DESIGN THEORY-I

Lecture Slides
Chapter:2
Khwopa Engineering College
 Evolution of Architecture
• Architecture has been evolved along
with the civilization
• It is the comprehension of experiences
in terms of technology and time
• Early civilizations had developed
architecture, some of them are still
available as evidences
– Pyramids of Egypt, (CA 3000BC)
– Temples in Indian Subcontinents
(E.g. Temple of TIGAWA, India,
Gupta Period around 350 AD)
• Several architectural styles developed
>> people centered,
• Developed as fantastic, expressive,
emotional, whimsical etc.>>but never
designed for animals!!
• Concerned more with the human
safety, feelings, sentiments etc.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
• Time period which took place between 17th and 18th century
• Started in Britain and spread throughout the world
• Transition to new manufacturing processes
• Transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new
chemical manufacturing and iron production processes,
• Improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power and
development of machine tools 
• Major inventions of telephone, steam engine, motors
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
• Development of transportation systems: roads, railways and canals
• Inventions in Building materials like cast iron: an essentially brittle
material, is approximately four times as resistant to compression as stone,
wrought iron: an essentially brittle material, is approximately four times as
resistant to compression as stone, glass: manufactured in larger sizes and
volumes
• Erecting building with unrestricted height and can be built in any shape in
short period of time
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
• Glass, iron, steel, concrete – new building materials create new
possibilities replacing the old materials such as wood, stone and brick
• Mid 19th century – Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace (London) in the Great
Exhibition of 1851 – free of all traditional style
• Monumental structure – iron frame structure, wall made of sheets of
glass – contribute greatly to today's glassy high rise buildings
• Systematic reduction of architecture to its functional components
(earlier same decoration to different purpose of buildings…no difference
for different buildings)
• Louis Sullivan: “Form follows Function” – one of the guiding principle of
modern architecture in the 20th century.
Designed by: Joseph Paxton
Use of Glass
Iron
Large Span
Free of traditional Materials
Crystal Palace
 Crystal Palace
Garden
Interior
Large public space isnde the building
• Eiffel tower: wrought iron lattice tower, Gustave eiffel created the tower
• 1,063’ high (81 storey)
• Iron tower constructed as entrance for paris world’s fair
• 300 workers, one death during construction
• Tower was criticized as an eye sore
• Shape of the tower designed to withstand the force of wind
Lift change the language of structure
• Wain wright Building: first
skyscraper
• Red brick with steel frame-
Steel allowed taller building
• Designed by Louis Sullivan
• Rejected old traditional
architecture- new materials
required new design
• “Form Follow Function”-
purpose design of building
reflect its

Wainwright Building, spring 1986

 The piers read as pillars

The intricate frieze along the top of the

building along with the bull's-eye windows.
 Art Nouveau
• Art Nouveau – New Art (French)- aesthetic as quite revolutionary and
new
• International movement of art and design as a lifestyle, making art a part
of everyday life by breaking down the barriers between fine arts and
applied arts like architecture and decorative arts
• architect Antonio Gaudí - most notable contribution
• Art Nouveau was most popular in Europe, but its influence was global
• Although Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-century modernist styles, it is
considered now as an important transition between the historicism of
Neoclassicism and modernism. Furthermore, Art Nouveau monuments are
now recognized by UNESCO with their World Heritage List as significant
contributions to cultural heritage
• Outstanding examples of Art Nouveau architecture brilliantly illustrating
the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in art, thought, and
society"
What is Art Nouveau?
 Art Nouveau
• Art Nouveau philosophy favoured on applying artistic designs to everyday
objects, in order to make beautiful things available to everyone

• No separation in principle between fine art(painting and sculpture) and

applied or decorative arts (ceramics, furniture, and other practical objects)

• Reaction to world of art which was dominated by the precise geometry of

Neoclassical forms
 Art Nouveau
• No any particular style till mid 19th century – so people turned to Nature
for search of new forms
• Painters went countryside (Nature)..intense involvement with nature led
to new themes in painting to new types of representation
• Crooked lines of a tree, involuted petals of a bud – new forms of
language of Ornamentation – 2D
• These vegetal forms drawn from natural world joined with new building
materials of glass and iron to create a new formal language.
 Art Nouveau
• Germany – known as Jugendstil – floral inspiration – idealistic evocation of
renewal, awakeneing and youthful freshness – new art movement

• Different names in different places. Art Nouveau in France, Jungenstil in

Germany, Modern Style in england, Stile Liberty in Italy, Modernismo in
spain, Luxurious and playful in the work of Victor Horta in Brussels,
fantastic in Antonio Gaudi’s Barcelona, emotional in raimondo D’Aronco’s
constantinople and Turin, cubic and severe in the work of Josef Hofmann
in Vienna and Chalres Rennie Mackintosh in Galssglow

