, that which the student of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would study after having consolidated a parti. We should keep in mind that for classical architecture not all the parts of the spatial enclosure were considered elements of architecture, very much in the same way that not all buildings were considered architecture. Only those buildings that had well-studied proportions, featured noble materials, and displayed the proper forms of elements were worthy of that name. The proper forms of elements were understood to be those of the classical orders. The other parts of the enclosure, those that were not part of the orders and their complements, were not considered elements of architecture. The elements are active forms over the neutral background of the other parts, considered merely useful and constructive. From the eighteenth century onward, more and more parts of the building would be incorporated as elements; that is, as worthy of being designed. Finally, all the parts of the building would be considered elements, as we saw in Durand’s Précis.

At the same time, Western architecture was to acquire new “elements.” Those elements received from the Renaissance now had to compete with other repertoires, taken first from Greek architecture, then from Gothic, and even from architectures of the Far East. Each of these repertoires would be considered as a different “style,” in the manner of different languages that could be spoken alternately but not mixed. Therefore, in the nineteenth century there was an extension of understanding of the term element to include all the parts of the built enclosure, on the one hand; on the other, we find a multiplication in the number of parts of enclosure in accordance with different “styles.” More than that: technical evolution would deliver into the hands of architects new materials and constructive schematics. And those new materials were in general incompatible with all those existing styles in spite of the fact that they were used for the best part of the century to simulate them. The progressive incorporation of more and more parts of the built enclosure can serve as a sketch of the evolution of architecture since the eighteenth century. The first of the new “elements” is perhaps simply the wall, which before the designs of Soufflot and Boullée was merely a neutral background for columns and pilasters.1 Later on, structural members would be incorporated; and this meant not only the traditional columns and trabeation of the orders but the whole repertoire constituted gradually by forms derived from new materials, culminating in the appearance of a complete building skeleton at the end of the nineteenth century. In accordance with this skeleton, instead of the heavy load-bearing walls, we find light surfaces for space enclosure. Windows and doors would cease to be deep insertions in the wall mass to become superficial parts of the lightweight enclosure. We could say that the procedure for an architect of the year  to follow in defining the enclosure of a designed building would be no more than that of proportioning adequately the volumes decided upon to suit the type or “invention” the architect intended to carry out; the construction of those volumes would present no problem for architect or building team. They would simply be boxes of load-bearing masonry, the limitations of which were well-known to designers, builders, and occupants. Over the volumes the architect would install an ensemble of ornament, the elements of architecture of a familiar classical repertory with clear meanings attached to its various components. Only a century later, by the s, a variety of available styles would assail the architect with as many alternative repertoires of elements. Construction would no longer be neutral; it would include new and unsettling possibilities, such as new materials not yet aesthetically assimilated but readily available and therefore difficult not to use.



Fig. 38. “Elements of Buildings” from J. N. L. Durand’s Précis. In Durand’s handbook all the parts of building become Elements of Architecture replacing the Classical Orders, which are significantly relegated to a schematic form in a corner of the plate. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo

The architect would also be subject to bitter attacks from historians and critics, underlining the inability to create “a style of the time.” This new style, according to the current notion, was nothing if not a new repertoire of elements of architecture with which to dress the composition in contemporary clothes. Composition was the territory conquered for the architect in the wake of Durand: an architect was one who knew how to distribute, to compose, to make an efficient plan. Already architects had been obliged to acquire other pieces of knowledge: they needed to know the mutually exclusive styles and how to apply them. And now they had to invent a new style, one that would substitute those repertories of elements bequeathed by various traditions after centuries of local sedimentation. More than that: when the early twentieth century finally produced what seemed to be a new repertoire of elements, heroes like Walter Gropius also demanded that modern architecture should not become a style. In the end, every architect was nominally obliged to constitute an individual repertoire of architectural elements and even to vary them for each successive design. Modern architecture imagines that it has left aside the problem of form to concentrate on function, of which the form would merely be a consequence. Instead of that, modernism becomes obsessed with form and creativity. Renewal of forms becomes continuous, as does the process of discarding forms already employed. Within the Modern movement elements

are created and lost before really becoming usable, repeatable elements like those of all previous architectures. The forms of those “elements” no longer signify a function or a system, keeping only the meaning of the signature of an author. Form, apparently neglected in the moralizing discourse of functionalism, becomes toward  the center of all design work: complete repertoires of elements are created for each individual design and discarded for the next. This sketchy venture into the antecedents of our present as designers is intended to make our predicament more vivid. Bear in mind that the mechanism of composition as described by Durand demanded that elements of architecture should not be problematic. The author of the Précis seeks to dilute the problem of elements by accepting all the arguments of the previous century as causing the forms of elements. This was an indispensable attitude if the specific task of the architect was to be modified from questions of proportion and the orders to the design and organization of use. It would embrace everything from the façade to the plan, we might say. This new competence of the architect was accepted by the academy and the profession as the kind of knowledge that would permit a new social role for the architect in times of utilitarianism and democracy. However, the problem of elements reappeared with force in the nineteenth century, as we have seen. Purely distributive architecture was only possible during lapses of “stylistic quiet” when there was some confidence in having found a stable formal language, like that of classicism. This was the case for the followers of the first masters of modern architecture, perhaps from  to . Curiously enough, a freer distribution or a richer spatial composition also prevailed in the periods of skeptical eclecticism at several stages during the nineteenth century. To bring a building into being, then, the architect had to arrange the elements of architecture. These elements were the arsenal that could be used to achieve expression. The elements provided both materialization and expression, but we should keep in mind that the control of form is achieved through the medium of representation, and in representation the material qualities are adjourned or implicit. For the classical tradition elements were supporting and supported parts—columns and trabeation—which indicated that construction had been elevated to the rank of Architecture: a practice initiated by Roman architecture. The next parts to be incorporated as elements were the vertical limits, more so than the horizontal ones. Vertical limits can be studied in façades, where they occupy large parts of the projection plane in the drawings, while horizontal structures are only revealed by the comparatively thin lines of cornices and string courses.2



The perforations of windows and doors in the wall indicate the presence of interior spaces, and by their magnitude and detail, the importance and character of those spaces are expressed. They also show literally how to get into that inside space and how light and air gain access. This conception of the element is based on the notion that the façade is the face of a three-dimensional volume; that face is a plane where a rhythm of columns or pilasters makes explicit the proportion of each face and by implication of the whole volume. Columns spell “Architecture.” Openings are disposed in the intercolumniations and are subordinated therefore to that basic rhythm of the volume. Their size is also a function of the separation of columns or pilasters more than a function of the spaces they connect to the outside. Structure: real or apparent/parts/ signifies “Architecture”

Supporting/ Supported

Figures: active elements

Enclosure: wraps interior space/parts Means “convenience or usefulness”

Openings (voids) Wall surface Ground: passive

The first table suggests a way to systematize a role for the elements of architecture in a classical schematic; the same role was carried over into the “age of the styles” with some variations that had already been explored in the eighteenth century. Modern architecture in its turn would first reestablish a frustrated experience of the late s, pushing to the front of the composition the blank wall plane hitherto considered “mute.” Then an impoverished system of elements would be promoted, not only because the ornament was repressed but also by the simplification of one of the pairs shown in the table. The rejection of classical tectonics, the pair “Supporting/Supported” with the ornaments of classical styles, left most buildings in the first period of modern architecture lacking half the resources of a classical language of elements. In a building like the Villa at Garches, or the earlier Vaucresson by Le Corbusier, the “table of elements” would look like this: Enclosure

Void

Figures

Solid Ground

In the works of some architects we find an equivalence of void and solid in the surface effect of the enclosure, but this tectonic pair is then revived in a more abstract way: Structure

Supporting/ Supported

We can alternatively read structure and enclosure as figure or ground and also between open and closed surface; sometimes structure will be assimilated to divisions of enclosure

Open/closed

The “new artificial object” that European modern architecture produces as a substitute for traditional architecture in the s is supposed to be the manifest result of a “technical-structural objectivity.” However, it has often been pointed out that the decisive influence on its set of elements lies in the plastic arts of the preceding decades. When real advances in building technology enter the scene, which is mainly after World War II, this leads architects to an endless choice among different structural systems not too different from the selection of the “adequate style” that had been the keynote in the nineteenth century. Before the war, the adoption of abstract forms like those of the Dutch Elementarists caused serious construction difficulties: these were nonarchitectural forms, or rather forms not previously employed in architecture. Pure geometrical configurations had always been used as the graphic substratum of architectural design but were not visibly displayed. They were implicit in traditional construction but not shown in the shapes of elements of architecture, even in the schematic presentation of elements of Durand’s Précis. These changes turn the spatial enclosure into a problematic matter. The traditional concept of an element of architecture is lost during the first phase of modernism. The meaning of the term element is inverted and becomes ambiguous. A modern architect will call elements those parts not yet decided or designed, leaving for future phases of the design process a formal determination the architect is willing to make alone. It is the opposite of the traditional notion of elements, a socialized repertoire of constructive and ornamental parts. The parts of the new built enclosure, both individually and in their relations, will now speak about real construction and not of symbolic tectonics. The parts will explain how the building stands and how its parts are joined; hence a new tectonic makes its appearance, first with New Brutalism and later with different structuralisms.



Fig. 39. Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House, La Plata, Argentina, 1949. This residence exemplifies a personal repertory of Elements of Architecture. Even these elements are based on simple geometrical forms. Vertical bris-soleils over the façades, a shade-roof over the terrace, and a particular version of an entrance “frame” have been later repeated by Le Corbusier in other works. Photographed and used with permission by Claudio Meszel

The question of elements can be summed up in one of two ways: it is either a case of the built form appearing as the sum of predetermined parts or elements, linked by a system of fixed rules; or a case of the built form being a summation of indeterminate parts, with the rules for joining them not previously known. The first corresponds to classical architecture or, more generally, use of the Greek-Latin tradition as developed in Europe and its colonies after the Renaissance. In these instances, visible parts represent structural elements (columns, pillars, beams, arches) or those that spell simple functions (door, window, step). In the second case, elements correspond to a different segmentation of the object, relating only partially to the former case. In the case of contemporary architecture, visible parts transmit the existence of simple functions as well as a representation of a new manner for understanding construction. This goes beyond the representation of conventional tectonic elements in the effort to show the building as the expression of the pair “Structure/Enclosure.” The repertoire of parts tends to add those belonging to new systems employed to produce comfort, such as ducts, water reservoirs, sun barriers, and even antennae or aerials. The Structure/Enclosure pair has new possibilities for the second term of this duality, which was passive in classical architecture. The spatial envelope of the building can now have different proportions of the opaque and the transparent. Both values of the “skin” are equivalent and opposed to structure. Therefore, the optimal expression of the pair Struc-

ture/Enclosure is that in which the skin is completely transparent, a homogeneous surface that contrasts with the skeleton. Mixed systems in which the assimilation of open and closed parts of the surface is attempted tend to confuse structural members with subdivisions of the surface. Of course meaningful elements always will appear as figures over a ground; and the last is ideally neutral. That was the role of the wall plane, but the transparent skin is aesthetically reluctant to assume this role. In the first place, the function of the wall, that of separating inside from outside, is dubiously fulfilled by a glass wall, which is read functionally as a window. Most useful spaces demand some regulation of openness, so in the end most buildings that do not intend to be emblematically modern end up expressing a “bare” version of the system of traditional architecture: Structure Enclosure mass

Orders Opaque

Walls

Transparent

Windows

Built

One of the first instances of modern architecture repeats this schematic quite faithfully: the designs of Auguste Perret. As noted, this becomes critically difficult with the introduction of Dutch Elementarism. In most previous instances neutral planes play the role of ground in the composition of the façade. The new architecture of Theo van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveld thrusts the abstract plane into the foreground. It becomes active. Limits of space and form are understood as regular planes, strongly individualized. In this way the plane emerges as an “element of architecture” in the general composition. This can be read either as the desire to activate all the parts of the building or as a desire to invert the former system, as now planes substitute for lines of columns as the active elements in the perceived form. In either case, an ambiguity is created as to what should be interpreted as ground and what as figure. By a fluctuation of attention, real depth and transparency are underlined. Architectural composition is achieved by representation. The result is the production of an analogic model of the built environment at its different scales. Composition is developed with elements of composition, abstract spaces and volumes that require for their limits of elements of architecture. Those belong to the art or science of building, for in them resides the material existence of architecture. Elements of composition lack any real existence until their limits are materialized. They cannot be



built, therefore they cannot be reduced to technical and constructive reasoning. For modern architecture, it is precisely technical rationality that explains the shape and materiality of elements. For classical architecture, instead, this relationship was secondary. Elements belonged to the domain of form, and the paradigm of elements was the classical orders. Modern architecture declared its elements to be authentic, and thus superior to those inherited from the past, for several reasons: pure novelty in the formal transmutation of elements into abstract shapes, as was the case of Elementarism; rationality in the use of materials and techniques in the most economic way; or simply the cult of technology when praising the skill in overcoming problems of its own artificial invention, as is the case of the curtain wall.

The Shape of Elements First we considered the classic orders; then we incorporated the elements of “the styles,” at least those which had a differential shape. If we look for traditional elements in a repertoire—for example, in the pages of a book—we will recognize them to be either traditional parts, namely columns, windows, and so on; or the parts belonging to a style that comprises some parts of differing functions, corresponding to those of the classical styles but “in a different language.” The twentieth century would be able to produce a new kind of element that was already heralded in the late eighteenth century: elements of generic, noncharacterized form; more precisely, elements that materialize simple geometrical forms. It is beyond our scope here to analyze how these forms came to be accepted into the realm of elements. It is traditionally assumed that the influence of abstract art was a decisive factor; perhaps it was the last resource after having tried all possible formal combinations during the s. Simple geometrical abstraction seemed to be all that was left. In any case, the examples we have shown employ such a repertoire of abstract elements, a repertoire that would not make sense as a catalog, at least not in the sense of a catalog of a style. We would find in that imaginary catalog of early modernism only different rectangles—shapes that outside of a determinate composition do not signify their position in a formal system; shapes that can be walls, openings, or structural members—all rectangles. In fact, that repertoire is most suitable for that formal neutrality which composition as taught by Durand really needed. And for some years it was used precisely in that way to give form to the new modern architecture.

Fig. 40. A symmetrical recomposition of Rietveld’s Schröder House using the Elements of Architecture. Student work by Facundo de Alzaga. Used with permission by the author, 1989 109 Development of the Project

However, from the nineteenth century onward, forms highly specific to new materials and techniques make their appearance. Some of them simply substitute with steel sections traditional columns and beams. Others have special functions, belonging to ways of constructing or servicing spaces hitherto unused. New types of openings, visible installations, developed in the last two centuries; almost all of these are made of new materials. This would in turn cause the rise of new contents for architectural form. A whole field of expression is created for and by these new shapes of architectural elements, therefore the option of a technical and constructive Expressionism comes into being.

There is finally another option, already conjectured by architects of the late eighteenth century: shaping strongly the envelopes of “elements of composition” and making of their inexpressive limits—blind walls and shaped roofs—the elements of composition of the new building. This we call “functionalist expressionism.” As we have already seen, it was Durand who extended the notion of element to include all parts of the building. According to his classification of the reasons for elements to have their shape, in Durand’s time, most of those shapes should have been subject to the then rising science of construction: 110 The Architectural Project

We have had to stress that from the union of those materials, forms and proportions are naturally born. This could not be otherwise, since matter necessarily has by itself forms that offer us relations and proportion. The elements of construction should then be considered from these two points of view. Forms and proportions of elements should be divided into three classes: those that are born of the nature of materials and the use of the objects made with them. Those that habit has made necessary for us in a way, as proportions and forms found in ancient buildings. And finally those simpler and more determined than all others should obtain our preference, the reason being that we perceive them more easily.3 The main forms of elements, then, are those that issue from use and construction, but they are neither traditional, like those of antique architecture, nor immutable, like “the simpler ones.” Durand continues: “The first kind of forms are the only essential ones; but they are not fixed by the nature of things in such a way that nothing could be taken from or added to them. So nothing prevents their alliance with the second kind.” Nothing prevents it, but nothing forces us to do that either. Classical tradition for Durand is only an option that “satisfies eye and spirit.” Durand’s explicit stance is found only at the end of his chapter, when he outlines consequences for design: In composition we will not occupy ourselves any more with forms and proportions under the aspect of pleasure. We will not deal much with the forms of the first kind, which are related to usefulness, because although they are the most important, they are born out of the use of objects and the nature of materials employed to build them. The forms and proportions of the second kind will be considered as purely local things, the finality of which is not to

shock our habits: if we were to build in Persia, China, or Japan, we would abstain from using those forms. Using them would go against the uses of the country and the materials they employ there. We will try to use the forms and proportions of the third kind because for many reasons they favor economy and make the study and the exercise of architecture easier. Finally, we will only study disposition, which, when it is convenient and economic, reaches the goal of architecture and becomes a source of the agreeable sensations buildings inspire in us.4 For Durand simple geometrical forms are always applicable, because they are economical and simple to grasp. Constructive and useful forms are essential and they can evolve—that is, be subject to evolution. Stylistic forms belong to circumstance. Without knowing it, Durand had prophesied the misfortunes of form in architecture for the next two centuries. We have mentioned the introduction of new modern elements of architecture. This does not do justice to the deep transformations in building introduced by modernity. Elements in the old sense were applied to a construction that was almost independent of the shape of elements. In a modern building, at least ideally, all the physical parts of the construction are involved in transformation. Structural skeletons and their correlative lightweight enclosing structures define a new type of habitable space. Economy of materials is introduced as a new criterion in the sense of using less material, not necessarily spending less money. In an imitation of engineering, efforts were made to reduce the weight of buildings, as if dealing with bridges or vehicles. This stance was probably the prolog to industrializing construction, but the decisive factor is the admiration for technique. The idea of doing more with less is seductive, but we should at least make sure that the built envelope has the same qualities as traditional construction. Habitable space demands more than simply a glass enclosure that is self-supporting. However, for a long time this seems to have been the ideal of modern architecture. Considering the building in this way was instrumental in getting rid of stylistic and eclectic forms of architecture, those enemies of early modernists. By transforming buildings into abstract boxes that could not serve as a support for traditional elements of architecture, a way was opened to impose a new style. We can verify this reading in the manifestoes of Theo van Doesburg, who had no specific knowledge of construction technique. Van Doesburg had a role as a propagandist for modern architecture from the critical standpoint of a commentator, and he is



probably the voice best expressing the intention of substituting new kinds of objects for those built in a traditional way: “The new architecture possesses no single passive factor. It has overcome the opening in the wall. With its openness the window plays an active role in opposition to the closedness of the wall surface. Nowhere does an opening occupy the foreground; everything is strictly determined by contrast. Compare the several counter-constructions where the elements of which architecture consists (surface, line, and mass) are placed without constraint in a threedimensional relationship.”5 This transformation was bound to eliminate not only the forms of past architecture but also the crafts that produced its buildings. In the same way as Renaissance architects had freed themselves from medieval construction guilds to join artists and intellectuals, modern architects were ready to get rid of their old subordinates definitively. In order that architecture would become an industrial product, they would extinguish craftsmen. It is a paradox of the twentieth century that although the building trades did not disappear, skill and craftsmanship almost dissolved. Until the “triumph” of the Modern movement, buildings made by craftsmen experienced in the building trades required specific detailing only to make new ornaments, to create exotic styles, or for the introduction of a new mechanism. In modern architecture of later decades, all detailing became problematic, and everything had to be on a custom basis for the use of builders who had lost many of the skills in their trades without developing new ones. It is not surprising that this effect was very pronounced in countries with a tradition of heavy masonry construction and much less so in those that had a long tradition of framed, wood construction. That used to be the normal way to build, and it still is for domestic architecture in countries like the United States and Scandinavia. Monumental architecture in the West was almost invariably built in masonry. In those regions where the tradition of frame building prevailed, the adoption of the new architecture was easier. Both in Northern Europe and in the United States it was easier to assimilate a new form of building that kept the tradition of the assemblage of pieces. Significantly enough, the twentieth century brought a sudden fascination with the traditional architecture of Japan. Japanese architecture had both the characteristic of frame construction and a scarcity of applied ornament. Such ornament occurs only in certain kinds of temples. It has been often commented upon connection with modern architecture that its earlier practitioners concentrated on visual values and were uninterested in the qualities of thermal and acoustic insulation, trusting these qualities of space comfort to machinery and artificial ma-

terials. We will not go into depth on this subject, although in the s it was one of the reasons to criticize modernism and for a renewed interest in traditional forms and construction. For our subject, the renewal of elements of architecture in the twentieth century, we should say that modern architecture was formally successful in a way, but it had at least as many shortcomings as achievements in other aspects of the building envelope. Modern architecture tried unsuccessfully to industrialize building but almost killed traditional skills associated with construction; exactly those skills disdained by many of the great masters of the s. The example of Le Corbusier is paradigmatic; the plaster of his corniceless walls and smooth surfaces has had to be repaired countless times in the handful of houses kept as monuments to that heroic era. The Modern movement came on the scene at a time when there was in the building industry an empirical body of knowledge that made it possible to create acceptably habitable buildings: in less than half a century the sphere of modern architecture succeeded in forcing their replacement by semitransparent boxes made of lightweight materials, uncomfortable unless equipped with expensive services. In addition, they were built in such a way that they deteriorated like the machines they were supposed to emulate, resembling old cars in a parking lot. Modern architects found the building trades able to assemble with traditional efficiency almost all kinds of materials, but they changed all the rules, inventing new “details” to create the illusion that a building had been assembled by a machine.6 On the other hand, if traditional construction is accepted, the obsession with detailing tends to fade. But this prudent attitude was impossible for modern architects because they rejected the cultural meaning of traditional architecture: therefore, they also had to reject previous detailing. An empirical way to recognize whether a building was modern in the s was simply to see whether the traditional ways of assembling materials had been supplanted by another with the goal of obtaining a novel appearance of “simplicity” and lack of “ornament.” If this seems frivolous, one should keep in mind that in the earliest and most famous histories of modern architecture—those written between  and — this was exactly the criterion used to decide, first, who was modern and who was “premodern,” and then to separate the orthodox modernist from Expressionists and other heretics. In the passage quoted from Durand’s book, constructive determinism is presented as common sense or dogmatic hypothesis. Viollet-leDuc, among others, would later develop such determinism. Of course this notion is not sustainable. We can simply see the differences among


“styles” that employ the same materials. The nineteenth century was also ambiguous in this respect, practicing a variety of styles for semantic reasons while at the same time demanding an authentic architecture of the new materials. I mention this only to note that such determinism is not a scientific truth, as it was presented some decades back. Constructive determinism is merely one of those idées fixes that in its day had a great influence on the course of architecture, particularly the practice of design.

