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Summary Architectural Theory 1
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ArchitecturalTheory 1
Notes in class and clear overview
Prof. Elizabeth Merrill
2021-2022
Inhoud
Introduction............................................................................................................................................4
1. Introduction....................................................................................................................................4
2. Forms of early modern and modern architectural theory..............................................................5
The discipline of Architecture.................................................................................................................8
1. Architecture and the other arts......................................................................................................8
2. Vitruvius’ De architectura...............................................................................................................9
3. Editions of Vitruvius......................................................................................................................11
4. Envisioning a profession...............................................................................................................12
Disegno and the definition of architecture...........................................................................................13
1. Disegno and the definition of architecture...................................................................................13
2. Vasari’s disegno and the paragone...............................................................................................14
3. Architecture and mechanics.........................................................................................................17
4. The mechanical treatise in early modern architecture.................................................................17
Constructing a norm.............................................................................................................................18
1. Raphael’s Letter to Leo X (1519)...................................................................................................18
1.1 Development of idea of style..................................................................................................19
1.2 Development of system of drawing........................................................................................19
2. Development of orders.................................................................................................................21
2.1 Serlio.......................................................................................................................................21
2.2 Vignola, Regola delli cinque ordini d’architettura...................................................................22
2.3 Palladio + imitation of printed treatise...................................................................................22
Questioning the standard.....................................................................................................................23
1. Seventeenth-century France and the “Quarrel of the ancients and Moderns”............................23
2. Gianlornzo Bernini & the discussion of taste, judgement and character......................................25
3. Academie Royale d’architecture, Claude Perrault and Critique of Vitruvianism...........................26
1
,Text and architecture...........................................................................................................................29
1. Introduction: Architecture and the production of meaning; architectural theory outside of the
treatise.............................................................................................................................................29
2. Text becomes architecture. Architecture description as practice and as model. The temple of
Solomon...........................................................................................................................................29
2.1 The temple of Solomon: History and meaning.......................................................................29
2.2 The interpretation of the description and its use as an architecture model...........................30
2.3 Commentary of Richard of St. Victor......................................................................................30
2.4 Bautista de Villalpando and Jeronimo de Prado < Ezechielem explanationes........................31
2.5 John Wood..............................................................................................................................31
3. The description compared with architectural elements...............................................................31
3.1 The Baldacchino of St. Peter’s.................................................................................................31
3.2 Solomonic architecture: Caramuel and Ricci..........................................................................31
Architecture becomes text...................................................................................................................32
1. The architectural description as design model.............................................................................32
1.1 The problem of the model: authorship, style and form..........................................................32
1.2 Krautheimer and the copy......................................................................................................32
2. The Indescribable Building: the Hagia Sophia...............................................................................32
2.1 Paul Silentiarius......................................................................................................................32
2.2 Procopius................................................................................................................................33
3. The Building as Allegory................................................................................................................33
3.1 Building metaphors in the Bible..............................................................................................33
3.2 Abbot Suger and St. Denis......................................................................................................34
4. The Building as an Analogue.........................................................................................................34
4.1 Manetti on the Dedication of the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence......................................34
The villa................................................................................................................................................36
1. Literary legacy: agriculture and the ideals of villa life...................................................................36
Theme III: Type, form and use..............................................................................................................40
2
,Theme I: The discipline of
architecture
3
,Introduction
1. Introduction
Vitruvius, De Architectura: Vitruvius is the man in the throne and is teaching his students the theory of
the craft. He is speaking to them with a text and thus suggests that it can be taught without buildings.
The production of buildings alone is not architecture.
Architecture is a theoretical construction, you have to define it in the mind first
Architecture as ‘artifice’
Artifice: from Latin artificium (ars, art- ‘art’ + facere ‘make’)
= it has to be made, created
- A camp in Kenya
Was it architecture or shelter in the beginning?
Architecture: first conceived, defined in the mind
- Buonocorso Ghiberti, 1475
In this sense, it is a theoretical construction
Architecture is a theoretical construction, you have to define it in the mind first
Timeframe: early modern period
- Early modern period, c.1300 – c.1800
- Examples
o Cathedral of Florence (1350-1450)
o Marktkirche, Halle (1530-1550)
o San Carlo alle Quattro Fontante, Rome (1640)
o Sanssouci palace, Potsdam (1745)
Primary source texts on architecture
- The meaning of architecture changes
- The actual theory takes different forms
- For Francesco di Giorgio is different than Palladio and Perrault
o Challenging because theorists also work as historians. You have to look through the social
context, you have to look through the period eye
Palladio e.g.: We want to understand him: who were his mentors, where did he
live, how was he influenced by other architects
Why study architecture?
