ARCHITECTURAL

THEORY &
CRITICISIM
CHAPTER - 1
 DESIGN

 Difficult to define in a single statement

 Defined as the effort to generate solutions to problems
DESIGN prior to attempting to implement them.
TYPES  As Michael Tovey (1984) suggests, creative thinking
and aesthetics are two parts of design which are
particularly resistant to analysis and description in
words.
 "design types", is the most comprehensive attempt to
categorise different approaches in design.
  Pragmatic design
TYPES OF  Typological design
DESIGN  Analogical design
 Syntactic design
  Simply the use of available materials, methods of
construction, climate and other physical factors
generally without innovation

 Work can be made by trial and error process

PRAGMATIC
DESIGN  Once a way of building became established, it was often
used the same way for thousands of years, repeated over
great distances in space and long periods in time.
EXAMPLE

Igloo houses Mammoth hunters tent

40,000 B.C
 Particular building forms are thus repeated in
particular cultures because :
• Climate
• resources available

EXAMPLE
TEPEE OF INDIANS
• Tepee is a plains Indian
home made up of buffalo
hide fastened around very
long wooden poles
• cone shaped structure
• Cool in summer and warm
in winter
• Can hold 30 – 40 people.
 BLACK TENTS OF
ARABS

Basic tent types used

by nomads in the
Middle East (Iran and
Afghanistan)

EXAMPLE
 DJENNE_GREAT_MUD_MOSQUE

EXAMPLE

Northern Nigeria Southern Nigeria

• Use of mud • Use of Bamboo and Timber
• Today – fired • Today – Pile foundation of
clay bricks timber ,concrete
EXAMPLE
How to anchor an inflated air structure.

The earliest way of building and its circumstances still

maintained when we are given a new material and use it.
 Advantages of pragmatic concept
• Leads to justification and innovation of new
building materials

• It helps to generate new building materials

through tried and error
PROS & CONS
• It leads to exploration of means and natural
resources

Disadvantages of pragmatic concept

• It tends to be repetitive
  Called as typo logic design

 pre-established solutions, from the scale of a door-

knob to that of a kitchen-plan, an apartment-plan, an
apartment-block plan, a neighbourhood, or the strategic
ICONIC plan for a city.
DESIGN
 help architects to establish a foundation in their design
solutions by reviewing what is typically accepted by the
users.
 • even more conservative in that it effectively calls for
the designer to copy existing solutions.

ICONIC
DESIGN

Ashok Hotel is planned to make an iconic property after

independence, located in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi.
EXAMPLE
  The structure and construction technique of ijaw, shekiri
in the south-south part of Nigeria.

EXAMPLE
 Advantages of iconic concept
• It leads to testing and innovation of new construction
technique

• It allow intuitive thinking in the process of finding

solutions to construction problems
PROS & CONS
• It create a cultural significance in construction such
that the way of construction reflect the tradition or
way of life of people

Disadvantage of iconic concept

• It tends to be repetitive
  The use of images from nature, painting and sculpture,
existing buildings and so on is implemented to 'trigger'
ideas in the designer's mind.
ANALOGIC
DESIGN  Three types of analogy were introduced by Gordon
(1961): personal, direct, and symbolic.

  the designer identifies himself with a tiny aspect of the
design problem

PERSONAL
ANALOGY

Architect Van Does burg transferred abstract Mondrian’s paintings into

interior spaces of houses and composed the elevations
  the problem is compared with known facts in another
branch of art, science or technology“

DIRECT
ANALOGY Lotus temple

Santiago Calatrava's Turning Torso TWA Terminal New York

  the designer tries to penetrate to the essence of special
meaning which he attaches to the problem, usually
verbally, and in terms of a 'binary couplet'

Le Corbusier ronchamp
chapel design based on
SYMBOLIC praying hands , a bird, a
nuns cowl
ANALOGY

Burj al arab - an icon of dubai

designed in the shape of modern
yatch sail to reflect the combination
of modern and nautical heritage
 Advantages Analogue concept

Its help architect to improve on their own ideas

Its create an intellectual freedom and inventiveness

PROS & CONS Disadvantages of Analogue concept

It can lead to grooming of dependent that cannot think

on their own

It tends to produce repetitive works

  Also called as syntactic design
approach

 use of rules such as planning grids,

proportioning systems
CANONIC
DESIGN  The classical architectural styles
Renaissance approach, Vitruvius and
later Alberti Le Corbusier’s
‘modular’ can be seen as an attempt
to produce canonical rules that
allowed for more iconoclastic
designs.
 Making of a pinnacle

Golden ratio Fibonacci series

Corbusier’s MODULAR
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
EXAMPLE
 Advantages of Canonic concept

• provides a key to proportion in architectural designing,

(geometrical and mathematical innovation)

• It does not restrict designer in a the way it gives freedom of

space allocation,
PROS & CONS
• It makes use of grids and axis and that makes construction
easy.

Disadvantage of Canonic concept

• It discourages the need to learn from their environments.

  Criticism is the analysis and judgement of the merits and
faults of a literary or artistic work

 Criticising architecture is not about pointing out only the

negative points but analysing the building as a whole.
CRITICISM
 The function, form, structure, workability, light and
ventilation, etc. every factor has to be taken into
consideration.
 Diversity in Architectural Trends:
ARCHITECTURAL This lead to a state of dispersion or approaching
architectural chaos.
CRITICISM –
WHY? This is due to the architects lack of theoretical culture,
which leads them to adopt architectural forms without
comprehending their meanings.
Development in the Discipline of Architecture:
divided into three phases.

 Phase I - Crafty Architecture: Aimed to mimic historical precedent

and ornaments related to a certain historical period (styles).

