THEORY OF DESIGN - Presents a classification of requirements set for
buildings:
• Research of Architecture : DURABILTIY (firmitas)
- Research contributes to Design Theory : PRACTICALITY or “convenience” (utilitas)
• Nature of Design Theory : PLEASANTNESS (venustas)
- Design Theory states facts • Vitruvian Rules of Aesthetic Form
- Design Theory aids design - Based on Greek traditions of architecture
• Scope of Architecture Theory - Teachings of Pythagoras: applying proportions of
- Includes all that is presented in the handbooks of numbers
architects - Observations of tuned string of instruments
- Includes legislation, norms and standards, rules - Proportions of human body
and methods - PLEASANTNESS: in accordance of good taste
- Includes miscellaneous and “unscientific” elements : parts follow proportions
• Why Design Theory? : symmetry of measures
- To aid the work of the architect and improve its
product ➢ THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES
- Proven theory helps designers do work better and - no documents
more efficiently - no person can be attributed for theories
- “Skill without knowledge is nothing”
(Architect Jean Mignot, 1400 AD) • Monastery Institutions
• Understanding Design Theory - Most documents retrieved from the Middle
- Theory does NOT necessarily mean PRECCED Ages
design - However, archives contain only few
- PARADISM: every new or established theory descriptions of buildings
applied; Style - Described only as “according to the traditional
model”
➢ THEMATIC THEORIES - “There’s no accounting for tastes” was the
• CLASSICAL rule of thumb
- Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • Development of Building Style
• MIDDLE AGES - With hardly or no literary research present
- Medieval (read: Dark Age) anonymous - Villard de Hannecourt’s “sketchbook” in
tradition of trade guilds 1235
• RENAISSANCE - Rotzer’s Booklet on the right way of making
- Alberti, Vignola, Palladio, etc. pinnacles
• STRUCTURALIST - Only through guidance of old masters
- Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc. - Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of
• ART NOUVEAU (Personal Style) builders
- Eugene Emmanuelle Violett-le-Due, Le
Corbusier, etc. ➢ RENNAISANCE THEORIES
• FUNCTIONALISM
- Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc. • 1948 – a copy of Virtue manuscript found at
- Modern architecture St. Gallen Monastery
• POSTMODERNISM • Leon Bautista Alberti (1404-72)
- Robert Venturi - Person in charge of constructions commanded
• SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE by Pope
• ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE - “On Building” : De re aedifficatoria
: one of the greatest works of the
➢ CLASSICAL THEORIES theory of architecture
• Marcus Vitruvius Pollio : completed in 1452, published in 1485
- Author of the oldest research on architecture : more emphasis on decoration of
- Wrote an extensive summary of all the theory on building exteriors
construction • Sebastino Serlio
- Had a thorough knowledge of earlier Greek and - “Regole generall di architectura”
Roman writings • Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola
• “Ten Books on Architecture” - “Regola delle cinque ordini”
- De architectura libri decem - Concise, facts and easily applicable rules of
- Consists mostly of normative theory of design the five column systems
(based on practice) - Based his design instructions on four things:
- A collection of thematic theories of design with no : idea of Pythagoras
method of combining them into a synthesis : proportions of small number
: properties and other instruments
: good taste
buildings:
• Research of Architecture : DURABILTIY (firmitas)
- Research contributes to Design Theory : PRACTICALITY or “convenience” (utilitas)
• Nature of Design Theory : PLEASANTNESS (venustas)
- Design Theory states facts • Vitruvian Rules of Aesthetic Form
- Design Theory aids design - Based on Greek traditions of architecture
• Scope of Architecture Theory - Teachings of Pythagoras: applying proportions of
- Includes all that is presented in the handbooks of numbers
architects - Observations of tuned string of instruments
- Includes legislation, norms and standards, rules - Proportions of human body
and methods - PLEASANTNESS: in accordance of good taste
- Includes miscellaneous and “unscientific” elements : parts follow proportions
• Why Design Theory? : symmetry of measures
- To aid the work of the architect and improve its
product ➢ THEORIES in the MIDDLE AGES
- Proven theory helps designers do work better and - no documents
more efficiently - no person can be attributed for theories
- “Skill without knowledge is nothing”
(Architect Jean Mignot, 1400 AD) • Monastery Institutions
• Understanding Design Theory - Most documents retrieved from the Middle
- Theory does NOT necessarily mean PRECCED Ages
design - However, archives contain only few
- PARADISM: every new or established theory descriptions of buildings
applied; Style - Described only as “according to the traditional
model”
➢ THEMATIC THEORIES - “There’s no accounting for tastes” was the
• CLASSICAL rule of thumb
- Marcus Vitruvius Pollio • Development of Building Style
• MIDDLE AGES - With hardly or no literary research present
- Medieval (read: Dark Age) anonymous - Villard de Hannecourt’s “sketchbook” in
tradition of trade guilds 1235
• RENAISSANCE - Rotzer’s Booklet on the right way of making
- Alberti, Vignola, Palladio, etc. pinnacles
• STRUCTURALIST - Only through guidance of old masters
- Galileo Galilei, Robert Hooke, etc. - Tradition binding and precise in close guilds of
• ART NOUVEAU (Personal Style) builders
- Eugene Emmanuelle Violett-le-Due, Le
Corbusier, etc. ➢ RENNAISANCE THEORIES
• FUNCTIONALISM
- Walter Gropius, Louis Sullivan, etc. • 1948 – a copy of Virtue manuscript found at
- Modern architecture St. Gallen Monastery
• POSTMODERNISM • Leon Bautista Alberti (1404-72)
- Robert Venturi - Person in charge of constructions commanded
• SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE by Pope
• ECOLOGICAL ARCHITECTURE - “On Building” : De re aedifficatoria
: one of the greatest works of the
➢ CLASSICAL THEORIES theory of architecture
• Marcus Vitruvius Pollio : completed in 1452, published in 1485
- Author of the oldest research on architecture : more emphasis on decoration of
- Wrote an extensive summary of all the theory on building exteriors
construction • Sebastino Serlio
- Had a thorough knowledge of earlier Greek and - “Regole generall di architectura”
Roman writings • Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola
• “Ten Books on Architecture” - “Regola delle cinque ordini”
- De architectura libri decem - Concise, facts and easily applicable rules of
- Consists mostly of normative theory of design the five column systems
(based on practice) - Based his design instructions on four things:
- A collection of thematic theories of design with no : idea of Pythagoras
method of combining them into a synthesis : proportions of small number
: properties and other instruments
: good taste