Composition and Materialization 114 The Architectural Project

Architecture after the Renaissance gradually substituted architectural representation for the real buildings. The essence of architecture is now to be found in drawings. Thus a misfit is created between formal ideal conceptions of architecture and the daily life and use of buildings. This has grown over time, so that it has become a really difficult problem today. There is a significant gap between the conception the user has of architecture and the one held by architects as a body. Some of the forms most admired by architects do not meet with approval of the public. This is not a twentieth-century fact to be imputed to Le Corbusier; we should remember, as earlier noted, the attempts of Alberti and his followers to impose the centralized church plan against the needs of the fifteenth-century liturgy. This contributed to the long ensuing conflict over the design of St. Peter’s in the following century. Strangely enough, the rise of structural sciences in the nineteenth century introduced through the materialization of architecture a duality not unlike that caused by the project in the Renaissance. Structural science promoted an abstract vision of built phenomena. Things composed of a variety of materials were reduced to schemata. Over those schemata calculations were made. In the beginning this new formalized knowledge overlapped with empirical know-how about construction. Later on we would have different fields of study established in schools of architecture—“structures” and “building practice.” If we stick to structures, we will notice that from that field of study a determination was established over the elements of architecture, one we have already mentioned in connection with the character of those elements in modern architecture. Now this determination originates from the field of composition; in composition, elements of architecture occupy a precise place in the design sequence. We could argue that this place is similar to that occupied by the styles in academic composition, as they exist before any particular design and they form a repertoire of fixed pieces. However, even if the determination of style is also external to the compositional process, it is

Fig. 41. Variations on the “mushroom” column, designed and used by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Johnson Administration Building, 1936. A new Element of Architecture abandoned after being used only in a single building. Courtesy J. Wojtowicz and 115 W. Fawcett, Architecture: Development Formal of the Approach, Project 1985

also more homogeneous with it. The forms of the styles were “naturally” incorporated into the figures of the composition, since they were shapes of elements already employed in architecture. Structural schematics are more abstract, not really a catalog or repertoire of parts but conceptual schematics without a defined formal quality. Elements defined by structural schemata do not form sets, they do not “belong together,” nor do they have a mutual pertinence, as is the case with stylistic forms even if only because of the lapsed time in which such groups of elements have been present. Stylistic sedimentation gives an appearance of reason to usual groupings of shapes. The coherence of each stylistic repertoire is validated by the simultaneous presence of the same features in different buildings: this makes buildings recognizable. Style has one characteristic feature or more for each part of the building, an answer for each ornament and every useful part. None of this happens with structural schemata as such, because stylistic repertoires do not make a distinction between “structural” and “constructive” but have sets of features proper to the whole object. Only a later analysis will tell if they are more or less rational from a structured viewpoint.


Technical determination of the elements of architecture appears to us as a strange factor in composition for a second reason also. The progress of design since the s and the increase of creative freedom for the architect would reach its utmost in the Modern movement, allowing designers to create their own elements of architecture. In other words, architects’ control over the objects they were creating reached its zenith with Scharoun or Aalto, or later on even more so with Hadid or Gehry. In a more abstract but almost equally arbitrary decision, the elements employed by Wright, Mies, or Rietveld are personal and subjective. The creation and metamorphosis of elements began perhaps with Mannerism and the Baroque, reaching a culmination when, free of the orders and styles, modern architects found themselves almost free from traditional techniques. The fact that this liberation from traditional technique did not imply a subjection to new structural and building practices can be verified almost to the end of the twentieth century. It can also be shown that in the realm of modern architecture, details were devised that had more of the ornamental than the rational, producing aesthetic effects, but that is beyond our scope here. If there is a new and better way of building apart from traditional practice, it will constitute a powerful determination of forms of the elements of architecture and of their dispositions, apart from their use in composition. These forms are even more alien that the ones previously employed. They are outside architectural aesthetics, in spite of the efforts of a generation of great engineers like Nervi or Candela to persuade architects of the “natural” identity between beauty and economic structure. “Rational structural forms” lack a traditional relationship with the elements of composition they are meant to shelter. In earlier times the formal determination of elements of architecture and of composition responded to similar principles. Palladio, for instance, used the same system of numerical proportions both for volumetric spaces and the orders, in spite of the fact that the latter had the traits we relate to a style and the spaces were limited in size by established constructional factors. Certainly we should attribute this close proportional relationship to the use of precedents, of which Roman buildings formed the main corpus. Those traditional types and compositions were almost never contradicted, and the dependence of type and elements upon traditional masonry construction did the rest. Only some local traits and those forced by climate—like the steeply sloping roofs of French Renaissance and Neoclassicism—found their way in as modifications of the basic classical repertoire.

Even if it is so, we should point out that the possibility of composition is conditioned by what we could call reliability of the elements of architecture. If the meaning of the figures with which designers preform a composition is well-known to them, the rectangles or other polygons they traces on paper really mean for them spaces to be materialized later with elements of architecture. If elements of architecture are not previously defined or there are too many alternative incomplete sets of elements—as opposed to the “complete” sets displayed by the styles—the plan drawing lacks its imaginary concreteness. In earlier times plan design was “safer,” and the support it provided to the imagination had more power. Deprived of a certain set of elements, the plan does not really control and coordinate space; it is only a plan, after all. The complete separation of elements of architecture and those of composition and the indefiniteness of the former creates “plan-ism.” Composition and technique are both, and at the same time, too abstract and too concrete. In the late twentieth century they tend to segment into pairs of concrete and abstract components, increasing the chronic state of the unending analysis of modern architecture. For the technical field there is a great distance between structural conception that is abstract and mathematical and the empiricism of construction. These two “branches” rarely come into contact, and their specific discourses seldom meet. For composition what is too concrete is use that cannot be captured by bubble diagrams or abstract formulae. Composition deals with ease with its analogic models coming from geometry. Seen from the outside, these models look too abstract, and their relation with uses appears casual and discontinuous. This discontinuity translates into the design process and finds in it an inverted reflection. In design itself, a craft, a man or woman creates an object, the project. For the person submerged in the pleasures of design, the system of uses appears too abstract to exert a real influence over the model the designer is operating. For the designer at that moment, the model offers the only really concrete possibility.

Composition and Construction Does traditional composition have the means to incorporate construction in early design stages now that construction has become problematic, outstripping traditional practices? It is not an easy question. On the one hand, we have the means of representation to show any assemblage of elements, after two centuries of mechanical design and finally through the use of computers. But these are not the representations used to invent architectural form. In the drawings intended to create the dispositions of spaces the constructive aspects are postponed, not only because of



purpose—we build to create spaces and not simply to build—but also because of tradition and habit. In architectural practice, technical building plans are separated from space and disposition plans, those that civil engineers used to call “architecture plans” to distinguish them from those containing instructions for construction—the working drawings. Not only are the two kinds of plans drawn separately; they are also subdivided by kinds of structures and service systems; in addition they are drawn at different scales. Taken together, these drawings represent fragments of technology in a strong contrast with the general plan, the unified representation of the building that the architect uses to imagine it. Once it is imagined, the architect will translate that plan into technical terms but will preserve its wholeness—it is his or her work. Computer graphics have done a great job in closing this circle. While the ideative process followed the pattern of the Ecole des BeauxArts, the design over a single representation—the plan—was quite efficient. In plan drawings walls were represented with a thickness that “left room for structure,” and this practice was likewise usual for section drawings. Service structures also had their place within those thick walls and roofs. In fact there was no specific reasoning in this practice: all that was really done was to represent the thickness proper to the masonry of the old styles. In other words, lines over paper representing walls or openings, dots indicating the position of pillars and columns, were not problematic; the code was transparent. The graphic code was incomplete but decoding was automatic, as there was only one system of construction and it was common to architects and builders. With the introduction of different and contrasting systems of materialization, the graphic code ceases to be adequate, or rather proves to have been founded on implicit assumptions, the validity of which is spent. Today the single drawing of the whole building has ceased to be an adequate support for the task of prefiguring materialization. Designs have lost their material quality and Alberti’s classic observation becomes true: “Nor do lineaments have anything to do with material, but they are of such a nature that we may recognize the same lineaments in several different buildings that share one and the same form, that is, when the parts, as well as the siting and order, correspond with one anther in their every line and angle. It is quite possible to project whole forms in the mind without any recourse to material being, by designating and determining fixed orientations and conjunctions for the various lines and angles.”7 The Beaux-Arts method implied postponing consideration of constructive means and devices in favor of the parti, the first priority in com-

position. This successive order was reaffirmed by first studying the elements of composition, then considering the elements of architecture later. In modernism the intention of being “true to construction” follows a principle already propounded by Viollet-le-Duc. The fulfillment of this principle would require that constructive matters be integrated into the design process from the beginning, but the design process as inherited does not favor this stance. The techniques of representing new materials and systems do not favor integration either, since they are extremely precise compared to the vague and generalized first exploratory sketches. It is perhaps because we have not developed transitional codes for construction like those that have been created for the early stages of space and form. What we call a design process is a series of representations bearing mainly on spatial decisions; those decisions deal with the extension and position of the limits of spaces. There is a certain proportion between the dimensions of enclosed spaces and the size of their limits in traditional architecture. Substantially, it is the thickness of the wall of an enclosure that tells us about the width of the space of which it is the limit, since it is the mass of the wall that will resist lateral thrust of the vaulting. Thus in traditional construction the designer was forced to consider simultaneously the space and its limiting elements. Today this proportionality has disappeared, and plan drawing has lost its evocative power to “exhibit” space. The division between space ideation and a schematic for construction is confirmed by the separate existence of different drawings. There is also a difficulty in the representation of materials, which are more numerous than before the Industrial Revolution. This variety is present not only in sensory properties but also in assembly dispositions that “belong” to different trades and frequently turn the construction site into a thinly disguised battlefield. Materials in themselves, as the carriers of many meaningful connotations, are difficult to control and register in the usual scales of plan and section. The structural skeleton oscillates between a large-scale schematic and giant constructive details of joints. These tend to appear “late” in the process partly because of the problem of paper size. Computer graphics appear to have swept away all these difficulties with their instantaneous switch between different images. Nevertheless, material textures (too easy to represent now) intrude with difficulty in the general discourse concerning the disposition and configuration of spaces. In fact, everything about architectural representation seems organized as if to perpetuate the idea of the contrast between matter and form so well explained by Alberti. Form comes first and is almost everything for design, while matter seems to remain somewhat accidental.


Fig. 42. “Free plan” with skeleton structure and “tied plan” with loadbearing walls as represented by Le Corbusier. Redrawn by Haydèe Barrionuevo


Fig. 43. General plan and detail drawings at different scales illustrating the need to make explicit the materialization in twentieth-century architecture. Designed by Robert Venturi and Partners, from International Architect

From the general plan to detail drawings, which employ the same orthogonal projection system, passages become difficult. It is as if large figures in a drawing were to be interpreted “naturally” as open, free space inside a building, as we would read them when looking at a general plan. Just seeing a large area of a plan in its entirety, as the representation of matter, and then translating this enormous figure in imagination to its proper position in a general plan as a simple incident in an extensive limit—a doorframe, a change of material—is difficult. Establishing an interaction between the two scales, modifying each according to the suggestions of the other, becomes a different design task, one at which few

Fig. 44. Elements of Architecture become standard components to be applied to projects. Corinthian-Composite columns are called in a nineteenth-century catalog “Style #15” and are advertised as “manufactured in any desired length.” 121 Development of the Project

architects become really skillful.8 Usually this discontinuity of drawings done at different scale makes each drawing almost resemble a new project; as in the nineteenth century the design of the façade became independent from the plan, in our century detailing becomes something similar to so many other projects. It is obviously easier to refer to materials by their names and specifications. This reductive idea is backed by the fact that there are many subsystems in the architectural construct that have been industrialized

Fig. 45. A contemporary building that demands the invention of every detail of its material assembly: the “Maison de Verre,” Paris, by Bijvoet and Chareau, 1928–33. From Perspecta Magazine 122 The Architectural Project

and that are preexisting elements of architecture—such as windows and materials ready to be applied to the building; those become “hard” components of the new solution. The condition of an element is recovered but not its prestige. Modern architecture did not succeed in producing buildings industrially, but many of its components became ready-made. In present-day buildings the architect does not have the same control over elements that we earlier stressed was enjoyed by the great masters of architecture.

In today’s buildings it is almost mandatory to use standard parts; they are not necessarily well designed or built—they are simply “available.” Classical elements were typologically standardized but were fabricated by hand for each individual building, usually incorporating subtle variations; these variations represented the signature of the architect. Today in most buildings it is necessary to assemble existing parts, “models” instead of “types.” And they have been designed as a banal version of the forms of modern architecture. This is not a new phenomenon either: in the nineteenth century normal ornament was factory made. Artists rejected machine-made ornament with anger; fragments of those hateful forms are now collector’s items. The production of industrial components for architecture flourished in the nineteenth century, but the shapes were “poorly considered” or “badly devised.” Architects rejected the forms of the past, the more so if these were machine-made. Such shapes were too complicated: it was necessary to make things easier for the machine. More probably, these forms had to be supplanted by others, symbolic of their times. Simpler forms could mean more rapid production with less material. This was of interest to industrialists. In was in this way that we arrived at today’s industrialized components. Once again, productive practice confirms the division between “the essential project” and the “project of construction.” The essential project postpones materialization, which will appear as a later addition to the design, even as a debasement of the project through the influence of available materials and prefabricated parts. Those materials and elements make their own constructive demands, separating architects from their idealized role as sculptors at one remove, the total controllers of their art objects. The construction project is divided into several different projects—a project of the structure, of doors and windows, still another of piping—all relatively subordinate to that “essential project.” If we want to reintegrate knowledge about building in design training, we will have to overcome the traditional pattern of the project, the overestimation of the parti and the single drawing. We must recreate within the design process the kind of integration that existed—under another, now impossible form—in traditional architecture.


CHAPTER 7

Elements of Composition


Architecture—various built environments at their different scales— appears in plan drawings as a succession of marks or figures that represent solid bodies and spaces. These shapes can be perceived as figure or ground. Spaces thus represented are intended for human use; for the movement of people, for the equipment they use, for rest. Design action consists of limiting those spaces with corporeal forms, material bodies. Corporeal forms suggested in drawings separate or join spaces. Architectural design consists in the invention of dispositions of spaces and bodies in representation. Figures are perimeters, lines, and opaque superficial marks. It is possible to play with those figures in the plan without deciding if they “are” spaces (elements of composition) or bodies (elements of architecture) in a state of “suspension of the referent.” This is the “game” described by Michael Graves in chapter . In this process of space creation some concepts arise: relative interior and exterior, transition, and limitation: all these are properties of the experience of architecture. As Robin Evans notes: “If anything is described by an architectural plan, it is the nature of human relationships, since the elements whose trace it records—walls, doors, windows and stairs—are employed first to divide and then selectively to re-unite inhabited space.”1 As drawings progress, elements of architecture become more and more defined. Some are surfaces or masses that clearly separate spaces; others will be columns or pillars creating subspaces from a whole. In the plan composition, the voids of spaces and the surfaces and masses that provide their limits are shapes, solid or clear; designers bestow their attention on different sets of shapes; figure and ground compete alternately for their attention. In the plan each “element of composition” is defined step by step as we define the elements of architecture. If we describe the design process this way—like a progressive drawing of two sets of shapes—we are still in the dark about the relative position of any set of elements of composition. This more general schema will have been established before the refined, space by space configuration of each room.

Fig. 46. Elements of Architecture devised for a particular building forming a multiple external skin. The former Bank of London, Buenos Aires, 1963, by Clorindo Testa and Sanchez Elía, Peratta Ramos, Agostini, architects. 125 Photo by author Elements of Composition

We call this general schema parti if it is invented and type if we adopted it from a generic repertoire of preexisting dispositions. The Beaux-Arts tradition of the nineteenth century developed the art of composition by elements—that is, by the addition of spaces within an abstract scheme—and thus contributed to the disappearance of the


Fig. 47. Elements of Architecture devised for a particular building by Le Corbusier. The Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, France, 1952. Photograph by Libertad Vigo

type as a basic schema for new buildings. Composition by elements, however, was not taught explicitly; it was exemplified by what Julien Guadet called “the great examples of the past.” In fact the technique was transmitted from studio master to disciple and perfected by the many successive generations of students. Nothing, to be sure, is more engaging than Composition, nothing more seductive. It is the true realm of the artist with no limits or frontiers but the impossible. What is it, then, to compose? It is to put together, weld, unite, the parts of a whole. These parts, in their turn, are the Elements of Composition, and just as you will realize your conceptions with walls, openings, vaults, roofs—all elements of architecture—you will establish your composition with rooms, vestibules, exits and staircases. These are the Elements of Composition.2 Inventing a disposition of closed perimeters in a plan produces a parti but not more than that. We learn very little about the character of the future building, as spaces are made to exist by the nature of their limits. It is the limits that create differences between spaces, which otherwise look very much the same in a schematic plan. Diagrams in which

Fig. 48. Curved Elements of Architecture treated in an abstract manner to define the volume of this salesroom for automobiles, Buenos Aires, 1962–64. Alfonso CoronaMartínez with Ramón Etchart, architects. Photo by 127author Elements of Composition

we can read only differences in area and connective systems allow translation only into very uninteresting, routine designs. Routine functional designs produced in this way also condemn to oblivion most of what was elaborated as space composition for several centuries before modernism. The quotation from Guadet’s book—Guadet was the theory professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts by —shows us how the notion of “elements of composition” became a key concept in the practice of design; design as was understood and taught in the design studio. Composition, Guadet says, is achieved by “welding” those elements together. Fig. 49. Classical structure translated into abstract reinforced concrete members, Paris, 1931. Auguste Perret, architect. Photo by author

Fig. 50. Preliminary sketch for the Plocek House. Closed perimeters define Elements of Architecture. Some are easy to decode as circular columns or linear walls. Others are ambiguous, being massive walls of vegetation (to the left). Their shaping 128 and spacing delimit the The Architectural spaces of the project Project and its Elements of Composition. Michael Graves, 1977. Redrawn by Alfonso CoronaMartínez

Composition by elements eventually became functionalism, because the invention of new partis enables the architect to solve new design programs. The building designed for a new use will contain an appropriate assembly of elements of composition, linked usefully by the proper circulation system. Each element of composition—each room, each space—will have been designed for a more defined use than that suggested by the spare enumeration of Guadet’s “rooms, vestibules, exits and staircases.” In the nineteenth century this functional composition was still clothed in the garments of the styles. And those in turn were to be sets of elements of architecture.

Composition by elements can be envisaged as carrying the logic of Renaissance invention by design to its natural conclusion. The liberation that complete drawing entailed allowed the Renaissance architect to separate each new design from typological precedents, beginning with variations from an established type. From the nineteenth century on, types would fall from favor and the rules of composition they embodied would weaken. The “great examples of the past” would lose their role as models and a new freedom would be found in designing. The “appropriate assembly of elements of composition,” the new parti, could allow a break with established types if those were not distinct from the great examples. As soon as those were believed to be old buildings without any use for present needs, a full-fledged avant-garde modernism would make its appearance. There was an alternative in the early decades of the twentieth century that had its foundation in the use of precedents to be understood as displaying syntactic rules for composition. Those rules would remain valid even if the buildings themselves were no longer considered useful. What orthodox historians of the Modern movement regard as “not-yet-modern architecture” is probably in compositional terms simply that architecture as practiced by such architects as Behrens, Perret, or Asplund; authors who never adopted or were reluctant to adopt the abstract repertoire of elements of architecture of the s. A new parti can be created by the assemblage of existing types or parts of them; a possibility already envisaged by Durand. It can also be created in a more orthodox way by “welding” individual rooms, each one defined for its use, as would happen in the late nineteenth century in Picturesque residential architecture. The first alternative is more economical in design time, because it involves accepting composition as the assemblage of preformed preexisting parts. These parts are already socially accepted for a partial use of the building. That kind of solution is employed not only by Durand; it can be identified in Gropius and Meyer’s Bauhaus building, in railway stations with their dual public building/ shed tradition, and even in the League of Nations design by Le Corbusier, the variations of which he described as being different partis that employed the same elements of composition. If the elements of composition are designed one by one, the resulting assemblage may perhaps be too subjective. Authors have taken upon themselves the task of designing everything, as is the case with Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal in New York. This extreme was not reached in the nineteenth century—Antoni Gaudí was perhaps an exception— because styles and compositional rules acted as an anchor preventing this flight of fancy.

129 Elements of Composition

Fig. 51. Set of Elements of Composition present in part of the School of Engineering at Leicester University, Stirling and Gowan, architects, 1959–63. The “authentic” composition is the one on top right. Four other possible alternatives are shown below. 130 Courtesy Wojtowicz TheJ.Architectural and W. Fawcett, ArchiProject tecture: Formal Approach, 1985

We have already observed that this difficulty issued from formal liberty when dealing with elements of architecture. Spaces, elements of composition, have contradictory properties. From the point of view of design these elements do not have the strong limitations bearing on elements of architecture. From a practical point of view the apparently unlimited repertory of rooms is bounded by limits set by size as well by the geometric characteristics of mutual compatibility, which limit the possibilities of adjacency between rooms. Composition allows them to be characterized not only by their intrinsic shape and dimension but also by their position within spatial sequences.

Some spatial configurations are associated with specific kinds of activities; in the most basic way we interpret elongated spaces as circulation to link other spaces, and we associate balanced spaces, tending in proportion to the square, with rest and permanent occupation. Some shapes established for a long period help us to interpret the use of a building, like those traditionally adopted for theatre halls and auditoriums. In spite of this, spaces of such characteristic shapes can be employed for other ends or placed in a surprising way in spatial sequences; in either case this will enhance the spatial experience of the visitor, underlining the unique character of that building. We might recall the early introduction of surprise in the Renaissance when a circular cortile was substituted for the usual square one. In each particular design, elements of composition are subject to a threefold determination: by spatial configuration; by the connections each has with other spaces; and by the function they have relative to the whole. In the design process, the first two characteristics grow together in the progressive determination of form. The third one—the function of the room—is in fact external to the object or nonspecific in that sense; it can be changed during the building’s life. This is not true for any building, nor for any of the rooms: these have become more and more specialized in time and the reduced dimensions of service areas heavily loaded with equipment make it difficult to change their use. The existence of service areas, bathrooms, kitchens, and the like, linked vertically in apartment buildings or in offices, make it impracticable to change their use. Strangely enough, these standard units acquire a status similar to that of elements of architecture in the past: they become ready-mades of a new composition. If we leave aside these specialized rooms, we can note that there is not a variety of names for elements of composition; none that can be compared with the multiplicity of elements of architecture. The word room does not reflect the unending variety of their shapes and sizes, in sharp contrast with the precise designation of the parts of building pertaining to different styles. This changes in the second part of the twentieth century: the uses of rooms tend to multiply and become specialized, while the elements of architecture lose the precision of the attributes of styles, and the mutual exclusiveness of repertories is replaced by a kind of “modern eclecticism” or eclecticism of modernity. We have observed that the limitations for the shape and size of elements of composition stem from two causes. The first, the limits set by structure and material—which were stringent for traditional construction—have loosened their grip in the last hundred years. Before that, these limits meant that large rooms had to be symmetrical in order to


balance the forces produced by the weight of roofs. The other limitation is the requirement of adjacency between spaces: as any two successive spaces share a spatial limit—generally a wall—any change in the plan shape of the first will produce a counter-form in the second. Therefore, economy suggests that these limits should be planar, and the angles at which these planes meet are generally  degrees to allow for multiple adjacency. Liberating the shape of an element of composition from these limitations generally means pursuing the design work according to one of the following criteria: 132 The Architectural Project

(a) The irregular shapes—those that would not fit adjacent spaces—are pushed to the perimeter of the plan, where they can “develop freely,” invading only the outside space. This is the tactic adopted in the radial chapels of Gothic churches, in Picturesque houses, and in many of Alvar Aalto’s designs. (b) Between strongly shaped room forms, others are interposed that fill the small spaces between the main ones with secondary uses: this is implicit in the recommendations of Palladio and in the “carved” composition of the French hôtel particulier. (c) Some extreme criteria are employed in modernism: accepting the counter-form of a strongly shaped room as an invasion into the next, as was done by Le Corbusier in his early houses; eliminating the requisite of adjacency by making the irregular shape an almost independent building linked to the rest of the composition only by some “umbilical cord” of circulation; or, as was done by Corbusier in the Chandigarh Assembly, putting the atypical shape into a large void as if the central space of the building was an exterior—a strategy also followed by the Argentine architect Clorindo Testa.

