THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE 2 architectural ideals & the increasingly important

Architectural Isms notion of providing architecture appropriate to its

By: Ar. Chris Luna, uap time.

The -ism suffix can be used to express the  The Art Nouveau did not successfully
following concepts: produce the necessary transition from the
 doctrine or philosophy (e.g. pacifism, stylistic Revivalism of the 19th century into
olympism) the new world of the 20th century.
 theory developed by an individual (e.g.
Marxism)  It did, however, provide a bridge – via
Expressionism – between the individualism
 political movement (e.g. feminism)
of the Art Nouveau designers & the
 artistic movement (e.g. cubism)
collective work of the architects who were
 action, processor practice (e.g. voyeurism) associated with the International Modernism
 characteristic, quality or origin (e.g. heroism) movement of the late 1920s.
 state or condition (e.g. pauperism)
 excess or disease (e.g. botulism)
 prejudice or bias (e.g. racism)
 characteristic speech patterns (e.g. Yogiism,
Bushism)
 religion or belief system (e.g. Mormonism)

Many isms are defined as an act or practice by

some, while also being defined as the doctrine
or philosophy behind the act or practice by
others. Examples include activism, altruism,
despotism, elitism, optimism, sexism and
terrorism.

ISMS

 The chief characteristics of 20th century

architecture are its plurality.
RENAISSANCE
 Some critics have erroneously suggested
that there has been a single evolutionary
Modern Movement in architecture as such.  Inventionism
 Indeed there has been many modern  Humanism
movements.  Idealism
 The main revolution in architecture began  Mannerism
with the new master problems that emerged
 Pietism
as long as the 1780s when a vast amount of
monumental symbolistic building began &  Regional Classicism
when new problems of a specifically public  Absolutism
architectural character were met by the  Anglican Empiricism
architects of the period.  Rococo
 Palladianism
It was not until the 1880s that a desire for a truly
modern style emerged & even then it was by no  Georgian Urbanism
means articulate, although in some ways it
prefaced the whole of the work of the early 10th EARLY MODERN
century.
 Neoclassicism
By the turn of the century, architects sensible to
the changes that were going on in society,  Exoticism
science, technology & psychology, were  Sublimism
struggling with the problem of identification, of  Structural Rationalism

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 Materialism MANNERISM
 Medievalism
 Victorianism Refers to the manipulation of styles or forms
 Monumental Urbanism achieved by the learned juxtaposition of
 Anti-Urbanism elements for the exclusive aim of achieving
 Decorative Industrialism originality or effect
 Imperialism

MODERNISM

 Eclecticism
 Constructivism
 Monumentalism
 Usonianism
 National Romanticism
 Purism
 Fin De Sieclism
 Rationalism  "Te Palace" by Giulio Romano - MANTOVA
 Radicalism – ITALY. The upper part of the arch is not at
 Functionalism the same level of the other parts. It's the
 Futurism symbol of mannerism, an artistical current
 Skyscraperism that wanted to leave the perfection
 Neoplasticism expressed in the classicism.
 Totalitarianism
 Bauhaus ECLECTICISM
 Corporatism
 International Modernism It is usually applied to any building that
 Utilitarianism incorporates a mixture of the historical styles.
 Organicism
 Brutalism
 Expressionism

BEYOND MODERNISM

 Structuralism
 Regionalism
 Metabolism
 Post-Metabolism
 Postmodernism
 Technoism
 Neo-Rationalism
 Deconstructivism  The Palace of Beloselskiye-
 Ecoism Belozerskiye Constructed for the princes
Beloselskiye-Belozerskiye. Since 1884 it
 Metarationalism
belonged to the grand prince Sergei
Alexandrovich.

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STRUCTURALISM Notable German pioneers of modern
architecture:
Iron construction that was initiated by Joseph  Karl Friedrich Schinkel
Paxton’s Crystal Palace that brought about a  Peter Behrens (Turbine Shop, AEG
trend in architecture. Numerous exhibition halls, Factory, Berlin)
locomotive sheds & other large-scale  Mies van der Rohe
“engineering” types of structure followed.  Le Corbusier
 Tony Garnier
 Auguste Perret

 Crystal Palace by Sir Joseph Paxton built for

the Great Exhibition of 1851-1854 in London

MONUMENTALISM
The AEG Factory, Berlin
This was based on a general notion that (from
Adolf Loos) “the form of an object should last” & Other European countries
that implicitly there are some forms which have  Glasgow: Charles Rennie Mackintosh
eternal validity.  Finland :Eliel Saarinen, Lara Sonck,
Gallen-Kallela
 Britain: Richard Norman Shaw, Charles
Voysey
 Spain: Antoni Gaudi
 Germany: Paul Bonatz, Albert Speer

 Chicago Tribune Tower designed

by Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells. Art Nouveau buildings in Riga, Latvia
Construction of the building was completed
in 1925.