- Monographs and Journals dedicated to the topic of theory
- Possible to look at through different professions
o Historian of art
Enriches the visual arts and artistic education
4
, Necessary for understanding the development of architecture discipline
Explains the varying role of architect in history
Early depictions of early modern workshops, they show the overlap of the art
that you don’t see
Leading figures of renaissance: scholars are fascinated by the idea how his
painting helped him with architecture, the relationships between the art is
important
o Practicing architect
Architect begins with theory: drawing
Knowledge of materials, social context, economics, politics…
To achieve the goals it is necessary to draw first before building
Architecture is its own, self-defined discipline with its own history, set of
references, criteria ad purposes
Theory also follows the same definition of architecture
Architects as theorists: le Corbusier, rem Koolhaas, andrea palladio…
Architecture theory or what is good architecture
- Architecture is the work of architects
- How does the architect’s work differ from that of the painter or industrial designer?
- How is architecture experienced? How does the architect impact this experience?
- What is the connection between the architect’s intention and the relevance of his design?
o Is every single design as successful with a good architect?
o Michelangelo appears almost royal in his black, this is his idea, this is superior because it
is from his hand and he is genius. There is no questioning
- Theory = rules of good practice
o Rules that provide strategies, rules that guarantee beautiful strong functions
o Palladio’s books provided like a textbook diagrams, he shows how you have to do it
Architecture theory or built structure of social use
- What does society do with architecture?
- What does architecture do in society?
- How does architecture order society?
- How should architecture respond to social changes?
- Can architecture solve social problems?
- What is housing and what is a good home?
- This extends 1000 years back, Filarete’s work was based around how to make an ideal city
Architecture theory or the ideal relationship between form and structure
- Exclusion of certain forms of architecture, if you start questioning
- Buildings that are most functional such as dams they did belong to architecture but now they are
other domains like engineering
2. Forms of early modern and modern architectural theory
Architectural theory: in painting, drawing and models
5
,It is typically found in texts, essays, manifestos… The ideas can be traced in other media, we can also read
theory in drawings, models and paintings.
Hanno-Walter Kruft, “Introduction: What is architectural theory”
Forms of architectural theory
- Treatises in the “Vitruvian” tradition, prescriptive texts on architecture, the majority of which
were written by individuals who worked as architects
- The canonical authors are very defined: Vitruvius, Alberti, di Giorgio, Palladio, Violet-le-Duc, Adolf
Loos, Rem Koolhaas…
the first is Vitruvius, 20 BC, 10 books about architecture, his definition what architecture is and
what he finds essential to the practice of architecture
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio
- Vitruvius was rediscovered around 1420, and there was an interest wave, they almost
approached the text as the book that shows the secrets to great roman architecture. It was
simply the only surviving treatise
- 16th century there are printed editions, also with own commentary and in different languages.
(Fra Giocondo, Cesare Cesariano, Daniele Barbaro..)
Architectural treatises of the Vitruvian tradition (Italian, 15 th and 16th centuries
- (Italian, 15th and 16th centuries)
- Leon Battista Alberti, De re Aedificatoria (c. 1450)
- Antonio Averlino “Filarete” – Libro Architettonico (c. 1460)
- Francesco di Giorgio – Trattato di Architettura (c. 1480 – 1495)
- Sebastiano Serlio, I sette libri dell'architettura (1537 – 1575)
- Pietro Cataneo, I Quattro Primi Libri di Architettura (1554, 1567)
- Jacopo Vignola, Regola delli cinque ordini d'architettura (1562)
- Andrea Palladio, Quattro Libri (1570)
- Vincenzo Scamozzi, L’Idea dell’Architettura Universale (1615)
th
15 century Italy they follow him and lay out a program to define architecture and discuss, his ancient
book inspires a new discipline of thought
Early modern thinkers run with the idea of the ideal man, e.g. Leonardo da Vinci. Before and after him
there were also a lot of thinkers that tried to draw this. (Cesare Cesariano, Francesco di Giorgio)
6
, Architectural treatises that challenge Vitruvius
Perrault for example
Forms of architectural theory
- treatises in the Vitruvian tradition, prescriptive texts on architecture, majority written by
individuals who worked as architects
- texts written by non-architects, which address buildings as cultural actors
Bible
Pliny the younger: Letter to Gallus on the villa
Procopius: on Hagia Sophia
Abbot sugar: On the Abbey Church of St. Denis
Madeleine de Scudéry: Promenade à Versailles
Paolo Cortesi: De cardinalato libri tres
Alvise Cornaro: Writings on the sober life
7
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