Association of Elements of Composition In a previous chapter we have mentioned the difference between additive and subtractive or subdivisive compositions. It will be appropriate now to be more specific about the result of these different procedures.   The building designed consists of an ensemble of regular geometrical shapes or a single regular shape. Most of what we call classical architecture tends toward these configurations and, with some variation, so do Baroque ensembles. If there is more than one volume, the ensemble will be additive, but each of its component parts will

Fig. 52. Irregular spaces contained within a fixed perimeter leave adjacent residual spaces in between. Top left: Finlandia Hall, by Alvar Aalto. Top right: Chandigar, the Assembly by Le Corbusier. Irregular spaces can be installed in the perimeter of the 133 plan, expressing Elements of their presence. Bottom left: Composition Wolfsburg Cultural Centre by Alvar Aalto. The differences between a variety of spaces can be compensated by the secondary rooms. Bottom right: Hotel de Beauvais, Antoine Le Pautre, 1652. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo

have been subdivided to create its functional spaces. If there is only one regular volume, and it has several spaces inside, those will have been created substractively. This can be seen in the plan of Holkham Hall, illustrated in chapter .   The building consists of a set of more or less regular spaces contained within a limited urban site. The bulk of the building is invisible from public space, being hidden by its neighbors. The building is perceived only as a façade. Subtraction will usually have been the way to produce these compositions: modernist architects have often gone to some pains to feign an additive composition in such circumstances.

  The building appears to the observer as a proliferation of particular forms, each of them regular or irregular. These shapes extend over the site according to regular or irregular patterns. In this kind of additive composition, Picturesque or “free style,” all the elements of composition have potentially the same value; they can all “express their own character.”


In cases A and B, a spatial hierarchy is produced, that reinforces the position or the consequence of dominating elements over axes, involving their centrality more than their size. Secondary spaces are employed to emphasize the hierarchy of those considered as more representative. In case A we can see that the perceived volumes of the ensemble are seldom rooms but rather groups of rooms. These groupings can be homogeneous, made of the same kinds of spaces joined by doors, as in the en suite wing of a palace; almost homogeneous, as when such a suite of rooms is served by a corridor or gallery; or heterogeneous when made up of different rooms, as in the appartement of a developed palace architecture. There is therefore a kind of displacement from the pure notion of the element of composition (the individual room) to the volumetric unit Durand called “a mass” (one room or several). The solution for this lack of notional coherence would be in an unexpected place: Picturesque or irregular composition, which formal teaching always rejected in the school curriculum. In Picturesque composition we would find a coincidence between volumes seen from the outside and rooms on the inside. This mechanism of composition would be adopted by the Modern movement and would be the basic recipe for the assemblage of purely functional, “honest” groupings of rooms. It allows for each room to take the form dictated by needs, and the ensemble will take the character of a sum of particular needs, adding up to the building’s complete function: what has been called functional Expressionism. In it the variety of shapes corresponding to different functions is reflected in the elements of composition, which compensate for the lack of articulation of modernist elements of architecture. Elements of composition take the place that elements of architecture had in the styles. In classical buildings (Case A), the outside volumes do not correspond to definite functions; they are conventional well-proportioned volumes in which only some parts are allowed to appear externally: domes expressing important central rooms or porticoes indicating main entrances. Corner blocks project from the central part of volumes to give “strength” to the mass, not because larger rooms are needed in the angles of the volume.

In traditional compositions the limiting line is assumed to be heavy or thick; the third type (case C) implicitly assumes that the limit is thin and can be figuratively deformed by the pressure of the rooms inside. Such a building demands a larger piece of land where its sprawling plan can develop as a “free organism.” The former two belong more properly in the city, especially case B, which does not occur outside the corridor street. The changing favor of the open-space city explains the resurgent interest in limited-space composition like the French hôtel particulier. Renewed acceptance of the traditional city in the s led to an interest in learning once more the refined compositional devices of subtractive composition that had been discarded by modernism. It is a matter of speculation whether the skill in additive composition introduced methodologically by Durand in an incipient form played a role in the architects’ acceptance of open-space urban models. The garden city and its later versions (at all densities propounded and executed since the end of the nineteenth century) provided the ideal ground for buildings of additive composition. And large pieces of land were precisely the type of site chosen for the grande composition. The Beaux-Arts would have fostered this concept without knowing these were the skills needed to invent the Ville Radieuse or the other Cities for the Automobile that eventually came to be considered the only feasible urban models of the twentieth century. It is tempting to imitate the quotation from Tzonis and Lefaivre that appears in the introduction to the present work, where the authors indict Renaissance architects for their self-appointment as judges of beauty, except that after Durand the self-appointment refers to a new value, function: “The new formal abstraction of building was a problem-solving tool. . . . It contributed to the production of a functionally perfect plan while it silently argued for the right of existence of the formal problem. It assumed the architect to be the guardian of the rules of function, the proprietor of special problem-solving instruments, and the dextrous negotiator in the conflict between the canon of form and uses.”

Distribution As David van Zanten has observed: “The idea that planning was a recent French innovation was frequently encountered during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Jacques-François Blondel in the fourth volume of his Cours d’Architecture () remarked that distribution ‘was unknown to our ancient architects’ but ‘those at the beginning of this century knew how to refine it into art.’ Later he stated, ‘No



one is unaware that we owe this facet of the art to Jules Hardouin Mansart.’”3 We have already defined distribution as the way to solve the problem of accessibility to the different rooms of a plan. I have also suggested that the predominance of distribution is correlated with the ascent of functionalism, the notion that the foremost value of architecture is usefulness. The art of distribution to which Blondel alludes is the intelligent use of circulation spaces to make buildings more adequate for comfort and privacy, not the traditional organizing of space sequences. This last would be the old sense of the term and would in the course of the century be absorbed into the new meaning. From the nineteenth century onward, conceiving circulation as a system would extend into all design problems; it would be the correct way of distributing.4 Robin Evans has discussed the meaning of this evolution in the design of houses: “The search for comfort, privacy and independence through the agency of architecture is quite recent, and even when these words first came into play and were used in relation to household affairs, their meanings were quite different from those we now understand.”5 The reason for providing an independent circulation system is privacy, the independence of individual actions. Each person is invisible from the others if he or she so wishes, hidden behind the door of a room. It is the opposite of the panopticon discussed in chapter . And the main design instrument to achieve privacy is the passage, a space devoted to circulation and to circulation only. In , Marc-Antoine Laugier explained in his treatise the usefulness of passages (dégagements): Finally, passages contribute very much to the comfort of lodgings. I will not dwell long on this matter in which our [French] architects excel. Under this name [dégagement] we take in all the rooms that provide secret communications from the interior of an apartment to the outside. These passages are necessary to avoid long detours and to have at hand all the help needed from “offices” and other places, to take off our garments whenever we like, to come and go without bothering anyone or being bothered by others. It is not necessary to go into further detail: suffice it to say that an architect in the design of an apartment must never neglect corridors.6 Evans would confirm in technical terms what Laugier had written informally two centuries before: The history of the corridor as a device for removing traffic from rooms has yet to be written. From the little evidence I have so far

Fig. 53. Palais-Bourbon by Giardinin and Lassurance, 1722–29. The sequential disposition of the main rooms which face the garden (top of the plan) is accompanied by a very narrow servants’ corridor immediately behind the salons. A more public corridor gives access to the apartments in the left wing. Redrawn by Haydèe Barrionuevo


managed to glean, it makes its first recorded appearance in England at Beaufort house, Chelsea, designed around  by John Thorpe. While evidently still something of a curiosity, its power was beginning to be recognized, for on the plan was written ‘A longe Entry through all.’ And as Italianate architecture became established

in England so, ironically enough, did the central corridor, while at the same time staircases began to be attached to the corridors and no longer terminated in rooms.7


Later he completed this evolution, summing matters up by dividing the house into two domains—an inner sanctuary of inhabited, sometimes disconnected rooms, and an unoccupied circulation space—making it difficult to justify entering any room where you had no specific business.” Evans discusses the progressive appearance of this model; it is in fact a new kind of building, the one with which we are now most familiar. In it each main room is independent from the circulation. Perhaps some of the main halls are linked directly, as was customary before, but this has become a decision that the designer can exercise or not. En suite disposition had been considered natural for the rooms of a Renaissance palace (or those of a house). It now becomes exceptional. Circulation is now “naturally” by corridors, empty most of the time, as Evans observes. Rooms are no longer composed in themselves and as parts of a sequence; if they are composed, very often it is at a right angle to the circulation—the only entrance—and the view to the outside, on the opposite side of the entrance, gains in importance. Each room tends to relate more to the outside than to the room next to it. Each room is now like a small house overlooking nature, the garden outside, and design gives more and more attention to outside spaces. Architects become more attentive to the sequence from the inside of a building toward the outside. It seems contradictory that the architecture of the nineteenth century went in the direction of more spatial subdivision while that of the twentieth century took the direction of spatial continuity. But it is so. Functional partition of space contradicts the ideal of fluid, limitless space. Functions define the need for mutually exclusive spaces; on the other hand, the ideals of continuity, finding an appropriate tool in skeleton construction, would become obsessive in the s. Functionalism does not need spatial continuity, as it is rather a hindrance for privacy and the increased definition of activities. We have seen that the building with a set of contained spaces that are joined by appropriate circulation makes its appearance long before artists began desiring free, continuous spaces. In modern architecture as it develops the concept of the free plan, there are no spatial units easily discernible; rooms tend to be portions of a continuous, universal space. Spatial limits are preserved as indications of the areas devoted to different activities, but the presence of a total


space is emphasized; a space in which the distinction between outside and inside is blurred. In Theo van Doesburg’s words: In contradistinction to all earlier styles the new architectural methods know no closed type, no basic type. The functional space is strictly divided into rectangular surfaces having no individuality of their own. Although each one is fixed on the basis of the others, they may be visualized as extending infinitely. Thus they form a coordinated system in which all points correspond to the same number of points in the universe. It follows from this that the surfaces have a direct connection to infinite space. • The ground-plan. The new architecture has opened the walls and so done away with the separation of inside and outside. The walls themselves no longer support; they merely provide supporting points. The result is a new, open ground plan entirely different from the classical one, since inside and outside now pass over into one another. • The new architecture is open. The whole structure consists of a space that is divided in accordance with the various functional demands. This division is carried out by means of dividing surfaces (in the interior) or protective surfaces (externally). The former, which separates the various functional spaces, may be movable; that is to say the dividing surfaces (formerly the interior walls) may be replaced by movable intermediate surfaces or panels (the same

Fig. 54. The age of distribution. Functional specialization in the great houses of the nineteenth century is demonstrated by the variety of rooms in the social part of the house. This is further emphasized in service areas with their separate corridors for male and female servants. Redrawn by Libertad Vigo after the schematic plan of “Bearwood” by Robert Kerr, 1864

method may be employed for doors). In architecture’s next phase of development the ground plan must disappear completely.8


For van Doesburg then, elements of composition have no identity of their own. They must become localized only within a total space that is ascribed to functions. They occupy positions but do not conform to a hierarchical system of spaces. Modern architecture can be seen to have two contradictory systems or ideals of distribution. The first is mechanical functionality: one space for each function and privacy as the “natural” condition of rooms. The second is spatial continuity as the “natural” condition of space, as an image of modernity that takes pleasure in showing its new devices to achieve transparency and even literal continuity of a space into all others. Even the distinction of inside and outside space, the prevalent reason to build at all, is challenged. Design of buildings in the second half of the twentieth century had to face this opposition and architects, if willing to make habitable buildings, had to find conciliation between these rebellious contraries. In turn, some of the tactics employed have generated virtually new types: () To fulfill the requisite subdivision of interior spaces there is no interior continuity, but transparency to the outside is exaggerated. This happens routinely on the floors of open-plan office buildings. () The program is organized into a spatially continuous part, which carries the banner of modernity, and a subdivided one carrying the burden of functionality. Mies van der Rohe designed the celebrated Tugendhat house this way, as his disciple Johnson later did in the Wiley house; many of Wright’s Usonian houses also display this contrast. () Modern spatial continuity can be accepted whole and its functional inconveniences are forced upon the user. Le Corbusier often used double-height living areas, notably in the Marseilles apartments, with private rooms opening as a balcony over public areas of the dwelling. Most of Mies’s late buildings have horizontally unlimited interior space, no matter what their function. () The continuous circulation that is normally found can provide the opportunity to concentrate all the effects of spatial continuity. This demands a certain hypertrophy of circulation areas, which in extreme cases become monumentalized, while the closed spaces they “serve” become secondary, contributing to the grandeur of circulation. Hotel atriums of the s and s perform this inversion of values, which is also found in other recent public spaces like shopping malls.

Fig. 55. Plans for the Schröder House, by Gerrit Rietveld, 1924. The first floor (plan at bottom) can be unified or completely subdivided using sliding panels. This is the elimination or disappearance of the plan proposed by Theo van Doesburg. Redrawn 141 by LibertadofVigo Elements Composition

() Sometimes spatial continuity is feigned by devices already tried in the eighteenth century, like an extensive use of strategically placed mirrors, interrupted limits, and repetitions. Charles Moore explored these possibilities more than once in his residential designs. () One of the ideals is abandoned, usually spatial continuity; unless it happens in very elemental and unpretentious buildings like warehouses or clinics, it also entails a programmatic abandonment of the forms of modern architecture, as was the case with the Italian Tendenza architects of the s.


The contradiction between the ideals of continuous space and the demands of distribution prevent the formalization of a prescriptive design method, like the somewhat naïve description made by Durand (see chapter ). Buildings exemplifying modern architecture display more spatial continuity than rational distribution, and as we have already observed, rationalist buildings often do not look modern. Therefore, the first phase of the Modern movement cannot prescribe any design process except that of disposing in space useful areas and the paths joining them. That is the prefiguration of the parti, the way that leads the designer from the bubble diagram to the plan of the building, and at least it looks objective and efficient. Nothing of the sort can be prescribed for the forms to be used or for the production of new space.9 The guidance needed to design adequate forms and spaces was left to the imitation of accepted examples and the permanent recreation of elements of architecture discussed in the previous chapter. It could be argued that a free spatial composition demands new elements of architecture, and this would justify the employment of abstract shapes, rather more geometric than constructive. The great value given to the parti as what was new in each modern building would be enhanced by the use of abstract forms as elements; in this way the observer would not be distracted by the meaning attached to traditional elements. Abstract elements perform this role better than do those of the styles, but once they become familiar with use, the expressive devices available for conventional buildings are impoverished. This can be one reason for a renewed interest in the more complex and meaning-laden elements of the past: in other words, one of the causes of Postmodernism.

The Hôtel Particulier Returns “Architectural syntax, against the claims of Academic teaching, is more than the combination of equal and constant value. Syntax implies the establishment of a hierarchic order among constituent units and the subordination of some of those parts to the privileged elements of the system. This hierarchic order is always unstable and subject to revisions, even to revolutions,” writes Hubert Damisch in the introduction to his “Viollet-le-Duc.”10 In the preceding section we have noted how the referent for the term distribution changed in modern times. What Blondel called distribution was a dual skill that provided at the same time the grandiose enfilades joining the main halls of a palace and the smaller rooms and corridors that served the former. Abbé Laugier did not think the first part worth

Fig. 56. In the Wiley House, 1953, Philip Johnson divides the program into a plinth of conventional rooms and a large, transparent hall on top in the manner of Mies van der Rohe. From The Architectural Review 143 Elements of Composition

mentioning: it was already in place. On corridors—dégagements—he went into some detail because they were in some sense new. Corridors would become all-important in the nineteenth century, as Robin Evans shows, until they become the main structure of the composition. Considering the architect at work, this would supplant the hierarchy of the main spaces. Without knowing it, the routine-oriented architects of the twentieth century are obeying Durand’s instructions in the sense of busying themselves with “distribution and nothing else.”


We have also discussed some recent alternatives that are present in composition to reconcile segregated functions and continuous space. Segregating rooms, one for each function, deprives architecture of its more specific aesthetic “tool,” the creation of spatial sequences. Attention to formal values is again diverted in the direction of elements of architecture, in the void left by the styles. In recent decades some authors have held the opinion that spatial sequence was an innovation proper to modern architecture. It cannot be denied that space sequences have in our time taken on a character very different from those of the past, due to the possibility of creating real continuities and transparencies hitherto impractical. This does not confirm that classical and academic architecture were disinterested in spatial sequences; and this pseudohistorical distortion hides the contradiction I have pointed out between “functionality” and “spatiality,” one of the design conflicts more specific to our times. In the academic tradition spatial sequence was called marche: the imagined movement of a user-observer inside the building under design. In David van Zanten’s words, marche “denoted the experience of the building as if one were walking along its main enfilade.”11 The intelligible design of a building demanded that the marche be carefully planned; the techniques employed to prefigure that sequence derived from classical examples. For classical architecture, the main rooms, which would later be called elements of composition, were individual figures. Contrast among those shapes increased the interest in the sequence; each space was designed as self-contained but positioned as a definite stage of a sequence. In this tradition each space in the sequence is composed: this means that it has its own axes, its particular ornament, and is in a way selfsufficient. Once the doors that link it to the other terms of the sequence are closed, each “salon” is a balanced space for permanent occupation; it is independent of other rooms. Ideally, it is “complete”: great sequences are formed by such composed spaces, and even the galleries that help circulation are composed in themselves by successive bays as though they were church aisles. Their walls show rhythms akin to those in a street. The marche develops along the axes of the main rooms, trying to suggest a straight, linear advance. If this is impossible, there are devices to change the direction of an axis, using vestibules in the shape of circles, polygons, or ovals in the articulation of sequences. These plan shapes allow for the twisting or multiplication of directions. Main spaces in the classical tradition, then, are central or directional. We find an echo of this distinction in a statement of Charles Moore’s about the “rooms” that he separates from lesser practical spaces he calls

“machines”: “Rooms are non-specific spaces for use, empty scenes for human action where we carry on the rites and improvisations of life. They afford general opportunities for things to happen; they allow us to be and do what we may want. The empty scene of a room is fixed in space by limits. It is animated by light, organized by a focus, finally liberated by perspective.”12 In this description Moore gives new life to the old separation of main and secondary rooms as well as providing a vivid description of the traits of a classical room. Palladio had already suggested the convenience of having small service rooms near the main ones: “We will take care that in all the building there are large, medium, and small rooms; one near the other so they can be used alternatively. The small ones we will use for cabinets for study, or to put bookshelves, or the harness used for riding and other hindrances. Things we need only sometimes and which it is wrong to have in the rooms where we sleep, or eat, or receive strangers.”13

Fig. 57. Development and combinations starting from three different units, assumed as the basic elements. A simple room to the right; the same space surrounded by a portico, leading to the Greek temple, in the center. To the left, the room 145 with an interior gallery, which Elements of can produce a courtyard house Composition or a “basilica” type. The simple room is amplified into a simple compact building with a central hall. The Palladian villa is nearby. Patio schemes multiply as in the Escorial or the Invalides, to the left. A wing from the side of the courtyard can remain single, or double if the outside gallery becomes an interior corridor. The en suite disposition is shown in the apartment double. To the right of the drawing the Palladian villa requires wings as additions to the central pavilion and gives origin to complex schemes like that of Versailles, bottom. To the far right, the simple addition of elementary rooms can be interpreted as a picturesque composition. Drawing by Libertad Vigo


Served spaces and servant spaces; this is what Louis Kahn called the two sets of rooms. Main rooms are aesthetically ruled; secondary and accessory rooms are merely useful. They are not proportioned or “composed.” The building is conceived as a sequence of main spaces served or accompanied by secondary rooms. Laugier described in  the disposition of an appartement, the constitutive unit of a palace: “Great apartments must be composed at least of an antechamber, a pièce de compagnie [a room to receive visitors] a bedroom and a cabinet. All these rooms should overlook the garden and be linked in enfilade. In the double of this corps de logis we should place the dining room, the closets [garderobe], the washing cabinets, baths and latrines. I am only positing the things one cannot do without for essential comfort.”14 After the time of Durand a sort of equality was accepted for the spaces of the plan. Main spaces lost representative value and circulation space simultaneously increased its influence in the configuration of partis. In the architecture of the twentieth century all a priori space hierarchy is denied. The functional building turns out to be composed of rooms that for classical figurative practice would be secondary spaces: not composed in themselves and of dimensions fixed by practical factors. This compositional neutrality is reacted against in antimodernist trends of the s and s. We find it in the cunning design strategy of Louis Kahn, who reinstates space hierarchy from an apparently “functional” standpoint. Servant and served spaces are also present in the description by Charles Moore. Other, more openly Postmodernist interpretations of architecture emphasize the identity of a room, as in Vincent Scully’s commentary upon Michael Graves’s work: “Apparently, the International Style had in its agenda the destruction of the room. Therefore it is a new and essential thought, that of returning to the sequence of separate spatial forms, distinguished by character and function but—above all—to be perceived as special, symbolic places. Rooms will no longer be suggested only, as parts of the flowing space of the International Style. They will conform as classical, discrete volumes.”15 This reinterpretation of the “sequence of separate spatial forms” demands a renewed knowledge of design practices that have been long forgotten. There were specific design routines for the configuration of individual spaces and the production of their sequence. In a general sense, this was the planning routine of classical architecture. In a more specific sense, when classical composition dealt with restricted lots in the traditional city and had to accommodate into them the representative program of the hôtel particulier, a refined skill was developed to simulate within restricted boundaries the main features of the type and the grandeur demanded by the noble client.

The hôtel particulier reappeared as a design paradigm in the s and s. The hôtel particulier is a large urban residence commissioned originally (in the seventeenth century) for a member of court nobility. The plan fits snugly into the urban block, playing the type against the real possibilities of the site. The distribution reproduces at a smaller scale the elements and the sequences of a large palace. One arrives to the door of the main block (corps de logis) through a forecourt (cour d’honneur) flanked by stables and servants’ lodgings that make this court into a kind of private square. On the opposite side the main block faces a garden that in intended to reproduce in its design the large gardens of country palaces. Laugier’s treatise contains many references to the design of these residences. He does not deal in detail with plan distribution because he agrees with Blondel that this is a “matter in which our architects excel.”