• Though it has different names, it was united because of the movement of

innovative character compared to classical ones
 Brussels and Paris
• Belgium architect Victor Horta – designed house for professor of geometry
in 1893 – born of Art Nouveau architecture
• Curving door handle, vegetal sweep of the banisters, slender iron pillars,
coiling patterns of mosaic floor.
• Maison du Peuple for the Belgium Socialist Party
• United technical innovation and
new style decoration in
exemplary form – assembly hall
roofed by a bold ironwork
construction and also was
curved
 I’Art Nouveau (Viollet-le-Duc)

• Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (27 January 1814–17

September 1879) - French architect and theorist
• Gothic Revival architect, famous for his interpretive restoration
and medieval buildings
• create a totally new system of architectural forms independent
of antiquity
• design the internal structure of the Statue of Liberty
• Viollet-le-Duc's "restorations" frequently combined historical
fact with creative modification
• Design for a concert hall,
dated 1864, expressing
Gothic principles in modern
materials; brick, stone and
cast iron.
• The fortified city of Carcassonne restored by Viollet-le-Duc
 His theory
• "what we call taste is but an involuntary process of reasoning whose steps
elude our observation". "Authority has no value if its grounds are not
explained"
• foundations of modern architecture cannot possibly be the same as those
prevalent in Greece 2000 years ago
• develop a new architecture based only on facts and reasonable
conclusions
• "A door ought to be made for the purpose of going into a building or going
out of it; the width of such door ought therefore be accommodated to the
... number of persons who have occasion to go in or out; but however
dense a crowd may be, the persons are always under seven feet in
height; ... To make a door five yards wide and ten high is therefore
absurd."
 His theory
• Considered to be first theorist of modern
architecture
• "A column is a support, not a decoration, like a
frieze or an arabesque; if then you have no
occasion for columns, I cannot understand why
you furnish your facades with them."
• "A cornice is intended to keep the water from the
face of the wall: if therefore you put a projecting
cornice in an interior, I cannot but say that it is
unmeaning.“  detail of steel constructions in
which a striking impression of
• could not create a timeless architectural style beauty has been created by the
himself, he showed others the philosophical clever design of the indispensable
foundation and method that they could use to diagonal trusses
develop even radically new form languages.
• “It is barbarous to reproduce a Greek temple in Paris or London, for a
transplanted imitation of this monument reveals an ignorance of the basic
principles governing its construction, and ignorance is barbarism.”

• “Interior decoration has lost any semblance of unity. The architect never
gives a second thought to what sort of paintings are to decorate the
rooms he has designed, the painter never takes into consideration the
architecture of the rooms where he hangs his works, the furniture-maker
completely ignores what both the painter and the architect have done,
and the man who supplies the curtains takes great pains to ensure that his
products are all that you notice in a room.”
• Outward appearance of building should reflect rational construction
• anti-revivalist (but he really botched his “restorations”!)
• main precepts influencing Art Nouveau architecture:
• spatial organization of its parts according to function rather than to rules
of symmetry and proportion
• importance of materials and their properties as generators of form; the
concept of organic form, deriving from the Romantic movement
• study of vernacular domestic architecture
 Gaudi and Modernismo in Spain
• Antoni Gaudi
• Unique in architectural history
• Based mostly in Barcelona
• Inspired from Gothic and Moorish elements as well as his own creations
• Fragments of glass and bits of pottery assembled into mosaics – animating
the façade
• Undulating benches in the Guell Park
• Major projects – Casa Batlo and Casa Mila
• Pillar like elephant’s feet, weird window opening, mask like balconies,
rounded forms in the interior, dinosaur’s spine roof
• But the beholder is still left somewhat perplexed
Casa Batlo
 Casa Batlo

• Roof is shaped like the back of a monster with large, shinny scales consists
of ceramic tiles and glazed tiles on double garrets
• On the left of the roof is limited by tower with a four arms cross
• Plastic shaped ventilation shafts and chimneys remind of the guardians of
the house
• Pillars in the form of bones are located in the window openings
Casa Mila
 Casa Mila