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RADICALISM

Marked a radical shift in emphasis from the

buildings of the past to the design of those which
met the demands of modern life like those of
Henry van de Velde and Walter Gropius

Fagus Factory, Werkbund by Gropius.

CONSTRUCTIVISM Monument to the Third International (1920)

 In 1919 and 1920, Vladimir Tatlin produced
It was a passionate pleading for ideas on form & sketches and a model for what was
space in architecture as well as in the other arts projected to be a Monument to the Third
International. This utopian design, so typical
Constructivism was a movement that was active for the frenzied mood of Russians in the
from 1915 to the 1940’s. It was a movement years immediately following the Bolshevik
created by the Russian avant-garde, but quickly revolution was, in theory, to have been taller
spread to the rest of the continent. Constructivist than that great symbol of modernity, the
art is committed to complete abstraction with a Eiffel Tower
devotion to modernity, where themes are often
geometric, experimental and rarely emotional.
Objective forms carrying universal meaning
were far more suitable to the movement than
subjective or individualistic forms

 Vladimir Tatlin
 Kasimir Malevitch
 Mart Stam
 Naum Gabo
 El Lissitzky
 James Stirling
 Antoine Pevsner Lenin Institute, Moscow by Alexander Vesnin,
 Marcel Breuer 1923.

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EXPRESSIONISM NEOPLASTICISM

This term is used to describe the work of those This term relates to the theory of pure plastic art
architects who prefigured the International & which had a pronounced influence on Dutch
Functionalist Period of the Modern Movement. architects. It consisted in the exclusive use of
the right angle in a horizontal position, & the use
of the 3 primary colors contrasted with or
incorporating in various canvasses the 3 non-
colors: white, black & gray.

Einstein Tower, Potsdam by Erich Mendelsohn

FUTURISM
Schroeder House in Utrecht by Gerrit Rietveld
The Futurist Architecture Manifesto proclaimed
that Futurist Architecture “is the architecture of L’Ecole de Beaux Arts (Paris)
calculation, of audacity & simplicity; the
architecture of reinforced concrete, of iron, of The style turned to Gothic revival due to its
glass……..& all those substitutes for wood, brevity, idealism, heroism, and picturesque
stone & brick which make possible maximum ness. Verticality was the trend. Example: Eiffel
elasticity & lightness.” Tower

A commercial building by Robert Adam along

Piccadily, London

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DE STIJL of the Bauhaus design methods can be seen in
numerous consumer products from bent metal
Founded by Van Doesburg, a painter. Jacobus furniture & hanging globe lamps to the black,
J. P. Oud, one of the principal aims of the block, lowercase lettering to be found on
movement is to “construct without any illusion, exhibition posters the world over.
without any decoration”. It broke away from
naturalism and historicism and by appealing to
abstraction as the means of expressing a
universal synthesis of modern times. Compared
to Gropius, Doesburg was a radicalist.

Bauhaus Building in Dessau by Walter Gropius

CIAM & INTERNATIONAL MODERNISM

(Congres Internationaux d’Architecture

 Rietveld-Schröderhuis (outside Utrecht) is Moderne). This organization was set up by Le
the only house in the world that conforms in Corbusier & Siegfried Giedion.
all aspects of its construction to the 1920s
artistic movement known as De Stijl (The
Style), even to the finest detail. Built by
Gerrit Rietveld, it has been named a
UNESCO World Heritage site for the
embodiment of one of the most influential
architectural movements of the twentieth
century, and one of the Netherlands most
lasting contributions to world culture.

BAUHAUS

This is a school of art & design founded in 1919 Villa Savoye, Poissy, Paris
by Walter Gropius. Its second head was Hannes
Meyer (1927) followed later by Mies van der
Rohe.

The Bauhaus (literally building house) was the

nerve center of artistic experiment during the
1920s & it became internationally known through
its publications & exhibitions & also through the
work of its architect heads who were in the front
line of the European avant garde. The influence

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The INTERNATIONAL STYLE TEAM X

“Ready-made style” imported from the U. S. Formed by a rebellious group of young Turks
who contested the principles of modern
architecture for the same reasons CIAM had
attacked the past.

Joan Joseph Bakerna (Holland)- unite the

personal freedom with the total environment
Shadrach Wood (U.S.)- from cell house to mass
housing which results in desolation.