Fig. 58. First floor plan of a hotel from the Cours d’Architecture by C. A. D’Aviler, 1691. The composition of the apartments, or sequences of rooms serving an elaborate ritual of daily life, will in time create the modern idea of distribution. 147 Beginning from the grand Palierof(from the Elements ground floor, the first Composition “stop” on the main stair) an axial hall gives access to symmetrical antichambers where the less familiar guests will be received by the lord and lady of the house. The next room on either side is a chambre de Parade, furnished as a bedroom, also a reception room. Real bedrooms (chambre á coucher) adjoin these and have their ancillary rooms as well as an access to secondary stairs which allows free movement for the owners of the house. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo

He concentrates on representative subjects: the position of entries, the value of parks and gardens. The layout of the hôtel particulier follows rules laid down by Serlio in the early s with the intention of adapting representational buildings to irregular sites. This is the formula, as explained by Tzonis and Lefaivre:


As one penetrates the building coming from the outside, one passes a sequence of public spaces. These ought to be placed in the center of the building. They must also be regularly shaped in order to lead the viewer to infer that the rest of the building is as regular. Then as one proceeds from the public spaces toward private or servant areas, which must be placed near the periphery of the site, oblique and scalene spaces are permitted. This irregularity results from the boundaries of the site itself, which chop off parts of the space that otherwise would have been regular.16 The art of spatial distribution developed in the hôtel particulier also incorporates the possibility of inserting smaller spaces between the main rooms of a sequence. This is not done according to Serlio’s formula of pushing them to the limits of the plot but by plotting them between the larger ones of the sequence: those irregular rooms will serve to shift axes and will eventually become a second series of service rooms, demanded by functional requirements. We have mentioned the excesses of plan design can act to the detriment of the volume as a whole. It should be stressed that planism is a real need in the Baroque hôtel. It would be impossible without a plan to coordinate its sequences and the growing maze of its corridors, establishing sequences that pretend to be independent but in fact are secretly subservient to the limitations of the site. It is certainly because of the demands of the hôtel that plan design developed so richly in France. After that, it was in a way natural for Durand to affirm that architects should deal with “distribution and nothing else.” A skill developed to counter the limitations of awkward sites and to answer the rituals of aristocracy would become the tool to produce the democratic, functional plans demanded by the nineteenth century. Planning skill proved to be politically neutral, but the conditioning produced by its emphasis as the privileged projection was not neutral for the practice of design, and even less so for the conception of the building. In the nineteenth century this would become the addition of elevations on a plan studied separately. The hôtel is designed therefore as though excavating into a solid the representative spaces of the residence and forcing the utilitarian rooms

into “what’s left” of the original volume. It is the opposite of the freestanding Renaissance building that expands its “ideal” volumes within the universal space of perspective. Volumes developing in a universal space would be taken up again by modern architecture. Wall limits then cease to be massive: the plan becomes a strategic tool to place useful spaces in relation to one another and does not represent structure any more. In the Renaissance the plan was instrumental in determining the proportions of spaces, but the position of these was mostly dependent on an established type. The Beaux-Arts tradition in teaching did a great deal to keep alive the design routines of the hôtel particulier. As these buildings were deemed to be among the great examples of the past, the skill in the disposition of spaces of different kinds and sizes within a masonry mass was translated into what is known as poché composition. In it, deep masonry supports and limits appear in the plan as the remains of a composition of sometimes contrasting spaces. Wall mass was necessary for masonry construction, to absorb the thrust of vaults. It was superfluous in the nineteenth century, but it became a kind of “technical reserve,” concealing structures and ducts that did not previously exist. Design technique is very much modified when the tacit paradigm of the masonry building is supplanted by a new paradigm: the building as structure plus enclosure. Alan Colquhoun has shown the inversion of terms produced in the initial architecture of Le Corbusier when he decided to


Fig. 59. Composition deals with creating regular spaces even within irregular site limits (top: Hotel d’Evry, C. N. Ledoux, 1770) or the making of irregular spaces within regular limits. Clorindo Testa, Irene van der Poll, Luis Hevia Paul, Di Tella house, Buenos Aires, 1970. Courtesy of Clorindo Testa

Fig. 60. Top floor of Maison du Peuple, Victor Horta, Brussels, 1899. The perimeter of the plan follows the curve of the rond point facing the converging streets that lead to it. The assembly room is rectangular, with secondary rooms acting as poché 150 between room and Thethis Architectural the façade. Redrawn by Project Libertad Vigo

install as a new design principle the independence of space limit from the structural skeleton. Colquhoun also mentions a metamorphosis of the notion of poché: “Thus Le Corbusier’s transformation of poché spatial planning not only facilitates the pragmatics of the free plan and the attribution of equal status to different spaces; it also makes the house a complete representation of its own spatial structure. Nonetheless, this transparent ‘exhibition’ of space retains, while it inverts, the traditional distinction between service areas and living areas, giving to the first positive and to the second negative spatial characteristics.”17 Renewed interest in the hôtel particulier has its roots in a preoccupation of late twentieth-century architects in the sense of finding design techniques for what is for modernist architects a “new” environment: the traditional city. In the new city of continuous, open spaces the elementary, additive composition had found its natural habitat. The technique of adding elements of composition was ill fitted to limited plots in city blocks, where all buildings tend to be parts of that block. The tradition of the hôtel particulier seems to provide rich examples.18 The richness does not reside in the program; long vanished are the princes who inhabited those Parisian palaces. It is a group of case studies in design and a dramatic show of the confrontation between the rules of the city and the demands of a complex brief. It is also a “back to one’s roots” reconsideration of the origins of our modern profession: was it not born of refined planning? New design instruments were required to conduct spatial composition within the rigid frame provided by party walls, at least if the intention was to create the semblance of a free composition made prisoner. Another feature of the hôtel particulier made it an attractive precedent. It is a creative model of designing from a type toward a “case.” Each

of the examples we can study contains an established type that demands certain spaces and sequences: the forecourt, back garden, and apartments and the way those must be ordered in sequence. The gradual incorporation of functional elements, one generation after another, causes distribution to become more and more elaborate. On the other hand, there is a concrete, generally irregular site that has to be defeated by a type that must appear “perfect” in spatial sequences. And this appearance is sustained by the presence behind the scenes of invisible service spaces. Twentieth-century architecture would tend toward transparency in the limits of all spaces; what was hitherto invisible poché would become all-too-evident service volumes or towers interrupting the flow of space. It would risk turning servants into the main actors of a spatial narrative. The hôtel particulier has elements of composition of every scale; some of them are single rooms, like great salons; others are complex apartments made of several interconnected rooms. We do not know for sure if it is from this design theme that the concept of the element of composition arose. But it is from this highly difficult assemblage and conciliation of specialized rooms that the element of composition must have appeared as such on the drawing board. The liberation of individual elements of composition from their position in an established type yields the possibility of rethinking their association. Elements of composition taken one by one are the germ of the additive composition that would be advocated by Durand. Starting from each of the elements implies that the designer means to assemble them according to the parti, a law of addition the designer is inventing. Therefore each element of composition must be designed as a “free” component and not a redesign of what is expected of them as found in the type. In type we find each of the rooms as part of a conventional set of spaces. Dissociated from the demands of juxtaposition, each element of composition has to be designed specially for its role, and the connections it will have to other rooms must be decided each time. It was necessary to cross several boundaries to arrive to this stage. We have mentioned the appearance of the double wing (corps de logis double) as the reflection of a need for more specialized rooms in the appartement. The double wing is a type of association of rooms that, once established, can be employed as a unit, an element in future compositions. A simpler form that had been used for centuries is the simple wing, a string of rooms that originates in the side of a court or cloister. It can be accompanied by a side gallery. It is abstracted from a simple type, the Mediterranean house centered on a court. As soon as the typical plan is disjointed into its elements of composition, each of these can be used as a “free” part in the plan game. However, within it there remain some



limitations of association from one individual space to the others, like a memory of the type from which it was first taken. The original type survives partially in the new building, attenuating the theoretical total freedom of the pure concept of elements of composition. Total freedom means the extreme dissociation that leads us to consider each individual space as an entity subject to only two determinations. The first one is about size and position: the element of composition can be installed in the appropriate position for the whole and given any dimensions that are suitable for its use. The second determination is of shape, one that will fit its function and give it individuality. A spatial composition is therefore made as follows: first, we would define the unit of space to be employed, then its variations produced by adding and superposing the unit, by extending and contracting it. Then we would define the modes of connection, sequences along axes, a circulation grid. This description is valid for the modular architecture of the Renaissance as well as for a good deal of the architecture of the Middle Ages. Jean Castex has shown, too, how this process is at work in the Prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright. And the description is obviously valid for the Beaux-Arts tradition. If we admit now into our schema more than one type of spatial unit— more than a single geometric matrix—then we will be able to include the hôtel particulier in the description as well as the large Picturesque residences mentioned earlier in this chapter.

The Names of Elements of Composition Elements of composition had but a few names, a poor repertory for the nature of rooms. The names of activities have multiplied in the last two centuries, and the names of rooms reflect the end of the multipurpose room of former times. That room was really to be classified by its shape more than for its use. Shape was symmetrical and proportioned; therefore large rooms were also tall rooms. Specialization crept into architecture by way of small, shapeless, utilitarian rooms without any deliberate proportion: servant rooms. Modern architecture has precise functions for its elements of composition. Besides the names of their uses, their dimensions vary from precedent. Spaces tend to be reduced, adopting the minimal dimension for the actions to be deployed in them. New books would be published to provide the designer with a repertory of “minimal” room sizes, as is the case with Ernst Neufert’s Art of Designing in Architecture. Dimensions for use came to be strongly correlated with furniture, now called “equipment.” Rooms have the dimensions adequate for the “operators”

of that equipment. Dwellers are indirectly conceived as the servants of beds and tables, washbasins, stoves, and later computers. The large spaces of the past did not need a functional determination: space limits were far from the actions of dwellers, and furniture was relatively small compared to the room itself. If we look for functionally dimensioned spaces in old palaces, we will find them in horse stalls and carriage houses. The functional configuration of modern spaces derives from the conception of minimal space. Leaving aside the matter of size, we may consider the shapes of rooms. In a modern dwelling all of the rooms are in the same dimensional rank; that is, the difference between the larger and the smaller is much less than in a representative building of the past. This makes it more difficult to establish a hierarchy among them. But there is also the matter of shape; most of these rooms are rectangles in plan, sometimes because they are subdivisions of larger available spaces, sometimes because they are the addition of structural units. But the main reason for this similitude is that in smaller rooms the equipment has to be fitted in, and unless it is custom-made, it will be made for rectangular rooms, to be adjacent to the limits. In the comparatively small modern room, equipment occupies mostly the perimeter of the room and “irradiates” to its center, which needs to be empty for the operators of this equipment. Smaller rooms and rectilinear equipment join forces to make the rectangular room the only rational one. There is a variant in which the equipment takes the character of freeform, almost sculptural bodies inside the rooms. The spatial limit then is dissolved toward the perimeter, as has been pointed out by Peterson.19 This design stance was often adopted by Le Corbusier and sometimes Mies van der Rohe in his American period. Strictly useful parts occupy the center of a large, indefinite space. The servants have taken center stage. Strictly speaking, this is the reverse of the “art of distribution” of which Blondel was so proud. Service spaces become figures and main spaces become the background. We have shown above how this reversion of values had been noted by Alan Colquhoun. These elements in summation lead to a loss of traditional space composition: if we accepted Peterson’s argument that indefinite, continuous space is nonarchitectonic, we could not have any form of spatial composition unless we went back to “room design” as conceived by Vincent Scully in writing about Michael Graves. There is another possibility to consider as a genuine spatial composition. It is to be found in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright: a man of the nineteenth century who was also one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century. He composed spaces, beginning with well-proportioned


Fig. 61. Design for “A Palace in St. Petersburg” by J. N. L. Durand. Traditional space sequences are rationalized by grouping the atypical rooms in the central band of the plan. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo 154 The Architectural Project

spatial units with architecturally designed surfaces. Those surfaces, however, would not be the same predominantly closed limits characteristic of the art de la distribution. On the other hand, Wright would avoid the continuous, universal space that the next generation exalts as Modern space under the banner of skeleton structure. He had learned about space in the office buildings he helped to design with Louis Sullivan. His notion of extended space is the addition of units, perhaps inspired by Gothic architecture.20 Space units are defined by geometry and by the elements of architecture that give them substance. Without losing its identity, one unit flows into the next by simple summation, partial superimposition, or expansion or contraction of the basic unit. Wright rejects both those closed rooms that are independent of each other and those indifferent spaces “cut” from a universal continuum and characterized only by furniture. In traditional composition, contrast was operated in the sequence: one spatial figure against another, round versus square, connected only by doors and corridors. In Wright’s architecture only one geometric form is used for each building, otherwise the operations of addition and superposition would be prevented, forcing also a differentiation of the elements of architecture of each adjoining room. Such inconsistency would be against what Wright called “integrity”: there was no room for traditional poché in his plans. It is easy to see a parallel between the invention of elements of architecture referred to in the preceding chapter with this invention of elements of composition. Taking this kind of composition to the extreme, as Wright did, demands free open space to build on and an additive composition. Perhaps this is the reason for the rejection of the closed city so vehemently expressed by Wright: more a kind of professional reasoning than a philosophical foundation. Of course this was not the only string Wright could play: it would suffice to consider the Johnson Administration building in Racine, Wisconsin, to notice that he was a designer of far greater resources. However, most of his work responds to the earlier description of a coordination of spatial units, and this is particularly true of his early, most influential work. That we find in the corpus of his work both masterpieces and some mediocre buildings is beyond question. What is interesting is his basic “composition routine.” The value of this routine resides in it being a formula to escape both the mechanical determination of spaces and functional subdivision, without diving into continuous space with interposed objects. This is the alternative in which, according to van Doesburg’s manifesto, both elements of composition and the plan itself cease to exist.


Strategies of Composition


We should observe that there are different routes leading to a project, be it in the initial stages of parti definition or in a more general way. Some ideas are used as a guide for each design and those reflect a priori attitudes to the building; often they are independent of the brief at hand. In some way we have already encountered these ideas when we called them “paradigms,” following the examples of Carlos Eduardo Dias Comas. Comas (taking the example of Thomas Kuhn) calls a paradigm the kind of design solution that has consensus among architects for typical design problems at a certain historical time. In that sense, a paradigm is not a type, since in the twentieth century those design solutions have the definite mark of an author. The acceptance of a paradigm leads to a certain design strategy, a design path that leads to certain kinds of parti rather than others. In the past, the paradigm of the beautiful building of classical times, well proportioned and ornamented, was the final objective of most design activities. Later there was a standard kind of “grand composition” at work in the nineteenth century, as has been described by van Zanten. In the twentieth century, linear blocks of flats assumed a similar role for social housing. The phrase strategies of composition can therefore be used to indicate sets of operations leading to an expected goal. They go far beyond the mechanical routines leading from the program to the parti and provide guidelines for the final result. In these design procedures it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between means and results, as they are strongly linked. Design means are used because designers have certain paradigmatic results in mind. We can name these strategies according to the kind of results they are expected to produce. It is not enough to say that the design procedures were additive or subdivisive in the whole or in part to find out what paradigm we are pursuing. The strategies in the following list are probably just a sample of the possible ones and more can be added. Our list is more a product of thought about buildings engaged in the urban context than of isolated, freestanding buildings. (a) The autonomous building. The design process leads to a building that displays some of the characteristics traditionally admitted in architecture: unity, integrity—and to obtain these the designer employs simple and well-defined volumes, including typological references to unity. The design will have weak links to its immediate context, but it may have very precise referents in its

Fig. 62. Neuestaatsgallerie, Stuttgart, by James Stirling and Michael Wilford, 1977–84. Fragments adapted to different functions and site positions area employed to materialize a scheme that draws on Schinkel’s Altes Museum, Berlin: a circle within a rectangle. Redrawn by Haydée Barrionuevo



Fig. 63. The adoption of an unexpected type (the triumphal arch) to complete an unfinished palace. Design for the Ca’Venier in the Canal Grande, Venice. Progetto Venezia, Patricia M. Rabino and Alfonso CoronaMartínez, 1984. Drawing by author

cultural environment. The result will be a complete form, its links to the environment hierarchical, tending to dominate the immediate context. (b) Parti building. This is an original composition, without precedents in its immediate environment. Therefore it appears as a form over its environment. The design itself displays unity and integrity like the preceding kind, but here it is not easy to refer to traditional examples. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in its setting on Fifth Avenue comes to mind as a product of this strategy. (c) Strategy of mixed or altered types. The design is conducted using as a basis a familiar type that assures a good relation to its environment. The design, however, displays all the adaptations of the type required by its particular circumstances. The resulting building is less “formally clear” than would be expected from the basic type but is well adapted to the immediate environment. Classical architecture has had examples of “perfect” buildings that are then deformed or adapted to the circumstances of the city: many admirers of Mannerist architecture, from Colin Rowe to Robert Venturi, have dealt with them extensively. (d) Strategy of fragments. Here we witness the preceding case becoming an extreme. The principle of unity is explicitly discarded, usually dividing the program into parts that can be characterized

separately. Formally, these parts can be complete or incomplete. The different parts of the building can establish relations to their immediate environment as so many separate buildings. This is a variation of the previously described functionalist procedure of dividing the programs into parts that “express their function freely” (as in the United Nations Building in New York). This kind of design does not need free space to show each of these forms “complete”; they are to display only incomplete references, or “quotations,” in the Postmodernist decades. Stirling and Wilford’s Staatsgallerie in Stuttgart is obviously an example, but traits of this procedure can be found in unexpected places: the Villa Giulia in Rome provides a sixteenth-century example. Taliesin West by Wright reorganizes different precedents of the master himself: the Usonian house, a courtyard house, the arrangement of exterior spaces to suit a long drafting room, a small theatre. (e) Strategies involving operations with typology. We have already seen geometric transformations carried through the abstractions of typical plans to adapt them to local changes. These operations involve design for specially shaped lots, for lots on particular sites (corner sites, slopes), and the adaptation of established types to smaller or larger size. We have also seen that changes in living habits cause the disappearance of certain rooms and the appearance or enlargement of others. Other design operations consciously use types as precedents and distort their original character. Some of these may be typified in turn as design strategies: (f) Type transposition. This can be practiced in several different ways; first of all, by adapting a type for a different use. In this case the adapted type would be understood as a different kind of building and its new use reveals unexpected possibilities. A well-known example is Le Corbusier’s adaptation of the Parisian artist’s studio for social dwelling. This process is more usual than it seems to be: shopping arcades and their derivation in shopping malls originated in the covered street of the first nineteenth-century arcades. There can also be transpositions based on a change of scale: the city can be the type for the organization of an extensive building complex. Apartment buildings in the nineteenth century transposed the shape of the Renaissance palace, and this in turn multiplied the stories of the Roman domus. Several of the urban projects of Ralph Erskine are metaphors of the walled medieval city: the best known is the Byker Wall in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (g) Type combinations. Leon Battista Alberti joined the Roman therma type as a nave combined the centralized Greek-cross plan for



the transept of Sant’ Andrea in Mantova. After this precedent, the combination of different types in the same project has often been open as a design possibility. Such combinations are evident when one or more of the types is obvious. K. F. Schinkel uses a whole palace as the podium of a Greek temple crowning it (in the unrealized Schloss Oriana). An office building acts as the support for luxurious terraced apartments in a  design by the Roman architects Fausto, Lucio and Vincenzo Passarelli. Some of Michael Graves’s designs display this technique (edicules at the top of his tall office buildings), and more generally this can be related to the effects produced by interventions on existing buildings. We should point out that this design practice is consistent with Durand’s notion of complex buildings as the summation of simpler ones. (h) Analogies with historical processes. Some buildings seem to adapt to preexisting conditions of their site that in fact did not exist. The adaptation is suggested by architectural “gestures” indicating preservation. We could believe that the cylindrical courtyard in the center of the Staatsgallerie in Stuttgart was already a feature of the site and the new building was carefully wrapped around it. Unfortunately we know otherwise; earlier designs also by the office of James Stirling proposed precisely the same arrangement for museums in other German cities. So this one is simply the one that succeeded in being built. Pseudohistorical analogies are better suited for large urban projects. Small irregularities can be exaggerated to suggest the existence of previous structures or urban grids. This is not to be confused with the literal imitation of historical forms, called “pastiche” by architects of the nineteenth century, which can be found in the reconstruction of historical cities and even in the production of brand-new “historical” cities for the benefit of tourism.

In all these instances the designs borrow for the new building or example some “additional meaning” that comes in the first place from the original type. In the second place it comes from the addition or the clash of meanings of different types; in any case it is the confrontation of form and use joined to evoke “forced referents” that gives expressive power to the resulting design. Our list of typological approaches perhaps weakens the opposition stated at the beginning of this topic: invention versus tradition, or type versus parti. Parti architecture has been fostered since the Renaissance by the growing independence of the project from real construction. The project helps architects to see themselves as artists and even as heroes. Following tradition, on the other hand, has none of the heroic. It stresses

Fig. 64. A collage of plans composed by employing contrasting design methods. Left bottom to right top: Crown Hall, Mies van der Rohe, 1956, free plan; Hôtel de Beauvais, Antoine le Pautre, 1665, poché planning; Neuestaatsgallerie, 161 Stirling andof Wilford, Elements 1977, fragmentary types. Composition At the bottom right, Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. Drawing by author

continuity with the past as a guaranty that the new design will be accepted. It finds its rationale in professional efficiency and the chance of building over existing achievements. All these traits are independent of the personality of individual artists and emphasize the continuity of architecture rather than the incessant creation of new forms. Against this “professional attitude,” the architect as a heroic avantgarde artist sees himself or herself as a dramatic figure who is forced to create a new Idea for each project; this idea is usually a parti, from which every element of the new building has to be deduced. This excludes the

Fig. 65. Le Corbusier’s “Four compositions and the houses that exemplify it.” Redrawn by Hayde é Barrionuevo


possibility of employing preformed elements at any scale. This kind of architect tries to act as a sculptor having complete control of the work, leaving no room for doubt at the construction stage. For architects assuming this stance, matter is almost in a molecular state: it does not have either previous shape or necessary form. And the same should be true of the spaces created. The “will to form” of the architect tries to exert complete control; perhaps it is more than a coincidence that the time when this expression (Form wille) was used was also the time of Art Nouveau and of Antoni Gaudí. Frank Lloyd Wright was similarly inclined to this kind of aesthetic totalitarianism. For architects like these (and their more recent parallels, like Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry, or Zaha Hadid), every part of the building they are designing can only be a part of that particular building. It is as though the parts were the organs of a certain animal, and therefore they cannot be inserted into another species without producing a monster. The other design attitude, that of accepting precedents, holds opposite values: the continuity of architecture is a reason for the relative

autonomy of its parts from their singular use. In the traditional process the Idea appears as one or more types, sometimes suggested, sometimes very precisely determined. Discontinuity between parts at any scale is not considered a creative weakness but an acceptable state of organization. Therefore, the combination of preformed parts that carry latent meaning is seen as the normal condition of design. When referring to design procedures to underline these differences, we are leaving aside the usual distinction between Expressionist and Rationalist architects. This duality may be good to characterize the result of design, but it does leave aside design in itself. It turns Rationalism and Expressionism into subjective decisions, leading us to believe that these are, once again, decisions made by the creative artist.


CHAPTER 8

Changes in Design Method The Future in the Present


This book can only suggest the scope and the consequences that a new revolution in architectural representation might have: this revolution results from the introduction of computer-aided drawing. A revolution in representation must necessarily produce a revolution in architecture: this is the thesis I have defended since .1 Design is not simply a technique; it is a culture. To design, one must get inside this culture. One must belong to this culture as well as mastering its practice. We are today experiencing an explosion of new techniques that will completely transform the practice of design. We must not imagine, however, that a new technique can substitute entirely for the set of operations that existed before the new way of doing things made its appearance. A design revolution is not like a scientific revolution, which supposedly reduces the former theory to the status of superstition, as has been pointed out by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.2 In design, each new technique is grafted upon the trunk of the existing design culture. What I call design culture and architecture cannot be clearly distinguished or separated. I will not insist that both were born in the Renaissance, but I am willing to suggest that they were reborn together at that time—which implies that today’s architect is the heir to a kind of professional personality; that personality was created in the century framed by the lives of Alberti and Palladio. As Cristoph Luitpold Frommel observes: “In spite of all stylistic and technical changes, this continuity in design methods links the architecture of our century with that of the Renaissance, civil and sacred architecture; it is a tradition that has never really been interrupted.”3 The continuity to which Frommel refers resides in the representation of the project, and it began long before Monge gave precision to descriptive geometry.4 This continuity existed before the design method evolved into the two phases we now believe to be the “natural way to design”: first to determine a parti and later to develop it. This was to be a product of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and its eighteenth-century precedents.