 Phase II - Painterly Architecture: Influenced by the philosophy of

aesthetic. Architecture Liberated from the tradition of mimicking
the qualities of an aesthetic model of the eighteenth century; and
began to upgrade to the level of fine art.

 Phase III - Intellectual Architecture: Architecture started to follow a

certain ideology through architectural theory which turns thoughts
into principles and codes of architecture.
APPROACHES OF
ARCHIECTURAL
CRITICISM
 It explains the work, interprets historical references, and
interprets the meanings and symbols.
INTERPRETIVE It also traces the construction of the architectural form and
CRITICISM reveals expressive connotation,
one of the most important types of architectural criticism.
 There must be standards for evaluation to assess the architectural
work.
Critics should not only rely on their opinions, but they must examine
the characteristics of the work itself.
Critics cannot defend their assessment unless they can prove how
these characteristics lead to make the architectural work good.
CRITICISM BY They must have known standards to identify the quality of
architectural work and assess it.
REGULATIONS
Without such standards, they cannot support their evaluation,
without them we also cannot understand the reason behind the
issuance of their assessment.
These standards must address architectural work in general.
They deal with various aspects of the formal, social, historical,
environmental standards, and more.
 analytical in nature,
architecture is analysed into multiple aspects, to examine every side of an
analytical practical study
Analytical theory depends on the assembly of small parts mechanically to
get the overall picture.

Objectives of the classic criticism are:

CLASSIC
CRITICISM  Evaluation of the work on general formal basis.
 Classification of the work in its proper historical location
 Comparing the work or the monument with masterpieces, which
represent the supreme aesthetic according to classical concepts, to give
its real aesthetic value.
 Analysis of the architecture According to its basic elements and factors.
 Judgment.
 Includes the context of architectural work and the circumstances
during which it appeared.
CONTEXTUAL
It also includes the work's effects on society, and generally includes
CRITICISM all the relationships and correlations between work and architecture
among other things.
 The owners of contextual theories in the mid-nineteenth
century wanted above all else to be pragmatic.
IMPRESSIONISTIC
It was required of architectural criticism that emulated the
CRITICISM physical sciences in the subjects and accuracy.
 It is always an invitation to aesthetic empathy.
It has warned us against contemplating of the
INTENTIONAL - architectural work in an alien spirit to
CRITICISM architecture.
- Architecture reliable to psychological and
aesthetic intentions.
  an intellect system that puts the theoretical foundations
which link between varied factors for the purpose of
MODERN reaching a comprehensive vision of architecture.
ARCHITECTURAL
CRITICISM  goal of modern criticism - search for holistic
architectural concepts to diagnose the dimensions of its
existence, its various aspects, and its core characteristic.
  The disciple of architecture • In architecture, everyone’s
is Plural and Diverse. a critic.

IMPORTANCE
OF CRITICISM
  Architecture has become Architecture is suffering crisis
insensitive to users, to site of confidence
conditions and to history.

IMPORTANCE
OF CRITICISM
  Ignoring the Public’s Signature of the Architects
Opinion The buildings are built
 Architects are flatly according the style of the
dismissing the public’s architect leaving away
opinion about their various . site factors such as
work and are not context, history, topography,
NEED OF concerned about their vegetation etc.
CRITICISM: needs.
 Built without Buildings are not used
consultation In spite of various
The needs and demands of considerations made and
the user are not considered facilities given by the
while designing a architect the building . fails as
structure. a whole and is left unused.
NEED OF
CRITICISM:
CRITERIA OF
AR.CRITICISM:
 Social Criterion:
Represents the social and cultural level surrounding the
architectural work, and social acceptability and interaction with
this work.
HUMANITARIAN Economic Criterion:
CRITERIA Includes costs and feasibility studies, or benefit and
profitability of the Architectural work.
Political Criterion:
Includes support and convenience of political orientation for
the intellectual trends and the architectural work.
 Formative criterion:
Relates to aesthetics, proportions, shape and character of the
architectural work, including symbols and formative vocabulary.
Schematic criterion:
The appropriateness of architectural work and its interaction with the
general planning of road networks and the general character of the
URBAN & city's Urban planning.
ARCHITECTURAL Environmental Criterion:
CRITERIA The compatibility of architectural work with the surrounding natural
or man-made environment.
Structural Criterion:
Evaluation of the selection of construction methods and techniques
used, and the appropriateness of them to the construction site.
  Out of scale and proportion

TODAY’S  Not relevant to the everyday lives of most people.

ARCHITEC-
TURE: Huge floorplate with non-operable windows.

 Dependence on passive energy measures.

  FAILURES OF FALLINGWATER
 Cracks appeared on the parapets
 Overloading the beams - slab to sag more than should have been expected
 two subordinate overhangs fail
 Cantilevers fell and rose in response to temperature changes affecting the
materials.
 Roofs leak
EXAMPLE  MR. KAUFFMAN AND FAMILY NEVER LIVED INTHE HOUSE.
  FAILURES OF FARNSWORTH HOUSE
 The poor energy efficiency
 Lack of traditional warmth and cosiness
 Not liveable
 The owner herself was never happy with the house and never lived in it

EXAMPLE
  FAILURES OF WALKIETALKIE BUILDING
 Cars melted by sunlight reflected from the Walkie Talkie
 Architect Rafael Vinoly designed the building, knowing that the concave
on the south side would have this problem.

EXAMPLE
 FRANK O GERRY
BILBAUO MUSEUM

EXAMPLE

However the use of metals bits

bounced enough sunlight into the
neighbouring buildings to raise the
interior temperature.