Rational, technological and constructional; Material, economic and social; Religious, cultural and philosophical; The spirit of the age (Zeitgeist).

1. Theories of Architecture
IVth Year,
Theory of Architecture II,
Department of Architecture,
School of Civil Engineering and Architecture,
Adama Science and Technology University,
Mr. Sumantra Misra (M.Arch) PhD Research Scholar, Asst. Professor, Department of
Architecture, School of Civil Engineering and Architeture, Adama Science and Technology
University

2.  For the past thirty five years ‘history
of architecture’ has meant history of
style, patronage and theory. We now
have a pretty fair command of these
subjects. There is a tendency now to
look more deeply into the social,
economic and industrial hinterland. –
John Summerson, The UK Construction History
Society innaugural Journal(1985)

3. Introduction
 The quest for understanding why the
architecture of any place or period
developed as it did has led to many
theories.
 These have helped historians to
understand the production and use of the
built environment and helped to define
organising principles for selecting and
differentiating between the wealth of
information.
 But they have been challenged.

4.  They can say as much about the
historian, as identifying reasons for the
emergence of particular built forms.
 The theories generally fall into four main
groups:
1. Rational, technological and constructional;
2. Material, economic and social;
3. Religious, cultural and philosophical;
4. The spirit of the age (Zeitgeist).

5. Technical and materialist
theories
 Tends to seek answers either in terms
of new technological
Or
 Constructional developments, or as
the result of applying logic to
technological or practical problems.

6.  The technical and rational explanation
of architecture was an approach
largely developed by French architects
and theorists such as Laugier*, J.-N.-
L. Durand* and Viollet-le-Duc*. Known
as rationalists they also argued that
merit in the architecture of their own
day should come from giving priority to
the logic of the essential structure or
supporting elements of a building.

7.  The second theory argues that
architecture reflects the material,
economic and social conditions of the
time. It therefore seeks to set
architecture in this context. Buildings
are related to the social and economic
system that has encouraged certain
social relationships, methods of
exchange and manufacture.

8.  These give rise to particular patterns
of patronage and consumption,
techniques of construction, building
types and planning. This focus on the
material conditions, however, denies
the role of the patron and architect
and fails to account for the diversity of
expression at any one time.

9. Religious and cultural theories
 The theory that architecture expresses
the religious, cultural and
philosophical ideas of the period
implies that if we know enough, it
should be possible to forecast what
the architecture will be.
 This implies a simple and direct
relationship between architecture and
these ideas, rather than
acknowledging that all societies and
their cultural manifestations are
complex organisms.

10.  For A. W. N. Pugin, all buildings
reflected the society in which they
were built, but the greatest influences
on the various styles of architecture
were religious ideas and ceremonies:
every ornament, every detail had a
mystical import.

11.  The pyramid and obelisk of Egyptian
Architecture, its Lotus capitals, its
gigantic sphinxes and multiplied
hieroglyphics, were not mere fanciful
Architectural combinations and
ornaments, but emblems of the
philosophy and mythology of that
nation.

12.  A devout Catholic architect and theorist,
Pugin had an idealised view of medieval
history and architecture. He argued in
True Principles of Pointed or Christian
Architecture (1841) that:
◦ Constructional truth meant that the
construction of a building was evident and
not concealed; ornament was used, but it did
not obscure the construction and it was
appropriate in form and meaning.
◦ Truth to materials meant that all materials
were chosen for their particular qualities and
not painted to look like other materials.

13. Religious and cultural theories –
Structuralism
 Structuralism is a more recent theory
that focuses on religious, cultural and
philosophical ideas and derives from
structural anthropology that Claude Lévi-
Strauss pioneered in the 1950s and
1960s.
 He was influenced by the theories of
Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss linguist,
who argued that spoken language was a
code that determines what messages
are available and that it was a self-
sufficient system with sets of rules
independent of ‘reality’.

14.  Structuralists have studied buildings
not as isolated cultural artefacts but as
part of a total system of ‘constructed’
knowledge involving the whole culture,
its myths and rituals.
 They have examined individual
cultures synchronically, or at one point
in time, as a single system of
meanings like a language.

15.  The culture was ‘read’ like a text revealing that
buildings were inextricably interwoven with the
people’s ideas, social structures and ways of life.
 This approach has been particularly effective in
studying vernacular architecture.
 Climate, ecology, available materials, technical
knowledge and the character of the local
economy provided a framework of possibilities
and constraints for what was constructed and a
way of understanding vernacular dwellings and
community buildings.
 However, it was clear that the diversity of
solutions, whether of specific layouts or forms,
indicated there was also an important social and
cultural input.

16.  The theories of structuralists have added
immeasurably to our understanding of
buildings.
 Architectural historians might also wish
to investigate the tension between the
forms as carriers of symbolic meaning
and as a product of physical and
technical constraints.
 They would also want to undertake
research into the historical sources of the
design.

17. Zeitgeist (Spirit of the age)
 This theory came from the German
philosopher Hegel and provided a
conceptual framework for
understanding the historical
development of art and architecture
for the major part of the twentieth
century.

18.  Central to the concept of the Zeitgeist
is the idea of history as a progressive
process.
 The process of history which gave rise
to each period was an evolving ‘spirit’,
which pervaded and gave unity to
every area of human endeavour –
religion, law, customs, morality,
technology, science, art and
architecture.

19.  Every historian identifies and classifies
material, and in the process common ideas
and themes become apparent.
 Those who accepted the concept of the
Zeitgeist argued that styles such as neo-
classicism in the mid-eighteenth century,
modernism in the 1920s or deconstruction
today showed themselves across the arts.
 Because these styles were evident in
architecture, painting, furniture, ceramics,
dress and literature they were manifestations
of the Zeitgeist and the similarities in the
work of architects, painters, designers and
writers were the result of living in the same
period.

20.  Another interpretation of this theory
argues that although many styles may
coexist at any one time, only one
major style truly reflects the Zeitgeist.
 The danger of this explanation is that
it encourages the search for
consistency in order to build a
coherent picture. Anything that does
not fit into this picture is ignored or
undervalued, as it does not show the
all-pervading Zeitgeist spirit.

21. Conclusion
 Today the most familiar theories and
approaches are being questioned.
 Architectural histories reflect the
impact of feminist, Marxist,
structuralist, environmental,
semiological and socio-political ideas.
 The subject is responding to the
linguistic theories of Derrida and
others, just as much as it is to the
social psychoanalysis of post-
Freudian critics.