Teaching and Practice Do we already have the products of a revolution in architectural representation, produced this time by the introduction of the computer? In any part of a culture we choose to examine, we will have difficulties in finding the exact date of a revolution. A new revolution in representation is taking place. We can point to some features of this transformation. It had its origins in architects’ offices before entering the design studios of the schools of architecture. Computers generate changes in the “project factory” of the architectural office before any mutation takes place in the “design laboratory” of the schools. But these changes, though produced by the same equipment and software, are quite different in those two environments. For the office environment, computers allow the architects and engineers to replicate “the same”—known spaces, proven materials, and details—only faster and with greater efficiency. For schools, computers open the way to new shapes, spaces never seen before, and they even provide the means to skirt ignorance of descriptive geometry. The studio environment is also changing, as I have hinted in chapter . We should acknowledge that unlike the art of perspective in the time of Brunelleschi and Alberti or the complete design projections from the workshop of Raphael, computer graphics were not generated in the environment of architecture; nor did practitioners demand them. In the Renaissance, the new media gave birth to the modern architect; a mutation was produced, architects as we know them were born, and the medieval architect receded into history.5 When computer graphics were introduced in the last decades of the twentieth century, modern architects already existed. Established architects today have to confront this new tool, or technique, perhaps in the same manner as their predecessors had to assimilate new construction techniques in the nineteenth century. At that time, it is worth remembering, architects employed new materials and structures in order to produce more efficiently; under the spur of critics like Fergusson and Viollet-le-Duc, they became anxious to find a style appropriate to the new materials and techniques. And this was also envisaged as an imitation of sorts; for Viollet-le-Duc it was performing like a talented Gothic master. Computer graphics were not invented to make new architectural forms and spaces; their goal was to make professional work more efficient. Schools of architecture, on the other hand, are not directly involved with professional practice. The designs produced by students almost never materialize and students seldom have to seriously consider building costs.

165 Changes in Design Method


Studios in prestigious schools tend to be like hothouses for the avantgarde. In such an environment, computer graphics function in a very different way from that seen in the office. Highly esteemed professors are regarded as avant-garde artists and their students aspire even more to that status. There is, therefore, a different goal for design in the school environment. Design activity in the avant-garde is not meant for building. It has to provide new forms, thought of as a particular kind of architectural knowledge. The product is not embraced in the professional work. Its market is in teaching or in criticism. Attitudes toward design held by members of today’s avant-garde reflects an almost unbroken continuity with the work that was executed in studios. On the other hand, it can be seen to represent a kind of “pure research” in its own way.6 The question of there being a similitude between architectural design with research points to that of the specificity of architecture. The question remains in Renaissance terms: we have to decide whether or not the project is the most specific part of architecture—whether the invention of “architectonic objects” that are not built or even not meant to be built, is “inside” or “outside” architecture. This is not new; already in the sixteenth century many designs were made without any practical purpose. And that was precisely a time of exploration with new graphic media. Such designs survive, they have been preserved, although made only a century after the destruction of “all the drawings of the Duomo in Florence.”7 Perhaps it was the invasion of architecture by painters that led to this high esteem for the project, for the graphic product in its own right. If doing research can be defined (according to Perez Oyarzun) simply as any activity “adding new knowledge,” then designing for pleasure or the compulsion to create is an exploration of that parallel world in architecture we call representation; this might be very much like research. This was the position taken by Iakov Tchernykhov, one of the Russian Constructivists and the author of designs very much admired in the early days of Deconstructivism: In various periods of the history of architecture the need has arisen to represent some designs as architectural fantasies. These fantasies differed in a certain manner from usual architectural methods by their deviations from the accepted compositional, as well as technical, expression. In setting down his architectural fantasies, the architect has allowed himself to introduce certain innovations and compositional liberties. Not restrained by any preceding conventions, the architect in his graphic rendering had

Fig. 66. An imaginary composition consisting of curvilinear elements in axonometric projection by Jacob Tchernykhov. From Architectural Fantasies


the opportunity to display new, perfected means by which we might be able to express more fully and extensively the abundance of our inventions and conceptions. By a series of experiments we obtain all the data required to approach the resolution of questions which occupy the architect’s mind. It is quite probable that several architectural compositions from this cycle of fantasies will not be accepted by some architects because of their peculiarities, which will not be understood at first glance. This may in no way be used as a pretext for excluding from the body of architectural experience a certain example of an architectural fantasy already rendered graphically.


And Tchernykhov adds: “The fundamental reason for the creation of these architectural fantasies was the desire to render, by means of various representational and compositional technical methods, all those imaginations that arose in the mind of the architect. The circumstance that some of the fantasies have no so-called material justification indicates that in the process of experimentation there arose the insistent need to represent them in the way indicated above and no other. The value of compositions of this type is measured by those ‘internal’ qualities and peculiarities of architectural design which each of them possesses.”8 In his “architectonic fantasies” Tchernykhov insists on the need to represent in a certain way, sometimes in axonometric projection, almost always painted in arbitrary colors, “in the way indicated and no other.” Tchernykhov’s drawings are final renderings. He calls his drawings “inventions” and “compositions.” The first word gained usage in the sixteenth century, when the freedom that drawing provides was put to use by artist-architects with much the same intentions, “to express more fully the abundance of our conceptions.”9 Composition, as we have seen, was an academic term used to point at the orderly disposition of parts. Tchernykhov is not reluctant to use it; continuity with that instrumental kind of past is not problematic for him. His compositions are for him “pure” exercises inspired by up-to-date (and Revolutionary) names of programs (Industrial complex, Socialist city, and so on) although he makes no attempt to hide the fantastic character of his designs. Tchernykhov was experimenting with representational and compositional techniques. He even foresaw a time when there would be better perfected representational tools. “As all the types of rendering under study here are ‘arbitrary’ devices by means of which we aim to achieve the desired elaboration of our architectural conceptions, there is every likelihood that they can be not only altered and supplemented, but replaced by something totally new. This novelty would have to include a specific device of rendering and, in its differentiation from preceding graphic renderings, be an improvement both in attractiveness and in the effectiveness of its method of expression in architectural drafting.”10 We can forgive Tchernykhov’s contradiction (were his fantasies not inseparable from the way they are represented?) as he is also a good prophet. He is capable of imagining complete new ways of rendering that lie somewhere in the future. His compositions would have profited from today’s computer graphics, no doubt. He, as well as other Russian Constructivists, gave currency to the axonometric projection employed as a tool to objectify the complex forms in Modernism’s geometry. Far from the extremely complex and seldom materialized spaces of the avant-garde there is another, more conventional space in architec-

ture. That space is produced in architectural offices where computer graphics are already the prevailing means of production, where opportunities for jobs have changed according to the new “tools,” and where the work to be done has changed in its assignment of time and tasks. Is the practice of the profession also deeply transformed? And if it has changed indeed, are these changes due to the new techniques of representation? It is not necessary to accept a practice of design development on the basis of previously made sketches as the only alternatives open to computer design or, at the other extreme, to create previously unthinkable shapes with the help of -D software. There is clearly a field of design in type transformations as those described in chapters  and . The idea that all buildings are designed by adding in plan preformed elements of composition (the standard practice of Beaux-Arts and Modernism) is probably a bit naïve. The other precedent is inventing single shapes like those of Corbusier’s Ronchamp or many designs by Oscar Niemeyer. The road to form may be more complex and contaminated by various procedures, as shown in the designs by great architects from Ammanati and Vignola’s Villa Giulia in the sixteenth century to the Stuttgart Museum of Art by Stirling and Wilford. A design theory worthy of its name has to provide explanations for the design of such unusual buildings and not only for the conventional ones. That was my effort in the end section of chapter . In what ways such complex compositions will be more efficiently produced with the help of CAD is still a field awaiting adequate research. The notion that type as a fixed disposition of parts and spaces places a limitation has been noted earlier in chapter . A more flexible conception of type as precedent, explained in chapter , has a different role from that of fixed, static type. Type understood in this way can be the support for design operations, not simply the acceptance of customary dispositions. This new understanding requires a reevaluation of the uses of type in the design process, which is why method and professional practice are considered together here. There is a whole realm of research directed to the use of computers in design. A new architect is being produced; will such an architect fit into the profession, reshape it, or recreate it? There is a good reason to take a look at the profession. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century architect was a practitioner who received commissions to design buildings. Perhaps not enough attention has been paid to the fact that the formal changes in Modern architecture were made under the same artist-patron rapport established long ago. The patron changed more than the relationship—from prince to middleclass bourgeois—while the architect tried to remain the same. The last


half-century witnessed the progressive ascent of the corporate client and its correlate, the large architectural office. But the operations inside that office still copied the procedures of the studio invented by Raphael for Saint Peter’s.

The Profession


The role of typology—the old conception of type as a fixed guide to design—in the design process, which was a banner for most of the European Postmodernists, seems to be obsolete in practice. For most of the structures actually materialized, redesign of existing type will be the rule and the presence of predesigned elements a constant trait. This relationship is exactly the opposite of what goes on in the realm of education. Consider the contrasts in the table below. IN THE DESIGN STUDIO

PRACTICE

Creation starts from elements Use of avant-garde models

Adaptation from existing types Use of socialized models, or from the office experience Universe of the Program A client who does not “understand” Definite budget, financial problems Detailed material definition Typical structures Long time devoted to development Function described in other contexts and circulation patterns Time factor linked to monetary value Getting a commission Preparing several designs at the same time

Universe of the Project Another architect as client Without any budget Low material definition Atypical structures Long time allowed defining a parti Function described as sizes Time for delivery of project Completing the design on time Undertaking only one design at a time

This vision of professional practice as a process in which its products are in general repetitive is a disillusionment for students who are firm believers in the possibilities of their futures as creative artists. However, since not all of the students will be recognized as artists, why should that be so frustrating? Would it be possible to learn in the school of architecture what practice will be like? Would it be possible at the same time, to learn to create something new? Perhaps we do not believe it is possible to learn about

real practice; perhaps we feel the duty of preparing artists, as we always tried to do in the past. On the path to becoming an artist, we left only fragments of the student who wanted to become a professional. The artist who feels a compulsion to produce is typically a person who cannot communicate with his consumer. He is not the only one to lose that communication, but his isolation is a hallmark of artistry. Paul Valéry says about the artist and artistic work: “We can only consider the work in relation to its producer, or on the other hand the effect that work produces on someone else, the consumer, once it has been finished. The action of the first and the reaction of the second can never meet. The idea that each of them has of the Work is incompatible with the other’s.”11 If what Valéry says is true, the work of architecture can never be a work of art. However, the project itself has the qualities of a work of art in Valéry’s sense—the production in solitude of the product that is hidden in the final result. Valéry characterizes this “enormous load of intellectual work” as “disproportionate to the effect.” This quote is not ornamental; it makes a difficult point. The work of architecture is two things at the same time, one for its producer and a different one for its consumers, and most particularly for the client. If the work is done wholly for the client, the work of the architect will be completely professional, and his relation to the object will at most be that of an artisan. If the work remains entirely “on the side of its producer,” it will not exist as architecture; it will remain a project, which can be considered an art-product on its own. Therefore, the work of architecture is its project, but it is more and less than that. It is more and less than a work of art also. It will perhaps become a work of art after a long time, when the necessity which gave it birth has extinguished, when it becomes completely “an architecture for the museums” as Aldo Rossi once wrote. The client will not primarily consider his architect as an artist, as Sir Roger Pratt made clear, writing in about : Firstly, make up your mind as to what house will suit your money and your possessions and when you have fixed the number of rooms and their dimensions . . . if you cannot imagine it on your own, avail yourself of some ingenious Gentleman who has seen many such houses in foreign countries and has a knowledge of the best authors of Architecture . . . so he can do it for you and make a drawing on a paper, even if it is roughly drawn . . . and after having the advice of many counselors . . . get a wooden model made that fits the drawing as much as possible . . . and go on with your building or change it until it pleases you.12



That is the way a prospective client considered the architect in the seventeenth century—not very different from the way one is considered today. Present-day practice is divided into two parts, which we could call normal and custom-made. Normal architecture consists of rather small buildings, done with traditional building methods suitably modified and for individual clients. In normal architecture the architect fills the usual role as creator and coordinator of a new building, within the limits assigned by Pratt when he introduces the architect for his peers.13 Custom-made architecture is devoted to large works; it uses very special building techniques and depends on a strict organization. The architect and the project have a more limited place in this production scheme. Large offices run by established architects make their basic design decisions by hand-sketching and passing these sketches on, as always, to assistants, who are now computer draftsmen. These assistants in turn employ software developed for engineering, for high-definition technical drafting. The gap between ideation and development is established in the office. It reflects on schools of architecture as training in the established software systems: these are the conditions through which their students find work in established offices. This is only the first phase of the revolution. The academic world has reacted in the nineties with research in the use of new or existing software meant to fulfill the whole range of architectural design, from conception to development. The success of these developments will change design training and in time the architectural office too. Large offices today have satellites all around the world and undertake design in the most remote locations. For this purpose they use “horizontally integrated” teams that follow the example of design firms, mostly engineering practices. Design activity seems to be less docile in this new division of work, perhaps because of the difficulty in overcoming the subjective feeling of ownership that artistic production possesses. In spite of that, very interesting work has been done in the realm of virtual design studios, where students in separate spatial locations subject their designs to the opinions of critics who are not physically present, but who are connected to the assessment process by computers and the internet. Virtual design studios have also been tried thereby offering an environment where students exchange their partis before development, in this way neutralizing—or hoping to neutralize—that jealous feeling of ownership.14 Kolarevic and Ng point out that in virtual design “the studio tried to mimic, as much as possible, the design flow of an architectural practice assuming a horizontal integration model.” In their ar-

ticle on this, they make extremely interesting observations about the behavior of students. The instructors apparently tried to follow a classical design process, with clearly separated phases designated as Parti, Form, Detail, and Material (the program was a simple pavilion, not needing an elaborate development of mechanical relations). The equivalents of the desk crit and a weekly pinup (public crit) were developed for remote interchange, using the computer screen and video-conference techniques. The “splendid isolation” of the studio seems to be doomed. But it will not go without resistance: “One observation gained by browsing the web database is that not many students chose the designs by the students from the other university in subsequent phases of development. One answer given by the students was that it is more difficult to understand the designs of students from the other university than one produced locally.” The conclusion continued: “This is an interesting point. Our original intention to limit possible contingencies by putting together teams with similar background and language did not yield a desirable outcome.”15 What Kolarevic and Ng have seemingly proven is the existence of the studio as a subculture (as described in chapter ). The students “in the other studio” have subtly (or not so subtly) different values, they “think and design differently.” The studio operates very much like a family. Kolarevic and Ng also noticed that “it must be pointed out that students prefer seeing the face(s) of their tutor(s) during tutorials and review sessions.” Design criticism continues to include much nonverbal communication, in spite of the marvelous technology employed. It is interesting that the students wanted to see the faces of the critics but were indifferent to the possibility of seeing their remote design partners. These partners were apparently sufficiently represented by their production (it must be remembered that this collaboration was successive, not simultaneous). On the other hand, the “sharing and obtaining of (more) information about the design on the Web was the main source of enthusiasm for the students involved.” It is quite probable that the shortcomings of the first, experimental virtual design studios will be overcome by successive generations and the new form of design practice will establish a more open studio, one that is at the same time both “global” and truly “participative.” A very large building is necessarily repetitive, unless it happens to be the work of a recognized great architect who has been hired to design something entirely original,16 as would be the case of a Frank Gehry designing the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. The large building will otherwise be of a repetitive character to take advantage of the properties of serial production. Industrial production was a dream of the early twentieth



century; it was to be applied to the mass-production of many buildings. It is now limited to the parts of a single building. Moreover the design drawings now form a document of production among many others. In a way, we have returned to medieval conditions as they still existed at the time when the cathedral was being built in Florence. There followed a long period when the architect was apt to believe that the design was his final document of architectural work. In small buildings we can even forget the centuries that have elapsed since the Renaissance. In those works, architects retain the role of “fitter,” mediating between building and site, client and contractor, and between different craftsmen. They deploy here some skills they have to acquire in practical life, outside their academic training—those of the modest administrator, amateur psychologist, and anthropologist. For a small building, the program and the client seem to be one and the same thing. Architects have to coordinate a relatively simple production process, which becomes very difficult only because they have to coordinate small groups of people in different building trades. Another difficulty issues from budgetary limits, all too real for the client and completely unexpected for a young architect who has designed most if not all his/her studio projects without any real references to cost. The possibility that one of the student’s designs could be too expensive has probably been mentioned by the professors only where there are unnecessarily large span structures or some other deviations from usual practice. In large buildings, the architect has to objectify the client’s desires. He therefore has to write a program and follow it. In smaller buildings the architect cannot leave the brief; it represents the actual client. The architect’s profession is then divided into two different types of practice. One of them is as traditional as the scale of its little buildings and the technique of its materialization. The other is a part of a system of larger works that has separated professional competences so much that the architect in some countries has no legal responsibility over the possible mistakes produced in the construction. “While architecture is identified as one of the arts, it is also a profession and a business. Any profession must attend to the business administration of profits and losses. The business aspects of architecture involve, for example, establishing a realistic fee structure, staying on schedule, estimating the amount of work remaining prior to completion, coordinating consultants and in-house staff, maintaining contacts with prospective clients, acquiring new work, managing the number of projects that are in the office at any one point in time, getting agreements in writing, writing legally competent specifications, staying as close as pos-

sible to the construction budget, staffing the office in an optimal manner, gaining publicity for work completed, and developing effective office procedures.”17 The changes introduced in these production processes by the use of computers will be revealed by the time assigned in the architect’s office to the different phases of the design process. Another change is a closer following of the design process by the clients, thanks to the existence of virtual images which they can now demand. The client’s ability to imagine the final product is greatly aided by virtual imagery. The client’s tendency to consider the design finished at an early stage increases also. This is too early for the architect, who is cornered between the need to produce quickly visible results for the client and the longer time experience shows is needed for architectural ideas to become “ripe.”18 In traditional practice there was no room—and no need—for such detailed imagery. Since it was impossible to show computer animations, the architect had to convince the client that the architectural Vision was correct even if the client was unable to share it while in the making. Once this faith had been gained, the architect had the upper hand, but this position was unstable. The new means of representation make the practice of architecture more participative, in the sense that the client has an inside view of the successive stages of the process and therefore has greater decision power. The client knows now that a machine has drawn the plans. This very fact makes the architect’s process appear painless; the client therefore feels free to ask for modifications and will perhaps become addicted to that age-old student game—“let’s try another parti.” In any case, user passivity is on the way out. Perhaps because the client is willing to take as final the first sketch as long as it looks computer-printed or conversely because he will force change after change, considering that those successive “versions” are produced almost automatically. The time devoted to changing these successive trial-and-error versions will from now on be structured very differently from previous practice. The artisan-draftsmen are gone, enter the new software operators. It is now possible to make a succession of finished designs, altering the sequence of drawings shown to the client from less definite to more definite. In consequence, the structure of fees will also be changed. The temptation of taking more commissions at the same time is a strong one: the computerized office is nearer to the production line, as details become files and the “office style” is stabilized in electronic memories. This does not foster creativeness; it really goes in the direction of “ready-to-wear architecture.” Large offices then become larger, as efficiency in providing a design in time provides more clients.



The long process devoted to the search for an optimal solution is besieged by the temptation to show a complete and “perfected” result, which is apparently ready to build. If there are more commissions on the waiting list, this temptation will find its rationale. The architect has more time to search for solutions at random, a specific pleasure of this art, since it is no longer necessary to draw and re-draw endless working drawings if a modification comes along when start of construction is near. Architects seldom consider working drawings to be creative; their “field” is rather in the parti, and the working drawings that used to be trusted to draftsmen are now standardized. Something very important is lost in this process, as the quality and individuality of architecture was rested in the study of details. As Marco Frascari has noted: Drawn by many hands, construction drawings are considered protective legal documents since they translate a design into a set of prescriptions for a construction and the renderings, as already mentioned, are regarded as hypocritical and illusory elucidation. The critical professing professors and the totality of the market oriented professionals of architecture judge this part of the architectural process an inevitable graphic transaction, a dull component of the architectural process to be left, possibly, to building management. Nevertheless, in the past, located between conceiving and building, these graphic transactions were the most poetic expression of the profession, constituting both architectural writing and reading. This striking double operation of reading and writing is a topical and cyclical operation, casting drawings in buildings or buildings in drawings. The rhetoric of translation is the unacknowledged mode of production ruling the process of this transformation from one system of representation to another. The essence of the elegant and wonderful macrocosm of architecture lies in these graphic projections. Translation is the instrumental cause of these projections.19