Aldo van Eyck (Holland)- architects left no

cracks or crevices; made a flat surface of
everything

Palisades Concrete Pier House

 The design of UC Berkeley's Wurster Hall

uses sunshading, daylighting and
environmentally sensitive structural systems.
Joe Esherick was on the team that designed
the building in 1966

Park Avenue, New York

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ORGANICISM UTILITARIANISM

This is used as a description of architecture that It sought for economic solution for low value
sympathizes with its environment which is sites as well as alternative cheap forms of
shown in the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright & construction in timber, brick & metal. Low cost
the Prairie School. It is the very antithesis of the housing was referred to as utilitarian
geometrical organized facadism of those architecture.
architects who believe that architecture should
intrude on the environment in the Classic, Neo- In Britain, this was called PREFAB. The idea
Classic & Gothic sense. was to fabricate these units in factories &
brought to the sites ready-built for immediate
Followers of organicism: assembly. The effect of this eventually was to
 Claude Bragdon (US) create an atmosphere in which “system building”
 Henry Russell Hitchcock (US) could take over the role of individually designed
 Hugo Haring (Germany) dwellings.
 Hans Scharoun (Germany)
 Bruce Goff (Britaqin)
 Paolo Soleri (Italy)
 Herb Greene

Kaufmann House by Frank Lloyd Wright

House by Herb Greene

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THE NEW BRUTALISM

In 1954, the term “the New Brutalism” was first

applied to a group of young British architects’
center around Peter & Alison Smithson, & was
marked by a fascination with raw expression of
materials, forms & functions. There is a
deliberate exposure of the structure, materials &
services with extraordinary clarity.

Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, Japan by Kisho

Kurokawa, 1972

POST METABOLISM

La Tourette Monastery, Lyon, France by Le

Its use implies an attempt to summarize some of
Corbusier, 1953-1957
the very divergent currents that characterized
the Japanese architectural scene. Post
METABOLISM
Metabolism interests in explaining such things
as the nature of the house in the city and are
This term was first applied to architecture at the
concerned with intricate design on small sites &
World Design Conference, Tokyo, 1960. This
polemical (arguable) schemes.
concern with the problems of cities such as
Tokyo

Among its advocates were:

 Kiyonori Kikutake
 Fumihiko Maki
 Masato Otaka
 Kisho Kurokawa
 Kenzo Tange

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POST-MODERNISM ISOLATIONISM

This is an alternative to Modern Movement ideas It is conceived independently from its immediate
like revivals of pattern book principles of the or historical context. It stands on its own.
19th century, a new interest in vernacular forms
adapted to modern needs, a much more strict
interpretation of the theatrical element in Modern
Movement architecture proper, a distinctly
confused revival of Wright’s organic views, and
a return to the low-rise high-density
developments of the interwar period.

 Neighborhood houses in Dali reflect

traditional Chinese urban architecture.

CONTEXTUALISM

Architecture should be apprehended in its total

setting. The knowledge of history, the world, or
science makes the total experience far richer.

 As a philosophic concept, contextualism, is

Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany by James
adopted to provide an effective way to
Stirling, 1977-84
transcend the meanings that are embedded
in the context of historical architectural
characteristics.
 As a design means, contextualism is used
as a method to bring about sympathetic
creations that blend into their surroundings
instead of destroying them

Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill,

Philadelphia by Robert Venturi, 1964

The Pearl Farm by Arch. Mañosa

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DECONSTRUCTIVISM ECOISM

It is the abstraction of Modernism to the extreme It merges the interests of sustainability,

and mainly worked on the principle of environmental consciousness, green, natural,
exaggeration of familiar motifs. It is also known and organic approaches to evolve a design
as the new modernism. solution from these requirements and from the
characteristics of the site, its neighborhood
 Forerunners: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, context, and the local micro-climate and
Richard Meier, Rem Koolhaas topography.
 'Respect' this is the keyword in practicing
green / ecological architecture because our
current system of building lacks respect for
the natural environment as well as for
individual people and society as a whole.
 Personalities; Ken Yeang, Renzo Piano, Sir
Norman Foster, Toyo Ito

Walt Disney Concert Hall

TECHNOISM

This describes how architects tried to bridge the

gap between fantasy images and the real
possibilities that new technology offered.

US Pavillion (Geodesic Dome), Expo 67,

Montreal, Canada by Buckminster Fuller

Elephant & Castle Eco Towers

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METARATIONALISM Topic Reference:

Metarationalism is what happens to architecture  Adopted from the PowerPoint of Ar.

when the logic of economist James Galgraith’s Norma Alarcon, UST College of
views that in the affluent society there is no Architecture
meaningful distinction between luxury and  Various internet sources related to the
necessity meets that of complexity science with topic
its ability to overturn conventional structural  The images in this paper came from
logic. The result is a feast of consumerist various sources from Google images
experiences presented within phenomenally
complex forms. THIS PAPER IS FOR
ACADEMIC PURPOSES ONLY
 Daniel Libeskind
 Steven Holl
 Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadi’s Performing Arts Centre in Abu

Dhabi

Daniel Libeskind’s Gazprom building

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