Computer Graphics The computer is not a drawing instrument like a pencil. The pencil is an extension of the mind-hand system. The computer is an intermediate system drawing according to our indications provided by the pressure on the button of a mouse, which in turn responds to the feedback from our sight of what appears on a screen. It is like someone interposed in the production of architecture. This had always been mediated production, especially for construction; it was already sculpture at one remove. Some-

thing new has invaded the apparently intangible craftsmanship of drawing, our fortress. The electronic middleman has his own bias, his own preferences. Our computer likes precise things; in fact, it doesn’t know any others. This can be a moral help for architects, always prone to leave precision for some hazy near future. On the other hand, it is not very good company for the advances and regressions of artistic creation. At least we can say that it interrupts the quick movement between mind and hand, between pencil and intuition. There have been developments in the last decade that search for the ambiguity of the initial stages of the design process, but these are far from the common practitioner as yet. Designers who have some experience begin the process of formgeneration with ambiguous drawings. Only when they have some certainty about what they are going to design will they try precise draftsmanship. Too much precision would be a hindrance in the early stages of design. This is where the computer enters the scene. From that moment on, the help of the “new tool” becomes invaluable; it separates what is possible and impossible for the object in a way that is final and knows no appeal. New software is being developed made especially for design, to breach the gap between primitive ideation and design development. These tools allow the designer to begin with three-dimensional solids and modify them at will before deriving conventional projections from them. It is as if one worked on models free of the cumbersome task of cutting and fitting materials. The results obtained by those who employ electronic models suggest that the design process becomes more fluid. On the other hand, these models accelerate formalization. Formalization then invades the early stages of the design process, fostering arbitrariness in the selection of shapes. This arbitrariness is helped by a trend to disregard exact functional fitness, which has been on the rise at least since . Buildings designed in this way tend to be “single forms” perhaps because of the greater ease in handling one volume instead of many. Computer graphics seem to increase the dominance of geometry. Very often this appears as the use of more complex geometries; it points clearly to the identification of architectural form with geometrical pattern. This is not new for architecture, which has been linked strongly to geometry throughout history. However, the architect was free to implement geometry or not; the architect was in charge of geometry, deciding where and how to make it enter the object. An architect could distrust geometry and hide it in the depths of the design or might worship geometry and try to show architecture as “built geometry.” In any case, the decision would be in human hands. Geometry is now hidden in the machine at the architect’s desk and will decide much more about the design than is apparent in the beginning



of this comfortable partnership. Perhaps that is the reason why much of current research goes in the direction of finding a more explicit role for geometry in the design process. An interesting development is directed to overcoming the static character of the drawing by manipulating those forms usually called regulating lines (tracés regulateurs in Corbusian theory practice) “to maintain and regulate the behavior of a drawing’s structure as its elements are manipulated. Through geometric relations and dependencies, construction lines can control positions and orientations of other lines.”20 This is research which accepts that the origin of architecture is in the plan. It then seeks to use the digital tools for a richer and faster variation of forms of the kind done by hand in the past. As Kolarevic also says, “In architectural design, as in other design disciplines, shapes are frequently constructed within some graphic context, which is, at a basic compositional level, set by some abstract organizational devices, such as grids, axes, and construction lines.”21 This was the role of geometry in Architecture according to the late Robin Evans: “Geometry is one subject, architecture another, but there is geometry in architecture. Its presence is assumed much as the presence of mathematics is assumed in physics, or letters in words. Geometry is understood to be a constitutive part of architecture, indispensable to it, but not dependent on it in any way. . . . Architects do not produce geometry, they consume it.” And later on he writes: “From the point of view of the architect seeking firmness and stability, the best geometry is surely a dead geometry, and perhaps that, by and large, is what architecture is made with. What I mean by a dead geometry is an aspect of geometry that is no longer under development from within. . . . Dead geometry is an inoculation against uncertainty.”22 In chapter  we proposed that design consists of putting on paper what little we know and, by contemplating the marks we have made, learning more about the solution. What is it that we learn in this way? We learn about the possible shapes of our design; we learn of the mutual dependencies of parts of all kinds. We will give sense to the gaps left between the shapes we intended to compose. We will learn more about the object that we are creating, but only indirectly about the problem we are supposed to be solving.23 The first sketch, the first imprecise model, intrudes into the “space of the problem.” That space was empty of forms, or filled with prejudice and preexisting shapes. This first model is what is sometimes called a “gesture of the designer.” It is an arbitrary object invading the blank sheet, bestowing new and equivocal meanings to the next stage of the design. The line of that “gesture” has a strong tendency to reify, to become a physical element of architecture; it is very seldom an immaterial axis like

those which were recommended by Beaux-Arts professors. It is a bet in favor of the unconscious being a source of certainty. In one of his few published texts Alvar Aalto admitted that when the problem was too complicated he trusted his intuition. He started drawing freely without thinking of the problem and later interpreted these apparently abstract forms as the possible solution for his design. These are the two poles of parti-taking; the spontaneous “meaningless gesture” on the one extreme and juggling with geometry on the other. Will computer graphics cancel the first, Aalto-like abstractions in favor of the hidden or explicit geometry of CAD? Do we have ahead of us another period like that of –, a time of extreme obsession with geometry? Perhaps we should remember Christopher Alexander’s first book, “Notes on the Synthesis of Form”(). Alexander arrives laboriously at a diagram built up inductively from the smallest functional requirements. This diagram, he holds, contains both the problem and the solution. It is very different from the bubble diagram. This latter represents conditions which the parti must fulfil; it can, for example, be its inspiration. Alexander’s diagram will become the parti; there is no pretension of formal neutrality in it. It can be “read” as the representation of the program or of the solution. It is a “middle translation,” a transition from program to form. It is the “putting of order in the written program” that Viollet-le-Duc had presented as a task of the architect. As a translation, it betrays its origin, but it tries to settle a code for that condition which is “not yet form.” CAD drawing, on the other hand, presents the solution-object complete. The program remains on paper or in the mind of the designer. It is a comfortable place for it to be left behind, if we are possessed by the desire of perfecting the virtual object to new limits allowed by our digital tools. Graphic computing not only fosters the perfection of the object, coming to know it more completely than was possible before; it practically makes this perfection unavoidable. Finally, there is the possibility that the goal of the design process will not be any longer its translation into a built form—an object—but the project itself; a freer and richer project than was possible before will be the end result—virtual architecture. Digital space, a reality of representations, is an environment with nature, functions, aesthetics, order, etc., not necessarily following or referring to classical reality (this last is defined as “the traditional built environment as well as the physical, social and cultural worlds associated with it”). In this world, people may find and generate information, work, meet other people and seek entertainment. According to this vision, architecture should play a


major role in the conceptualization, organization, and design of such an alternative reality. In other words, digital space is a virtual place in its own right that has no other justification than offering alternative experiences, structures and events to those of classical reality. Architecture designed for this interpretation of digital space is meant to be constructed in digital space and is not to be a part of the physical world, except it is to be experienced by people.24


Certainly this looks like the temptation of self-sufficient design, always haunting the architect, but it is not. In fact, it is more akin to a stage design, a time-honored activity that old masters like Palladio and Inigo Jones practiced in their day. It is stage design in cyberspace.

Methodology How do we define the design process we are still practicing and teaching, the design process implicit in all the styles that have succeeded one another in the last two hundred years? It is described in chapter  as close to the notion of composition: to put one thing near another. This is additive composition, which begins from elements of composition, those plane figures of the parts of the program—rectangles or similar shapes to play with. This made us understand that the modern building is an organization of separate spaces, adequately dimensioned and joined by the appropriate network of circulation— appropriate, that is, for the functions of the individual spaces and of the whole building. The function of each space is in its shape and dimensions; the function of a group of spaces is in the way circulation connects them. The function of the whole building embraces the whole circulation network. And this means that when all this organization of spaces has been determined we have in some way served function and can now “begin doing Architecture.”25 This is, as usual, work on form. According to the times, elements, and construction, styles will change. However, the basic new composition is already “done.” As was true two centuries ago: “We have seen that when we want to graphically express our architectural ideas, we must start with the plan which represents the horizontal disposition of the objects that must enter the composition of a building or of a part of a building. Then we will draw the section, which expresses their vertical disposition, and finally come to the elevation. Beginning by this last, as some architects do, and making the plan and section servants of the façade is like having the cause depend on the effect; this is an idea of which the extravagance does not need to be proven.”26

Fig. 67. Detailed model for a hotel project allows for a clear provision of the effects intended by the designer. Student work used with permission of the author, Universidad de Belgrano, 1997 181 Changes in Design Method

This finds more contemporary expression as: For us design is an explicit and reiterative process involving research, conceptual design, consideration of alternatives, their evaluation and re-evaluation. We do not believe in waiting for the “blinding flash” of inspiration. Initially, all aspirations for the project and constraints upon it are reviewed in collaboration with the client and consultants and reconciled into a final brief. When complete, the brief forms the basis of a thorough and wide ranging diagrammatic exercise to establish all the possible ways of configuring the building. The advantages (and any disadvantages) of each alternative are assessed and the range of options progressively narrowed through integration and elimination to establish the most appropriate conceptual diagram as a basis for the schematic design. The concept diagram (parti?), agreed with the client and other participants, will be systematically developed during the schematic design stage through response to further external inputs and factors. After a thorough review and assessment of the schematic design by the client and other participants, all aspects including materials and color will be comprehensively investigated in the course of the design development stage in order to provide a firm basis for the construction drawings and specifications. We are striving to develop a richer, inclusive architectural language based on the integration of modernity and tradition using the multiple layers of historical precedent and the abstract styles of

Fig. 68. Study model of a high-rise building. The student learns about structural elements and relations between structural and spaceenclosing elements while following current style trends. Student work used with permission of the author, Universidad 182 de Concepción del The Architectural Uruguay, 1996 Project

modern design. We are also striving to achieve a fusion between the monumental tradition of public buildings and the informal, populist image of today’s places of public entertainment.”27 The reader will perceive the similarity between the two descriptions. This does not mean that Wilford’s office is something of the past; it only

states explicitly the kind of design work done by that office and the order in which matters are considered along the design process. It is worded in terms that will suggest for a corporate client that it is a solid, professional office. There is no place for the lightning of inspiration. All matters will be considered before reaching a synthesis. And the styles will be inclusive. We can see from this statement that the consideration of elements of architecture comes after composition has assured us that the “thing” will work properly. And the use of the plural “abstract styles” will tell us that we are now quite far away in time from those avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century who made “profound visual discoveries, that these are still unexplained, and that rather than assume intrinsic change to be the prerogative of every generation, it might be more useful to recognize that certain changes are so enormous as to impose a directive which cannot be resolved in any individual life span,” as Colin Rowe wrote in the introduction to Five Architects.28 This description of the way to fulfill a design task could have been written in other large offices. We know that in many of those firms several partners and assistants “compete,” suggesting different partis to the head of the office when faced with a new assignment. It is almost as though studio education went on. The method we called composition by elements is therefore the professionally accepted way to design architecture at the end of the twentieth century. We should consider for a moment some shortcomings of this long-established, commonsense approach. Daniel Herbert has suggested what seems to be the most revolutionary proposal; it could be called the instrumental abolition of the parti. “If a CAD system displayed, say  interactive windows, the designer might proceed from one view to another—always in the real time it takes a real person to act—making entirely local adjustments that would be coordinated dimensionally only by the computer. The building’s designer would be able to see the emerging design as a real observer sees a real building, never as a whole building seen all at once, but only in partial episodic fragments that must be integrated by his or her cognitive system.”29 And later on: “The investigation suggests that the convention of the design concept—that is, the overall spatial and thematic organization of a project—may be an artifact of the Renaissance design processes and conventions of representation. Perhaps the need for a design concept is only a result of the information-processing limitations of a design process base on handmade media.”30 This extraordinary challenge would break the sequence: parti (design concept), then elements of architecture (development). It makes clear



that the second part of the sequence is something we inherited from the unstable past of the last two centuries. The previous tradition knew how the building was to be constructed and decorated before deciding about the plan, not in the irrational manner ridiculed by Durand, but because there were no reasonable alternatives before the nineteenth century. When these alternatives are hastily adopted, many buildings become experimental constructions unable to resist the passage of time and providing very poor climactic shelter. The design method posits a selection of elements for a later stage of design; this selection will be made more for stylistic than for practical reasons. Architects will be deluded by the possibility of “artificial conditioning” as the universal solution for misfit. Thus we arrive at the present time, when it is believed that any kind of envelope can be built and then equipped with machinery that is conducted by “artificial intelligence.”31 Is design composition by addition of parts now obsolete? Or is it perhaps the really modern way of thinking about a new building? We know it was a step taken two hundred years ago to overcome the closure of types established in an aristocratic society that was on the wane. This development permitted the rise of new, more adapted types, even if they were burdened with the styles of the nineteenth century. Do the last two centuries represent only one period in the history of design? What has been the dominant method of design remains so, notwithstanding the recent tendency of adopting single, complex, “metaphorical” shapes for large buildings. Perhaps we can now see that the sequence from abstract parti to the application of elements of architecture is anchoring us to the past, a premodern past, in yet another way. This sequence was invented in an era when there were few systems of materialization. Such systems could be implicit without any great loss in the first, tentative sketches. The variety of constructional techniques available today will cancel almost completely the power of the sketch. Is it possible that we have not yet incorporated into our first design sketches the construction techniques that have been with us for more than a century? The experience for an architect of building repeatedly in the same geographical area and employing local techniques will to a certain extent reduce this problem. Practice will provide a repertory, not that of classicism but one which derives from tradition and personal experience. An architect does not have or need the “complete freedom of form” that is the apparent prerequisite to be a “great architect” today. The architecture of Alvar Aalto and others, sometimes referred to with some disdain as “regionalism” has this merit.

Architectural education, with its typical segregation of studio and technical subjects, reinforces this division between essential ideation and selection of elements.32 We might consider that the division into groups of subjects in schools of architecture reinforces our compositional tradition. We manage to keep our design skill quite separated from that of specialists in construction. We are still fighting Alberti’s battle to distinguish the architect from the building trades. The modern architect, however, does not want to fit the enigmatic description of Adolf Loos: “The architect is a builder who speaks Latin.” Our architects design first and only later think about the means to give substance to their designs. They have vaguely imagined how the project is to be built, but only if personal experience allows it have they thought it through in material terms. As a student, the architect has learned to think first of an abstract organization—the parti—and only then of “the means to carry on what he had conceived in his mind.”33 This sequence, dating back to Alberti, is still hidden in many of the twentieth-century avant-garde movements. It can be seen in a slightly farcical form in this quotation: In an interview with Edward Robbins, the late Peter Rice, an engineer who acted as consultant to many projects of the new tendency, said he preferred working with designers who had no pretensions to structural knowledge, because the real challenge was left entirely in his hands. That is why he had enjoyed collaboration with Zaha Hadid. What follows from the architect’s emancipation from structure is the architect’s release from it, not the building’s. Even when the new borrows its structure from what exists, the increasingly complicated object defies technical description by architects who do not have the training to define connections between freely oriented components, so they can be assembled together. With this task handed over to technicians, engineers, and consultants, there is a bifurcation of design into uninhibited expression and laborious technicality. At the same time it becomes harder to say where the art lies: in the immediacy of the first expression which is made easier, or in the subsequent description and materialization which is made considerably more difficult. The fiasco of the Sydney Opera house is rerun hundreds of times in a smaller scale.”34 Some of the directions followed by the avant-garde point to a new architect, one who would be able to suppress or at least alleviate this dichotomy. This architect would no longer be the designer of partis in a



simple plan, but a more able technical designer.35 Meanwhile, most of what is still built on earth for far simpler needs of shelter with scant resources has not yet reached enough sophistication to need even the designer-architect of the Renaissance. Let me close with a warning from Alberti, the founder of our modern profession: “Finally, I advise you never to let greed for glory impel you to embark rashly on anything that is unusual or without precedent. Everything that must be realized must be weighed and considered in the minutest detail. For to have others’ hands execute what you have conceived in your mind is a toilsome business; and who is unaware of the complaints that always greet any proposal to spend someone else’s money as you think fit?”36

Notes

Preface . Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age. (London: Architectural Press, ), sec. 1, chap. 1. See also Colin Rowe, “Review: Forms and Functions of Twentieth-Century Architecture by Talbot Hamlin,” Art Bulletin, . Reedited in Colin Rowe, As I Was Saying, ed. Alexander Caragonne (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ), vol. . Rowe points out that Leopold Arnaud, the Columbia dean who wrote the prologue to Hamlin’s book, says “the base of architectural composition is immutable and is valid in the present as it was in the past,” suggesting that Hamlin’s book can be considered a successor to (Julien) Guadet’s  book, which is now “inadequate for today’s architects who must face new methods and problems creating building types which in Guadet’s time did not exist.” Rowe finds in Hamlin’s book ideas similar to those stated in the prologue: abstract composition, the same as Guadet propounded, is valid; what remains to be updated is the repertoire of building elements and of functional types of buildings. More recently, Joseph Rykwert states: “A century separated Durand from Guadet. However, for both authors the organization of the architect’s work remains very similar. I would argue, therefore, that Durand operated a break with the past which is perhaps more radical than the one operated by Brunelleschi and Alberti  years before, even if the results of rethinking the architectural process are in their production more visible to the naked eye” (“The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Classical Tradition,” in The BeauxArts and Nineteenth Century French Architecture, ed. Robin Middleton [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ]), –. . Marco Frascari, “Architectaster, The Figurecaster: A Professional Evocation of Past and Future Buildings,” Proceedings of the st Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architeture, , –. . Robin Evans, The Projective Cast (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ), introduction. . Herman Crowe and Steven W. Hurtt, “Visual Notes and the Acquisition of Architectural Knowledge,” Journal of Architectural Education , no.3 (spring ).

Introduction

188 Notes to Pages 3–14

. Richard Neutra, Survival through Design (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ), . . Vitruvius, in the first century .., mentions these representations of the project. He calls the plan “orthographia”; calls vertical projections “ichnographia”: and labels a kind of perspective with parallel lines for depth “scenographia.” Renaissance artists and theorists like Brunelleschi and Alberti regulate central perspective, making it possible to represent measured objects in their appropriate positions in space. The French geometers, first Desargues in the seventeenth century, then Gaspard Monge in the late eighteenth century, complete the process of exact representation of objects. . “The frame-of-reference information that is conveyed by drawings is limited to the immediate physical context of the project and does not include the cultural, economic, and other types of information. The effectiveness of this representation relies on information embodied in them through a practice.” T. Chastain, Y. E. Kalay, and C. Perl, “Square Peg in a Round Hole or Horseless Carriage? Reflections on the Use of Computing in Architecture,” in ACADIA  Proceedings, eds. O. Ataman and J. Bermudez (Salt Lake City, Utah: Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture, ), –. . Drawings and physical models are analogic because they intuitively present some similitude to the objects they denote. In semiology there has been extended discussion about the “iconic sign” (see for instance Umberto Eco, La Struttura Assente). Analogic is of course opposed to digital. The difference between the two kinds of representation is important to us because analogic models are psychologically projective; the producer of an analogic model can take it for reality itself and can imagine modifications of reality using the model as a proxy. . Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre, “The Question of Autonomy in Architecture,” Harvard Architecture Review  (winter ).

Chapter  . E. E. Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur l’Architecture, VI Entretien (ca. ), . . J. N. L. Durand, Précis des Leçons données à l’Ecole Polytechnique (Paris: N.p., ), . . Durand, Précis, . . Peter L. Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind, Modernization and Consciousness (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, ), . . Durand, Précis, . . The date is , according to Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture – (London: Faber and Faber, ), . . David van Zanten, “Architectural Composition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,

. . . . .

from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier,” in The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (New York: Museum of Modern Art, ), . Renato de Fusco, Architettura come Mass-Medium (Bari: Dedalo, ), –. Durand, Précis, . See, for instance, Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson, The Social Logic of Space (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, ). Colin Rowe, “Character and Composition,” in The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ). Van Zanten, “Architectural Composition.”

Chapter  . Translated from the Portuguese version of François Choay’s La Règle et le Modèle, Editora Perspectiva, São Paulo, . Original quote from Vincenzo Scamozzi, Idea dell’Architettura Universale Venezia, . . “From the design conversation we institute, beyond the material of architecture, a dialog with representation itself as a kind of matter that both rejects us and gives us suggestions about the exercise of drawing. An exercise of the instrument to represent things remains as the only corporeal link the architect keeps with the physical quality of the matter to be conformed. It is the only handicraft the architect retains and he must defend it to the end.” Vittorio Gregotti, Il Territorio dell’Architettura, . . Michael Graves, “The Necessity of Drawing: Tangible Speculation,” Architectural Design, (London, Vol. , No. ) , –. . Evans, The Projective Cast, . . H. J. Chaytor, From Script to Print (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, ), –. Quoted in Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, ), . . McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy, . . Michelangelo in a letter to Federico de Holanda, as quoted in Paolo Portoghesi, El Angel de la Historia.

Chapter  . In the beginning the ateliers were outside the school; after  some were incorporated into it. After  even the remaining “free ateliers” were state subsidized. Richard Chafee, “The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,” in The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler, (New York: Museum of Modern Art, ), –. . “The premise of the studio is that the student must begin to design before he knows what he is doing so that, in the light of this experience, the studio master’s demonstrations and descriptions may begin to have meaning for him, and thereby help him to teach himself to design.” Donald Schön, The Design Studio (London: RIBA Publications, ), . . Schön, Design Studio, . Schön says the observations he used—the


. .

.


. . .

.

.

.

. .

.

“protocol”—came from the work of Roger Simmonds in a doctoral thesis at MIT. “Suite de l’Introduction,” in Durand, Précis, . Much of this material applies especially to Argentine architectural training. See Alfonso Corona-Martínez, “El rol del arquitecto argentino en la división internacional del trabajo (de arquitecto),” Summa  (Buenos Aires), . “Relevant applied science and technique should be taught in close proximity to project activity, and should take the forms most immediately useful to practice—that is, on the one hand, as a repertoire of potentially useful examples, canonical problems, images, metaphors and rules of thumb and, on the other hand, as a way of seeing and inquiring that can be employed in the practice situation.” Schön, Design Studio, . Mark J. Clayton, Robert Warden, and Thomas W. Parker, “Virtual Construction of Architecture Using -D CAD and Simulation,” in ACADIA , . Clayton et al., “Virtual Construction,” . There is extensive literature on this subject, from the early work of Robert Sommer in Personal Space (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, ) to the studies of Wolfgang Preiser in the s. Geoffrey H. Broadbent, Alfonso Corona-Martínez, Elsa Cardaci, and Andrea Zoilo, “Efficiency of the Design Studio.” Research work done in the Universidad de Belgrano, Buenos Aires, –. A synthesis has been published as “The Design Studio Revisited” in Environments by Design , no.  (Kingston upon Thames), –. “To facilitate the student’s approach in design and to make it direct and creative, the physical planning of each problem is preceded by a diagrammatic study of the functions.” Catalog of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, –, quoted in Klaus Herdeg, The Decorated Diagram (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ), . The diagram derives directly from Beaux-Arts practice. In a book by Georges Gromort we find a description of this graph: “To indicate a (premature) beginning of the way to a decision, we should trace a kind of graphic sketch of the grouping of elements. I will call this—to distinguish it from a sketch—by the barbaric name of schéma. This schéma really will not be difficult for us; it is just another way of copying the shortened list of elements.” Georges Gromort, Essai sur la Théorie de l’Architecture (Paris: Massin, n.d.) . Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors, and Passages,” Architectural Design , no. (April ). Some architects of the s deliberately avoided any suggestion of symbolism in their considerations of function, stressing material needs only; this was the case for Hannes Meyer, Walter Gropius’s partner in the design of the Bauhaus building. “Studio master and student construct a dialogue in the media of words and performance. The student performs and presents the results of his performance; the master ‘reads’ what he observes and tries to make interventions matched to the student’s understanding and problems. The student tries to

grasp the meaning of what the master has said and done, and to test his new understandings by translating them into a new performance.” Schön, Design Studio, . . A good description of the fine graduation of “codes” in sketches can be found in Daniel Herbert, “Study Drawings in Architectural Design: Their Properties as a Graphic Medium,” Journal of Architectural Education , no.  (winter ), –. . Alfonso Corona-Martínez, “Alunos de quém?” (Whose students?), in Projeto, São Paulo (August ), –.

Chapter  . Durand, Précis, –. . A typology in the simplest sense is a classification of buildings according to selected common features. In the nineteenth century there were efforts to produce a functional typology, in the sense of determining classes of distributions that would correspond to classes of uses (later called functions). This differs from the traditional way of considering type (see chapter ). . “But the ‘history of things’ is intended to reunite ideas and objects under the rubric of visual forms: the term includes both artifacts and works of art, both replicas and unique examples, both tools and expressions—in short all materials worked by human hands under the guidance of connected ideas developed in temporal sequence. From all these things a shape in time emerges. A visible protrait of the collective identity, whether tribe, class, or nation, comes into being. This self-image reflected in things is a guide and a point of reference to the group for the future, and it eventually becomes the portrait given to posterity.” George Kubler, The Shape of Time (New Haven, New Jersey: Yale University Press, ). . Quoted in David Watkin, Morality and Architecture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), . . Collins, Changing Ideals. . A few decades later, Auguste Perret would be more cautious: “A locomotive has simply character. The Parthenon has character and style. In a few years from now, the most beautiful locomotive of our day will be a pile of junk. The Parthenon will sing forever.” Quoted from Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, –. (London: Faber & Faber, ), . . A good discussion of the contradiction between the architect as an artist and as an impersonal operator can be found in Carlos Eduardo Dias Comas, “Ideologia Modernista e Ensino de Projeto Arquitetónico: Duas Proposicões em Conflito,” in Projeto Arquitetónico (São Paulo: Projeto Editores Associados, ). . Anthony Ward, “Right and Wrong,” Architectural Design , (vol. , July ), . . Bentham’s panopticon acquired great publicity due to the writing of the French philosopher Michel Foucault in Surveiller et punir (Paris: Gallimard, ).



. The radial disposition of bookshelves in James Stirling’s School of History Library in Cambridge was resented by students precisely because of its panoptic properties. . Amos Rapoport, House Form and Culture (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, ). Also, Henry Glassie, Folk Housing in Middle Virginia (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, ), explains “construction rituals” in detail. . Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), chaps. –. . Alexander, Notes. . Christopher Alexander et al., A Pattern Language (New York, Oxford University Press, ), x. . Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building and The Oregon Experiment. . Christopher Alexander and Barry Poyner, La Estructura del Medio Ambiente (The Atoms of Environmental Structure) (Barcelona: Tusquets, ), – . . Alexander, Pattern Language, . . Alexander, Pattern Language, . . Alexander, Pattern Language.

Chapter  . Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy, Oppositions Reader (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, ), . . Giulio Carlo Argan, “Sul concetto di Tipologia Architettonica,” in Progetto e Destino (Milan, ). . Argan, “Sul concetto.” . Quatremère de Quincy; Argan, “Sul concetto”; Perhaps we should remember here Louis Kahn’s well-known distinction between essential form and circumstantial design. . Bernard Huet, “The Teaching of Architecture in France, –,” Lotus, no. . . Francesco Borromini (posthumous attribution). Paolo Portoghesi, El Angel de la Historia (Madrid: Hermann Blume, ), . . Manfredo Tafuri, Teorie e Storia dell’Architettura (Bari: Laterza, ), . . Jean Castex, Le Printemps de la Prairie House (Brussels: Pierre Mardaga, ), . . Paul Frankl, Principios fundamentales de la Historia de la Arquitectura (Madrid: Gili, ). . Robin Evans’s posthumous The Projective Cast includes discussion of the role of geometry in architecture in a way that is coincident both with Janello’s work and with this text, although his presentation of the subject is more architectural and provocative. . The limits of what it is to design, and the limits of type and model, depend on social norms and on the extent of the class of objects under consideration as well as on their degree of formalization. For us the Parthenon is a

. . .

. . .

.

typical Greek temple; in its day, however, the fact that it had eight columns in front instead of the customary six must have been a severe departure from type. Dardo M. Arbide in a lecture at the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Belgrano, . Carlo Aymonino, Lo Studio dei Fenomeni Urbani, Rome, . This design procedure has been described by Alan Colquhoun in “Displacement of Concepts in the Work of Le Corbusier,” in his Essays in Architectural Criticism: Modern Architecture and Historical Change. (Cambridge, Mass.: Opposition Books, MIT Press, ). Alfonso Corona-Martínez and Fernando Diez, “Transformaciones tipológicas,” Summarios, no.  (Buenos Aires), . This process has been inverted with the advent of personal computers, but architectural design has not yet made much of acknowledging it. An early study of variation in typology—although not always called by that name—can found in Kubler’s Shape of Time: “These accumulated variations may originate without design, merely for relief from monotonous repetition. In time their drift is perceived and brought to order by an artist, who imposes upon the mass of replicas a new object” (p. ). Castex, Le Printemps.

Chapter  . The “ennobling” of the wall is well described in Richard A. Etlin, Symbolic Space (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), chap. . . This can show the precedence of drawings—projections—over theory if we bear in mind that the eighteenth century was the same time when writers like Laugier declared the roof and columns to be the only essential parts of architecture. The roof is symbolized by its endpiece, the pediment, which is also a feature of façades. . Durand, Précis, . In the third class we should recognize a debased version of the reason given by Etienne Boullée, teacher of Durand, to prefer simple geometrical forms. For Boullée these forms had “an affinity with human soul.” . Durand, Précis, . . Theo van Doesburg, “Towards a Plastic Architecture” (), in Programmes and Manifestoes in Twentieth-Century Architecture, ed. Ulrich Conrads (London: Lund Humphries, ), –. . It seems that in parallel to the abandoning of Gothic construction in the Renaissance, the “new architect,” had to abandon the previous knowledge (i.e., Gothic construction) to prevail professionally. . Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building, book , chap. , p. . Quoted from the English version translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ). . It is recognized that most of the art of Carlo Scarpa resided in this skill.


Chapter 


. Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors and Passages,” Translations from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ), . . Julien Guadet, Elements et Theorie de l’Architecture (Paris: N.p., ). The quotation in English is taken from Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (London: Architectural Press, ), . . Van Zanten, “Architectural Composition,” . . The term distribution is found in architectural theory from antiquity, but its sense has changed more than once. It alluded to the relative position of ornaments before coming to mean the position of parts of a plan. . Evans, “Figures, Doors, and Passages,” . . Marc-Antoine Laugier, Essai sur l’Architecture (), translated from reprint edition (Brussels: Pierre Mardaga, ). Laugier was not an architect but a courtier-priest, and his book condenses common professional knowledge of his day. Note that he shares Blondel’s conviction of the French skill in “distribution.” . Evans, “Figures, Doors, and Passages,” . . Van Doesburg, “Towards a Plastic Architecture,” –. . Bruno Zevi tried in the late s to establish such rules, but most of them were written in reaction against the then prevailing Postmodernism. . Quoted in Castex, “Printemps,” . . Enfilade (string line) is the sequence of aligned doors that, when open, allowed visitors to perceive that they were traversing a series of main rooms. . Charles Moore, Gerald Allen, Donlyn Lyndon, La Casa: Forma y Diseño (Barcelona: Gili, ), . . Andrea Palladio, Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (Milan: Hoepli, ) facsimile edition, originally published in Venice, . . Laugier, Essai, . The “double” means another series of rooms parallel to those constituting the main sequence: the wing is thus two rooms in depth. It becomes double instead of a single, simple sequence of rooms served by the gallery, as was the case for the Renaissance palace. . Vincent Scully, “Michael Graves’ Allusive Architecture,” Michael Graves: Buildings and Projects, – (New York: Rizzoli, ), –. . Tzonis and Lefaivre, “The Question of Autonomy,” . . Colquhoun, “Displacement.” . Many examples of this type can be found in Michael Dennis, Court and Garden (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ). . Steven K. Peterson, “Space and Anti-Space,” Harvard Architecture Review  (spring ). . This is the assumption of Jean Castex, revealed in “Le Printemps de la Prairie House.”

Chapter  . Alfonso Corona-Martínez, El Proyecto, Buenos Aires: Mac Gaul, ). . Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, ). . Cristoph Luitpold Frommel, “Sulla Nascita del Disegno Architettonico,” in Rinascimento da Brunelleschi a Michelangelo. La Rappresentazione dell’Architettura, ed. Henry Millon and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani Bompiani (Milan, ), –. . “Gaspard Monge was a gifted administrator and a gifted mathematician. He had trained as a military engineer at the academy in Mezieres, where he began work on what he and his followers would regard as a new branch of geometry, called descriptive geometry. His work of that title, first published in , was a radical restatement of solid geometry. For Euclid, the third dimension was a rather difficult final conquest. For Monge, all geometry was about three dimensions, though practiced in two. Descriptive geometry was a mathematician’s generalization of architectural drawing, the powers of which were vastly increased in some respects and reduced in others. Pictures became more abstract, losing much of their illustrative character as solid bodies dissolved into a nexus of trace lines. Ageometric bodies could not be represented, but on the other hand a wider range of more complex geometric figures and their intersections could be represented with much greater ease.” Evans, Projective Cast, –. . “There are good reasons to believe that Raphael organized the assistants he was assigned for the work in St. Peter’s in a manner resembling what we know as an architect’s office, although there is a doubt whether this was not already organized before in the time of Bramante, before . A reason to believe it was Raphael who established this system is the character that Raphael’s painting studio had. His assistants worked as extensions of his hand, preparing drawings and sketches according to his ideas and schemes; they also did a large part of the material work. Raphael’s painting studio was a very important innovation. It is nearer to the modern architectural office than any other Renaissance habit we know of.” John Wilton-Ely, “El surgimiento del arquitecto profesional en Inglaterra,” from Spriro Kostof ’s El Arquitecto, Historia de una Profesíon (chap. , page ). Wilton-Ely quotes from R. T. Gunther’s The Architecture of Sir Roger Pratt from his Notebooks (Oxford, ). And also: “In this same letter (to Pope Leon XIII) Raphael describes plans, external elevations, and internal elevations (which I presume to include a sectional slice through the building’s shell). It could be said that bringing the three types of drawing together was a revolutionary step. However, what really matters is what holds them together. Raphael spells out that corresponding parts are joined by parallel lines, from plan to elevation, or from one elevation to another. These parallels, preservers of true measure. . . .” Evans, The Projective Cast, . . “Even if historical or technological research, adequately guided, can improve



.

. .

. . . .

. .

a design—and this is a task not yet accepted seriously by architects and scholars—the main nucleus of architectonic activity, design itself, it still not regarded as research. Is it possible to consider the design activity simultaneously as a subject of research and a medium of research? This question is in the background of a long controversy in Schools of Architecture. Many professionals and scholars affirm that any architectural project implies an effort of research; others reject this idea, considering that the design activity is neither rigorous nor universal enough as to be considered research ‘sensu stricto.’ If we wish to go beyond sterile controversies which exclude one kind of research in favor of other more restricted activities, perhaps the clue is to consider research simply as the production of new knowledge, even to widen the notion of knowledge itself.” Fernando Pérez-Oyarzún, “The Valparaiso School,” Harvard Architecture Review  (), –. “The works at the Duomo in Florence became the center for new design methods. Towards , such a large number of projects and models were gathered there that it was decided to destroy all of them except the chosen project. Generally speaking, the value of a design was in that time considered only as a guide for the practical work of building. After construction, therefore, even the final design was destroyed, so that we have many written reports about the works at the Duomo going back to the fourteenth century, but not a single drawing” Cristoph Luitpold Frommel, “Sulla Nascita del Disegno Architettonico,” in Rinascimento da Brunelleschi a Michelangelo. La Rappresentazione dell’Architettura, ed. Henry Millon and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani Bompiani (Milan, ), . Jacob Tchernykhov, ”Architectural Fantasies” () in Process Architecture  (Tokyo, ), . Several interesting designs of “ideal” character can be found in Manfredo Tafuri, L’Architettura del Manierismo nel Cinquecento Europeo (Rome: Officina Edizioni, ). Tchernykhov, “Architectural Fantasies,” . Cours de Poétique, Leçon . Valéry quoted from Brewster Ghiselin (ed.) The Creative Process (New York: Mentor Books, ), . Gunther, Sir Roger Pratt. “Today, something of a bifurcation seems to have occurred, with most employment occurring in either very small or quite sizable firms. . . . More dramatically still, fully % of all practices employ five people or fewer, with % to % in the “larger firm” category.” Peter G. Rowe and Elizabeth Padgen speaking at the symposium “Shaping Architectural Practices and Education,” Harvard Graduate School of Design, Oct. , . See Branko Kolarevic and Edward Y Y Ng, “Net-Enabled Collective Design Authorship,” in ACADIA , . A previous, more spectacular Virtual Design Studio (VDS) made teams of students in Hong Kong, Vancouver, and Zurich work together on a -hour basis in three eight hour shifts. The VDS in this instance was made up of students in Hong Kong and Singapore, apparently with a more similar cultural background and free of language barriers.

. “[T]he boutique firm is probably the dream of many architects, including most of the GSD graduating class. But I worry that the system may prove detrimental to the profession, because it will tend to redefine architecture in very narrow terms. A focus on architecture as mere art will tend to marginalize the profession; a focus on architecture as mere fashion will tend to trivialize the profession; and, more dangerously, a focus on architecture as a luxury product either unavailable or unnecessary to the majority of people will ultimately destroy the profession.” Padgen, “Shaping Architectural Practices and Education.” . Dana Cuff, Architecture: The Story of Practice. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, ), . . “As a new technology is introduced into a practice, a dysfunctional relationship can develop between the tools and a task. This can occur either because the task is poorly understood or because the process of displacing a traditional technology is largely one of the substitution of tools—ones with the wrong affordances. This inappropriate use of the design technology results in a poorer practice. An example of this can be seen in the use of rendering tools early in the design process, where what is needed is ambiguity and, instead, what is given is photo-realistic image. This can lead the viewer of the information to a misconception about the precision of the design.” T. Chastain, Y. Kalay, and C. Perl, “Square Peg in a Round Hole or Horseless Carriage? Reflections on the Use of Computing in Architecture,” in ACADIA , . . Marco Frascari, “Architectaster,“ . . Branko Kolarevic, “Lines, Relations, Drawing, and Design” in ACADIA  Proceedings, eds. Anton Harfmann and Mike Fraser (Washington University, St. Louis, Mo.: Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture, ), –. . Kolarevic, ACADIA , . . Evans, The Projective Cast, xxvi–xxvii. . See chapter two and also Daniel Herbert, “Study Drawings in Architectural Design: Their properties as a Graphic Medium” Journal of Architectural Education, Washington D.C., winter , p. –. . Julio Bermudez and Kevin King, “Architecture in Digital Space,” in ACADIA , eds. Loukas Kalisperis and Branko Kolarevic (University of Washington, Seattle: Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture, ), –. . “I hold that design’s real task begin once functional and behavioral needs have been satisfied. It is not hunger, but love and fear, and sometimes wonder, that makes us create.” Emilio Ambasz quoted by Frascari, “Architectaster.” . Durand, Précis, Discours Préliminaire, Vol. , . . Quoted from a booklet issued by Michael Wilford and Partners, London, offered in an exhibition of the office that took place at the Royal Institute of British Architects in . Additional publication information is not available.



. Colin Rowe in the introduction to Five Architects: Eisenman, Graves, Gwathmey, Hejduk, Meier. (New York: Oxford University Press, ), . . This is near to the Alexander’s dream-method in Notes on the Synthesis of Form; acting piecemeal on small “misfits” of form. . Daniel M. Herbert, “A critical analysis of Design Processes and Media: Implications for Computer-Aided Design” in ACADIA , –. . Viollet-le-Duc had observed that although it was perfectly possible to make buildings completely in iron and glass, it was not convenient because they would be cold in winter and hot in summer. E. E. Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur L’Architecture () Ed. facsimile. (Brussels: Piene Mardaga, ), . . Perhaps this will be overcome in the near future. We can envisage the use of computers for the simulation of construction in teaching. See Mark J. Clayton, Robert Warden, and Thomas W. Parker, “Virtual Construction of Architecture Using -D CAD and Simulation,” ACADIA  Proceedings, –. . Guadet, Elements, quoted from Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (London: The Architectural Press, ), . . Evans, The Projective Cast, . . Architects like Norman Foster or Renzo Piano would then be the only legitimate transitional figures to the next century. . Alberti, On the Art of Building, Book Nine, chapter , .

Index

Page numbers appearing in italics refer to illustrations. Aalto, Alvar, , ,  abstraction: modern emphasis on, , –, –, ; studio emphasis on, ; in style development, ; and type, , –, – academic architecture. See education in design accessibility and distribution, – ,  additive composition: as applied to whole vs. parts, ; in BeauxArts tradition, ; and bubble diagrams, ; future directions in design, ; and hôtel particulier, ; vs. subtractive, –; Wright’s use of,  adjacency limitations for room design, ,  aesthetic sensibility: and economic structure, ; and functionalism, , –; and geometric forms, –; as goal of architecture, , ; integration into landscape, –; for primary rooms,  Alberti, Leon Battista, , , – ,  Alden, J. G.,  Alexander, Christopher, , , – , , , 

altered/mixed types, strategy of, . See also variations on types analogic models: definition, n. ; and description generation, – ; design drawings as, ; evaluation of design quality, ; modern version, –; need for, ,  applied knowledge, teaching of, – , n.  apprenticeship model of instruction, , , –,  architects: as artists, –, , –; and building size, ; cognitive processes, ; construction role, ; design process role, xv–xvi, –, n. ; and elements of architecture, ; and form, , ; graphic codes as private language, ; mission of, –; parti as measure of quality, ; reality of representation for, –; role with clients, , –, –; as separate from builders, , ; social role, , ; and style, – ; and type, , –. See also creativity; education in design; profession of architecture architecture: as art, , , –, –, –; as cultural relic, –; and design culture, ; impermanence of, , ; nature of, ; as perfected only on

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architecture (cont.) paper, . See also architects; design process; history of architecture Argan, Giulio Carlo, –,  Arnaud, Leopold, n.  art, architecture as, , , –, – Art of Designing in Architecture (Neufert),  atypical vs. typical elements, – autonomous building, ,  autonomy of design, , , –, , ,  avant-garde imagination, , – , . See also modernism in architecture axonometric projection, ,  Aymonino, Carlo,  Banham, Reyner, xiii Baroque architecture, –,  basic forms, ,  basilicas, ancient vs. Christian,  Bauhaus building,  Bearwood,  beauty, sense of, , , –, . See also aesthetic sensibility Beaux-Arts tradition: additive composition, ; apprenticeship process, ; brief development, ; complexity instruction, ; composition by elements, –; design independence of, ; design process in, –; focus on parti, –; hôtel particulier, ; type and typology,  behavior of building inhabitants. See human activities Bentham, Jeremy, ,  Berlin Free University, ,  Berlin Science Center,  Bijvoet and Chareau,  biological analogy for architecture, –, – Blanc, Charles, 

Blondel, Jacques-François, – Borromini, Francesco,  Boullée, Etienne, ,  boutique architectural firm, n.  brief, architectural: client responsibilities, ; in design process, –, –, ; development of, –; lack of adherence to, ; and student evaluation, , –. See also program, architectural Brunelleschi, Filippo,  bubble diagrams, –, ,  builders, working with, , , , ,  building: autonomous, , ; drawings vs. survey of existing, –; establishment of needs for, ; in overview of design process, , ; regulation limitations, ; science of, , ; size considerations, , –; spaces vs. physical elements, , –; in urban design, ; as wrapped distribution, ; zoning of, , . See also construction; control over final building; environment, building A Building for Assembling the Academies (Percier),  building trades, modern architecture’s effect on, ,  business aspects of architecture, , –. See also clients Byker Wall,  Candela, Felix,  Canilis, Josic and Woods, ,  Castex, Jean, , ,  Ca’Venier, Venice,  cells,  Chandigarh Assembly, ,  Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture (Collins),  character vs. style, , n.  Chaytor, H. J., 

circulation networks: and bubble diagrams, ; continuous, ; and distribution, ; functional interpretation, , , , ; increased influence of, ; introduction of, , , ; and large site plans, ; in minimalist projects, ; and room design, , ; in subtractive composition, –. See also spatial distribution cities. See urban design projects classical architecture: design process for, n. ; elements of composition in, –; and materials, , ; vs. modern, – ; and multipurpose rooms, ; precedents in, ; spatial distribution in, –; and typology, , , , –, , . See also Beaux-Arts tradition clients: assessment of needs, –; communication issues, , – ; and computer-aided design, , ; program responsibilities, ; shift to corporate, –, ; working with builders, , ,  codes of representation. See syntax, graphic cognitive processes in design, , , . See also imaginary structures Collins, Peter, –,  Colquhoun, Alan, , – columns, , ,  communication: architect/client, , –; in design education, –, –n. ; translation of design to construction, , , , , . See also syntax, graphic compact-from-linear house designs,  complexity of design, –, – components: determination of relationships, –; as focus of cre-

ativity over whole, ; hierarchical vs. logical order of, , , ; and pattern approach, . See also elements of architecture; elements of composition composition: description generation process, –; Durand on, –; in education of architects, –; egalitarian societal effects on, –; elementary, , ; functional view of, –; horizontal vs. vertical structures in, ; vs. invention, ; vs. material and construction, –, –; poché, –, ; Viollet-le-Duc on, –; vocabulary for, ; as work on form, . See also elements of composition; limitations, compositional; parti computer-aided design: and client relationship to architect, , ; and dynamic perspective, –; and education, –, –; vs. handmade design elements, –; and ideational aspect of design, –, ; integration of design and construction, –, ; and methods of design, xiv, , –, –; type and typology, – construction: and composition, –, –, –; costs of, , ; as craft vs. industrial product, , , , ; in design sketch, ; integration with design, –, ; loss of realcase considerations in design, –; masonry, , , ; modern developments, , – ; post-modern complications, –; separation from design, , –, , , –, ; translation of design to, , , , , ; working with builders, , , , , ; and written

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construction (cont.) program, . See also materials, building constructive determinism, – Constructivism, – consumers of architecture and role of architect, –. See also clients context of building and pattern approach to design, –. See also functionalism; functions of building continuity of spatial distribution, –, , . See also circulation networks control over final building: and architect as inventor, ; and circulation, ; and construction elements, ; contemporary lack of, –; designing with assumption of, ; illusion of, –; and perspective, –; in postmodern construction, – conventions, architectural, teaching of, –. See also classical architecture Corona-Martínez, Alfonso, , ,  corporate clients, –,  corridors in modern design, –,  costs of construction, ,  Cottage Picturesque,  Cours d’Architecture (Blondel), –  Cours d’Architecture (D’Aviler),  craft of building vs. industrial product model, , , ,  creativity: as competitive criterion for architects, ; and complexity of design, –; and computer-aided design, –, ; eclipse of, ; ephemeral nature of, ; evaluation of student compositions, –; and functionalism, ; and modernism,

–, ; and professional practice, –; and typology, –, , – criticism of design, , –, . See also evaluation of student designs Crowe, Herman, xv Crown Hall at Illinois Institute of Technology, ,  cultivated architecture, –, , , . See also classical architecture; modernism in architecture cultural issues: architect’s role, , , –; architecture’s role, – , –, ; and design studio, ; effects on design, , , . See also social factors curriculum. See education in design Curutchet House,  custom-made vs. normal architecture,  Damisch, Hubert,  Darwin, Charles, , ,  D’Aviler, C. A.,  Deconstructivism, – decorativism,  definition: in design process, –, , , n. ; modern architecture and space, –; premature, , – de Fusco, Renato, – dégagements (corridors), –,  Desargues, Gérard, n.  description, design, creation of, – . See also parti Design Methods movement, , –  design process: and academic teaching, –, ; architect’s role in, xv–xvi, –, n. ; as attention to figure and ground, ; definitional issues, –, – ; description generation, –

, n. ; flexibility of, xiii; nineteenth century composition, –, ; overview of parti development, –; perspective in, n. ; twentieth century composition, , –, , – ; type and typology, , –, , –, –, –; and vernacular architecture, –. See also brief, architectural; drawings The Design Studio (Schon), – detailing, modern rejection of,  diagram, concept, , n. –. See also parti Dias Comas, Carlos Eduardo,  disposition of building. See parti distribution: antecedents to, ; composition as, –, , – ; definitional issues, n. ; Durand on, –, ; hôtel particulier, –; as location of function, , ; preexisting, . See also spatial distribution Di Tella house,  doors and windows, ,  double and single wings, , n.  drafting, computer,  drawings: as central expression of design, , –, –, ; cognitive process, n. ; design in process vs. survey of existing building, –; discontinuity of, –; as drafted by computer, ; graphic skill vs. relation to reality, xv, ; limitations of, , , n. ; preliminary, ; as separate from construction, , –, ; as standardized for studio critique, ; vs. theory, n. ; working, , , , , . See also elements of architecture; elements of composition; parti; syntax, graphic Durand, J. N. L.: compositional method, –, , , n. ; on

distribution, –, ; elements of architecture, , , –; elements of composition, ; formal approach, ; hospital and prison designs, ; Palace in St. Petersburg, ; on teaching, ; on usefulness, , ,  Dutch Elementarists, ,  Eames, Charles and Ray,  École des Beaux-Arts, –. See also Beaux-Arts tradition economic factors, , , , , . See also construction education in design: applied science and techniques, 46–47, 190n. 6; and architectural conceptualization, xv; vs. architectural oYce methods, 165–66, 170–76, 196n. 15; future trends, 185; and imaginary objects, 28–29; instructor/student roles, 53–59, 190–91n. 15; and parti development, 12–16; pedagogical methods, 10; studio role in, 41–59, 189n. 1–2, 190n. 11; style’s role in, 114–15; type and typology, 83, 84–85. See also Beaux-Arts tradition efficiency of space and functionalism, – egalitarian society, architecture’s role in, –, , – Elementarism, , ,  elementary composition, , ,  elements of architecture: classical vs. modern, –; composition and construction, , – ; design process role, –; and elements of composition, , , , ; examples of, , , , , , ; and functionalism, –; independence of, –; and modernism, –, ; in Picturesque movement, ; and plan of building, ;

203 Index

204 Index

elements of architecture (cont.) re-creation of, ; and spatial distribution,  elements of composition: and brief, , ; in computer-aided design, –; design process role, –, ; vs. elements of architecture, , , , ; as functional tools, ; as imaginary, –; individual components as, ; naming conventions, – ; origins of, –; spatial priorities, –; type and typology, –; variations in use of, . See also additive composition; distribution; form in composition Elía, Sanchez,  enfilades, , n.  en suite disposition, ,  environment, building: brief development, ; and building as craft vs. industrial product, ; design challenges, ; and geometry, , ; integration into natural sites, –; limitations of drawings, , n. ; translation to building plan, ; type and typology, –, –, –. See also functionalism; functions of building; human activities equipment (furniture) in design, , – Erskine, Ralph,  essential structure of design. See parti Etchart, Ramón,  European typological precedents, . See also Beaux-Arts tradition evaluation of student designs: comparability issue, –; instructor role in, –; juries, –; studio crit, , –; subjectivity of, , ; typology precedents in, –

Evans, Robin, , , , –,  existing buildings, learning from, xv, – Expressionism, –,  façades in classical tradition, –  famous architects as remote mentors for students,  fees, architectural, ,  figure and ground considerations,  Finlandia Hall,  Five Architects (Rowe),  Florence Cathedral,  form in composition: and autonomy of architecture, ; composition as work on, ; and context of building, ; emphasis on, , ; flexibility of design methods, xiii; and function, , , –, , , –, , ; and geometry, –, , ; graphic media conditioning, ; and modernism, , –, –; in nineteenth century architecture, ; vs. practical rules of design, –; type and typology, , , –, , –. See also styles and stylistic forms fragments, compositional strategy of, –, ,  framed wood construction,  Frankl, Paul,  Frascari, Marco,  free vs. tied plans, , –, ,  Frommel, Cristoph Luitpold,  functional expressionism, ,  functionalism: in academic teaching, , –, n. ; aesthetic limitations of, –; and construction innovations, ; and creativity, ; and demise of architecture as art, ; and distribution, ; and fragmentation

strategy, ; graphic media conditioning for, ; materials emphasis in, n. ; vs. nineteenth century design principles, –; as primary value in architecture, –; spatial distribution, , , –, , ; type and typology, , , –, , , , , n. ; in urban planning, ; and vernacular architecture, – functionalist expressionism,  functions of building: brief development, ; in description generation, ; and distribution, , ; Durand on, ; and form in composition, , –, , , , –, , ; in hôtel particulier, ; importance of invisible, ; and materials, n. ; relation to design, , , , ; spatial distribution,  galleries in classical architecture,  garden city,  Gehry, Frank O.,  general-to-specific pattern of development, , –, , , , – geometry: axonometric projection, ; and computer-aided design, –; and dynamic environmental properties, , ; and forms in composition, –, , ; importance of, –, –; in modern architecture, –; Monge’s restatement of, n. ; as primary design focus, , ; and stylistic forms, ; Wright’s, . See also shapes of compositional elements Giardinin and Lassurance,  Goldenberg House,  Gothic construction, n.  Gowan, James, ,  Grand Prix de Rome, 

graphic media: and design vs. survey, –; fascination with formal relationships, ; in functional design, ; as limiter of architectural imagination, ; loss of architectural value in, ; precision for physical objects, ; relation to reality, xv, . See also computer-aided design; syntax, graphic graphic representation. See representation Graves, Michael, , , ,  Gromort, Georges, n.  Gropius, Walter, ,  ground and figure considerations,  Guadet, Julien, , , , , , n.  Guggenheim Museum,  Gutenberg Galaxy (McLuhan),  Hadid, Zaha, ,  Hadrian’s Villa,  hallways, –,  Herbert, Daniel,  Hevia Paul, Luis,  hierarchical order of elements: and architectural syntax, –; vs. logical order, , , ; modernist avoidance of, , ; and pattern approach, ; spatial, –. See also classical architecture history of architecture: as analogy for present design, ; architectural program, –; continuity of, –; elements of architecture, ; immediate transference of design, ; neglect of type analysis, –; parti development, –; role of discipline,  Holkham Hall, ,  horizontal vs. vertical structures in composition, , –

205 Index

206 Index

Horta, Victor,  Hôtel de Beauvais, ,  Hôtel d’Evry,  hôtel particulier, – houses. See residential buildings Huet, Bernard, – human activities: and building needs, ; challenges for architecture, , ; complexity of modern, ; definition and partition of, ; hierarchical functionalism, ; and minimalist room design, ; pre-design study of, ; as source for architectural design, . See also functionalism; functions of building Hurtt, Steven W., xv ideation: clarification of design ideas, –; computer graphics, –, ; vs. construction, ; vs. drawing, ; general-tospecific pattern, , –, , , , –; and graphics code, –, ; and type,  Illinois Institute of Technology, Crown Hall,  imaginary structures: avant-garde, , –, ; designs as, xv, –, –; graphic medium as limiter of, ; in parti, . See also invention, design as indigenous architecture, , –, ,  industrial production methods: in construction, , , –; vs. craft, , , , ; large buildings, – Industrial Revolution, ,  inhabitability. See human activities inside vs. outside, loss of separation, , ,  instructor role in design education, –, –n.  International style, 

Internet, the, –, – intuition, role of, . See also imaginary structures invention, design as: architecture as, xv, ; and classical architect, ; vs. composition, ; control over final building, ; masses and volumes, ; modern emphasis on, , , ; and proliferation of styles, ; type and typology, ; Wright’s contributions, . See also parti irregular shapes, composing with, , ,  irregular sites, composing for, , ,  Italianate architecture, – Japanese architecture, ,  Jeanneret, Charles-Édouard. See Le Corbusier Jenello, César, , – Johnson, Philip,  Johnson Administration Building, ,  juries, design, – Kahn, Louis, , ,  Kent, William,  Kerr, Robert,  Kolarevic and Ng, ,  Kuhn, Thomas,  Labrouste, Henri,  Lamarck, Jean,  landscape, architectural integration into, – language of architecture, –. See also syntax, graphic large architectural offices, methods in, , n.  larger buildings, , – Laugier, Abbé Marc-Antoine, , , –, , – Le Corbusier: on beauty as goal of architecture, ; Chandigarh

Assembly, , ; continuity of space, ; elements of architecture, , , ; four compositions, ; hôtel particulier, – ; modification of types, ; Palace of the Soviets, , , ; Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, ; spatial limits at perimeter, ; strategies of composition, ; Villa á Garches, ; Weissenhof apartment house,  Ledoux, Claude-Nicolas, ,  Lefaivre, Liane, ,  Leicester University engineering school, ,  Le Pautre, Antoine, ,  lifestyle effects. See social factors limitations, compositional: building regulations, ; drawings, , , , n. ; of functionalism, –; perspective, –; shapes of elements, ; spatial distribution, , –, , , n. ; type and typology, –n.  linear-to-compact house designs,  local design considerations, future focus on, . See also environment, building logical vs. hierarchical order of components, , ,  Loos, Adolf,  low-cost housing design,  machine metaphor, , , –, , . See also industrial production methods magazines, architectural, as sources for students, – Maison de Peuple, Brussels,  Maison de Verre,  Mannerism, ,  Mansart, Jules Hardouin,  marche, , –, , ,  Marseilles apartments, Le Corbusier, 

masonry construction, , ,  materialization vs. composition domains of architecture, –. See also construction materials, building: classical architecture, , ; and composition, –, –; in description generation, ; and elements of architecture, ; and functions, n. ; increase in study of, ; and industrialization of construction, –; masonry construction, , , ; and modern architecture, –, ; as primary design focus, ; separation of design from construction, , . See also construction McLuhan, Marshall,  mechanistic view, , , –, , . See also industrial production methods media, graphic. See graphic media Mediterranean precedent, ,  mental images and design process, –. See also imaginary structures mentor, architectural, , ,  Metabolist trend in Japanese architecture,  methods of design: avant-garde imagination, –; computeraided design, , –, –; continuity of Durand’s, ; contrasting, ; design as research, ; Design Methods movement, , –; future directions, –; learning process for, xv; and modernism, xiii–xiv, ; pedagogical emphasis on, , –; and problem-solving approach, –; and profession of architecture, –, n. . See also classical architecture; modernism in architecture Meyer, Hannes, 

207 Index

208 Index

Michaelangelo, – Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig, , , , ,  minimalist designs, , , , –  mixed/altered types, strategy of, . See also variations on types models, design, –, –, . See also analogic models; physical models modernism in architecture: axonometric projection, ; vs. classical, –; and creativity, – , ; and design methods, xiii–xiv, ; disconnect from social structures, ; elements of architecture, –, , , ; elements of composition, , –, ; and functionalism, , , –, –; invention in design, , , ; spatial distribution, xv, –, ; type and typology, , , –, , , , –; and vernacular architecture,  modular design elements, ,  Monge, Gaspard, , n. , n.  Montano, G. B.,  monumental vs. vernacular design,  Moore, Charles, , –,  mushroom column, Wright’s,  naming conventions, elements of composition, – National Gallery in Berlin,  natural sites, integration of architecture into, – Nervi, Pier Luigi,  Neuestaatsgallerie, Stuttgart, , , ,  Neufert, Ernst,  Neutra, Richard,  New Brutalism,  normal vs. custom-made architecture, 

Norman and Dawbarn,  Notes on the Synthesis of Form (Alexander), , – objectivity, modern claim to,  office, architectural. See profession of architecture On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Alberti),  openness, regulation of, , , , , , . See also spatial distribution The Oregon Experiment (Alexander),  organism metaphor for architecture, –, – originality of design, –, –, , –. See also creativity ornamentation, , , ,  outside vs. inside, loss of separation, , ,  Palace in St. Petersburg,  Palace of the Soviets,  Palais-Bourbon,  Palladian villas, ,  Palladio, Andrea, , , ,  panopticon, ,  paradigms, architectural,  parti: abolition of, –; approaches to developing, , ; and architect as artist, –; as base of program, , ; classical reliability of, ; and complexity of design, ; as compositional focus, , , , –, ; computer role in, ; creation of, , –; as creative work, ; and elements of architecture, ; and functionalism, , , ; in hôtel particulier, ; as invented, , , , ; limitations of, ; in nineteenth century composition, –, ; overview of development, –, ; as problem-solving tool, ;

and strategies of composition, ; teaching of, –, ; in twentieth century composition, , –, , –; type and typology, , , , – parts. See components passages, –,  patio house design, ,  patrons, historical changes in,  pattern approach, , –,  A Pattern Language (Alexander), , – pedagogical techniques. See education in design Percier, Charles, ,  Pereyra, Carlos A.,  Perret, Auguste, , , n.  perspective issues, –, –, n.  Peruzzi, Baldassarre,  Peyre, Joseph Marie,  physical aspects of building. See building physical models, , , ,  Picturesque movement, , , , , ,  pilasters in classical architecture,  Placek House,  planes, blank, , . See also walls plan of building. See parti poché composition, –,  popular architecture and functionalism, –, – Postmodernism: construction complications, –; decorativism, ; and education in design, ; identity of rooms in, ; type and typology, ,  practical vs. formal rules of design, – Prairie houses, Wright’s, ,  Pratt, Sir Roger,  precedents, typological: classical architecture, ; early twentiethcentury, ; education in design, , –; hôtel particulier,

–; and maintaining tradition, –; role in design, – ; and typological referents, . See also type and typology Précis des Leçons donnée à l’École Polytechnique (Durand), –, – preformed parts, composition as,  preliminary drawings,  privacy consideration, , , – ,  problem-solving approach, , , , –,  profession of architecture: business aspects of, –; and composition by elements, ; computer transformation of, –; and design process, ; vs. educational environment, –, n. ; and focus of architecture, n. ; form over function, ; new methods of design, –, n. ; Renaissance period, , , n. ; and role of architect, –, ; type and typology in,  Progetto e Destino (Argan),  Progetto Venezia,  program, architectural: architect’s role in small buildings, ; and functionalism, –, ; historical developments, –; parti as base for, , ; and typology, . See also brief, architectural project, graphic, , , , –. See also parti projections, architectural, , , ,  proximity topological characteristic, ,  Quincy, Quatremère de,  Rabino, Patricia M., ,  Ramos, Peratta, 

209 Index

210 Index

Raphael, n.  Rapoport, Amos,  Rationalist style, –, ,  reductionism in architectural method,  referents, typological,  regional factors, future focus on, . See also environment, building regulating lines and computeraided design,  regulations, building, and limitations on design,  Renaissance period: abandonment of Gothic style, n. ; birth of profession of architecture, , , , n. ; development of design centers, n. ; effects of design media on architecture, ; and invention by design, ; parti decisions in, ; reliance on types, ; representation development, n.  repetition of elements and typology, –, , , ,  representation: computer-aided design effects, –, –; description generation, –; evolution in teaching of, ; as goal of composition, ; historical development, n. ; measuring quality of, ; as research, –; as separate from construction, , ; vocabulary for, . See also composition; drawings research, design as, , –n.  residential buildings: creativity and repetition in design, ; examples, , , , , , , , , , ; hôtel particulier, –; Picturesque movement, ; Roman house design, ; spatial distribution, , ; type and typology,  Rice, Peter,  Rietveld, Gerrit, , , , , 

Robbins, Edward,  Robert Venturi and Partners,  Roman architecture, , ,  Roman house design,  rooms: adjacency limitations, , , n. ; in classical architecture, –; clustering of, ; distribution of, , –, ; hierarchical order for, ; minimalist design, ; sequential spacing for, –, , ; specialization of, . See also spatial distribution Rossi, Aldo, –,  Rowe, Colin,  Saarinen, Eero,  sailboat interior design,  Scharoun, Hans,  schematic plan. See parti Schinkel, K. F.,  Schon, Donald, – school designs,  School of Engineering, Leicester University, ,  Schröder House, , ,  Schulz, Norberg,  science of building in architectural education, ,  Scully, Vincent,  separation of construction from design, , –, , , –,  sequential spaces, , –, , ,  Serlio, Sebastiano,  served vs. servant spaces, ,  service vs. main rooms, ,  shapes of compositional elements: in computer-aided design, – ; irregular, , , ; and limits of composition, ; primacy of rectangular rooms, . See also geometry simplification, , , –. See also geometry

simulation, design, – single and double wings, , n.  sketch. See parti small vs. large buildings, – social factors: acceptance of compositional parts, ; architect’s role, ; and functionalism, – , , –; and limitations on design, –n. ; modernism’s effect on society, ; status of architects, ; type and typology, , , , –, , –; and vernacular architecture, –. See also cultural issues social service, architecture as, –, ,  social uses of building. See functionalism; human activities Soufflot, Jacques-Germain,  spatial distribution: architects as creators of, xv–xvi; in classical architecture, –; in description generation, ; design method role, ; vs. elegance of design, ; and elements of architecture, , , , ; and elements of composition, , , –, , –, n. ; and functionalism, , , –, –, , ; hierarchies in, –, –; in modern architecture, xv, , –, ; perspective issues, –, –, n. ; vs. physical elements of building, , –; as separate from construction, ; servant and served spaces, ; type and typology, ; usage issues, , , , . See also circulation networks; distribution; rooms Stirling, James, , , , , , ,  stone structures, , , ,  strategies of composition, ,  structuralism, 

structural schematics vs. stylistic forms,  structural science, development of,  structure/enclosure pattern, – , – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn),  student role in design education, –, –, –n.  studio, design: abstraction emphasis, ; vs. architectural office, –, n. ; computer impact on, –, –; educational role, –, n. –; functionalism in, n. . See also education in design studio crit, , – styles and stylistic forms: abstraction in, ; architects’ use of, –; vs. character, , n. ; compositional role, , –, , , ; and elements of architecture, –, ; and function, ; and method, xiii– xiv subdivisive composition, –, – subjectivity of design process: and elements of composition, , ; and functionalism, ; and pattern approach, ; quality evaluation, ,  subtractive composition, –, – Sullivan, Louis, ,  Summerson, John,  supporting and supported parts, – survey of existing building vs. design in process, – symmetry, modern liberation from, , –, – synchronic typology,  syntax, graphic: in description generation, , , –; and

211 Index

syntax, graphic (cont.) elements of composition, – ; as private to architect, ; reduction of ideas to, –, ; and reference to precedents, ; as separate from construction, ; transparency of traditional,  systemic metaphor for design, – , ,  212 Index

Tafuri, Manfredo,  Taliesin West,  Tchernykhov, Iakov, – teaching methods. See education in design technical designer, architect as,  technological issues, , , –, , n. . See also computeraided design Tendenza architects,  terminology, historical development of, . See also syntax, graphic Testa, Clorindo, , ,  Thorpe, John,  tied vs. free plans, , –, ,  The Timeless Way of Building (Alexander),  trabeations,  translation, design/construction, , , , ,  transparency. See continuity of spatial distribution transposition of types strategy,  Tugendhat house,  TWA Terminal, New York City,  type and typology: abstraction levels, –; in academic teaching, , ; altered/mixed, ; changes in, , ; in classical architecture, , , , –, , ; computer-aided design, –, ; definitions, n. ; in design process, , –, ,

–, –, –; and evaluation of design, ; and functionalism, , , –, , , , , n. ; and limitations on design, –n. ; and modern architecture, , , –, , , , –; parti development, , , , –; and pattern approach, ; Postmodernism, , ; ranking of parts, –; Renaissance period, ; and simpler designs, , ; strategies of composition with, –; typological cycles, –. See also precedents typical vs. atypical elements, – Tzonis, Alexander, ,  Understanding Media (McLuhan),  unifunctionality,  unity of project: and distribution of space, ; and elements of composition, , ; vs. functions of building, ; as goal of architecture, ; typology role in, ; and written program,  urban design projects: circulation models, , , ; control issue, ; and functionalism, , ; hôtel particulier, –; openspace models, , ; repetition of types in, ; strategies of composition, ,  uses of building. See functionalism; functions of building Usonian houses,  utilitarianism, xiii, , , , . See also functionalism Valéry, Paul,  values of architecture in design process, –, ,  van der Poll, Irene,  van Doesburg, Theo, –, – van Zanten, David, , , 

variations on types, –, , ,  Venezia, Progetto,  vernacular architecture, , –, ,  Versailles,  vertical studio,  vertical vs. horizontal structures in composition,  vestibules in classical architecture,  Villa á Garches,  Villa Giulia, Rome,  Villa Zeno,  Viollet-le-Duc, E. E., –, , , , ,  virtual design studios, –, n.  Vitruvius, , n.  walls: as elements of architecture, , ; and elements of composition, ; in free vs. tied plans, ; hôtel particulier, ; and

integration of design and construction, ; as moveable elements, –; technological changes,  Weissenhof apartment house,  Wiley House, ,  Wilford, Michael, , , , ,  windows and doors, ,  Wittkower, Rudolf,  Wolfsburg Cultural Center,  working drawings, , , , ,  wrapped distributions, buildings as,  Wren, Christopher,  Wright, Frank Lloyd: design strategies of, , ; function vs. continuity of space, ; mushroom columns, ; spatial composition of, , ; subjectivity of choice in architectural elements, ; type and typology, , ,  zoning of buildings, , 

213 Index

214 Index

STUDIES IN ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE Quantrill, Malcolm, ed., Latin American Architecture: Six Voices, . Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., The Culture of Silence: Architecture’s Fifth Dimension, . Hartoonian, Gevork, Modernity and Its Other: A Post-script to Contemporary Architecture, . Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., Urban Forms, Suburban Dreams, . Quantrill, Malcolm, and Bruce Webb, eds., Constancy and Change in Architecture, .

215 Index

The Architectural Project (Studies in Architecture and Culture)

Protocell Architecture: Architectural Design

The Enterprise Architecture IT Project

Understanding Architecture: An Introduction to Architecture and Architectural Theory

Incidence and Symmetry in Design and Architecture (Cambridge Urban and Architectural Studies)

Case Studies in Project, Program, and Organizational Project Management

Cardboard in Architecture: Volume 7 Research in Architectural Engineering Series

Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment: Architectural Design

Space in America: Theory History Culture (Architecture Technology Culture (ATC) 1) (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Space in America: Theory History Culture (Architecture Technology Culture (ATC) 1) (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Mario Botta: Architectural Poetics (Universe Architecture Series)

The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States (Architecture, Landscape and Amer Culture)

Architectural Conservation in Europe and the Americas

Understanding Radio (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Understanding Television (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Fan Cultures (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Studies in Hebrew Language and Jewish Culture

STUDIES IN HEBREW LITERATURE AND JEWISH CULTURE

Project Management Case Studies

Architecture and Design for the Future Internet: 4WARD Project

Writings in Architectural Education

The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (FORuM Project Publications)

Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture

Photoshop® in Architectural Graphics

Computing in Architectural Practice

Architectural Design in Steel

Dialogue and Culture (Dialogue Studies)

The Architecture of the Visible (Technologies: Studies in Culture & Theory Series)

Architecture in the Netherlands

Public Space and the Ideology of Place in American Culture. (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Festival Architecture (The Classical Tradition in Architecture)

The Architectural Project (Studies in Architecture and Culture)

Protocell Architecture: Architectural Design

The Enterprise Architecture IT Project

Understanding Architecture: An Introduction to Architecture and Architectural Theory

Incidence and Symmetry in Design and Architecture (Cambridge Urban and Architectural Studies)

Case Studies in Project, Program, and Organizational Project Management

Cardboard in Architecture: Volume 7 Research in Architectural Engineering Series

Territory: Architecture Beyond Environment: Architectural Design

Space in America: Theory History Culture (Architecture Technology Culture (ATC) 1) (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Space in America: Theory History Culture (Architecture Technology Culture (ATC) 1) (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Mario Botta: Architectural Poetics (Universe Architecture Series)

The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States (Architecture, Landscape and Amer Culture)

Architectural Conservation in Europe and the Americas

Understanding Radio (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Understanding Television (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Fan Cultures (Studies in Culture and Communication)

Studies in Hebrew Language and Jewish Culture

STUDIES IN HEBREW LITERATURE AND JEWISH CULTURE

Project Management Case Studies

Architecture and Design for the Future Internet: 4WARD Project

Writings in Architectural Education

The Project of Autonomy: Politics and Architecture Within and Against Capitalism (FORuM Project Publications)

Warped Space: Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture

Photoshop® in Architectural Graphics

Computing in Architectural Practice

Architectural Design in Steel

Dialogue and Culture (Dialogue Studies)

The Architecture of the Visible (Technologies: Studies in Culture & Theory Series)

Architecture in the Netherlands

Public Space and the Ideology of Place in American Culture. (Architecture - Technology - Culture)

Festival Architecture (The Classical Tradition in Architecture)

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