• One of the Gaudi’s last buildings

• On of the best known and impressive buildings in Barcelona
• Front of the house looks like massive rock, relaxed only by the wavy lines
of iron and beaten ornaments
• Large stone slabs were first mounted to façade and then processed by the
craftsmen
• House consists of natural ventilation system which makes air conditioning
un neccessary
• Concrete steel construction which requires no load bearing walls
 Limitations of Art Nouveau
• Tendencies to Rococo-like excess appeared
• Ignoring functionality – same patterns for different functions
 De Stijl (Geometry and Abstraction in
Netherlands)
• Also known as neoplasticism, Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in
Amsterdam
• chaotic in Holland - people wanted rest and harmony again.
• tried to reflect in their work what in the entire social development could not
be achieved, the ideal harmony !!
• Plain cubes, interpenetrating planes
• Piet Modrian – Dutch Painter – changed from conventional neo-
expressionist pictures to abstract and cubic structuring of forms
• Primary colors, simple geometry
• Inspires then architects Theo Van Doesburg and Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
• Schroder House, red and blue chair
• Direct influence on Bauhaus
• Influenced by F.L Wright and French Cubist
•Horzontal vs vertical
•Primary colors
•Simple façade and plans Schroder House
•No any decoration
 Schroder House
• Built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for Krs Truus Schroder-
Schrader
• Two storey house, in Utrecht
• Façade: collage of planes and line whose components are purposely
detached from and seem to glide past, one another enabling provision of
several balconies
• Rectilinear lines and planes flow from outside to inside with the same
color palette and surfaces
• Inside is no static accumulation of rooms, but a dynamic, changeable
open zone (use of sliding and revolving panels)
•Corner windows Schroder House
•Chair, table, lamps all in simple geometry Interior
Functionalism
 Functionalism
• Functionalism: a principles which advocates building design on the basis
of the purpose of the building
• Roots emebedded in Vitruvian traid : 'utilitas' (variously translated as
'commodity', 'convenience', or 'utility') stands alongside 'venustas'
(beauty) and 'firmitas' (firmness) as one of three classic goals of
architecture
• Functionalism vs. Aesthetic
• History: early 20th century, Chicago architect Louis Sullivan said “Form
Follows Function”…. a building's size, massing, spatial grammar and
other characteristics should be driven solely by the function of the
building. The implication is that if the functional aspects are satisfied,
architectural beauty would naturally and necessarily follow.
• But the Sullivan uses extensive ornament in his design which is irony in
itself since a common belief among functionalist architects is that
ornament serves no function
 Functionalism
• whose function??....e.g. apartment building.tenant’s function??
• In the mid-1930s, functionalism began to be discussed as an aesthetic
approach rather than a matter of design integrity.
• American architect Philip Johnson held that the profession has no
functional responsibility... "Where form comes from I don’t know, but it
has nothing at all to do with the functional or sociological aspects of our
architecture".
• The roots of modern architecture lie in the work of the Franco-Swiss
architect Le Corbusier and the German architect Mies van der Rohe. Both
were functionalists at least to the extent that their buildings were radical
simplifications of previous styles.
• Le Corbusier famously said "a house is a machine for living in“
• Bahaus is the one who gave the concept of Functionalism
Bahuaus
 The Bauhaus
• Bauhaus - "house of construction" / "School of Building"
• Bauhaus, was a school in Germany where taught crafts and the fine arts in
combination.
• Simplicity +Functionalisn= Bauhaus
• The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in
Modernist architecture and modern design.
• “Specialists are people who always repeat the same mistakes”
• Opportunities to work with various materials: wood, metal, textiles, glass,
coloring materials, clay, stone.
• founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar…operated from 1919 to 1933
• Although the Bauhaus itself had a very short….One of the biggest ideas to
come out of the Bauhaus was 'functionalism'.
 The Bauhaus
• Core objective was a radical concept: to re imagine the material world to
reflect the unity of all arts
• Reform in every part of life – fine art, architecture, dance, theatre,
photography, design, toy
• "we want an architecture adapted to our world of machines, radios and
fast cars.“
• new period of history had begun with the end of the war
• new architectural style to reflect this new era.
• Unity of all : painter, craftsmen, architect, artist, sculptor etc
• Link all the creative forces into a unified “house of building” – aimed to
use art to build a new mankind
• functional, cheap and consistent with mass production
• Theo Van Doesberg (De Stijl) came to Wiemer – radical change to a
technical, constructionist concept of art (2nd stage of development)
• Bauhaus – becoming leading cultural force in Germany – but coming
under increasing political pressure
• Had to close in Weimer and opened in Dessau
 Charateristics of Bauhaus
• Bahaus Building – clearly expressed the various functions of individual
parts of the building
• Workshop area dominated by uninterrupted wall of glass, providing
optimum amount of light
• Façade of the students’ living quarters – individual balcony for each room
• So design each differently…so assymetrical composition came into play
• To understand the building, one has move around the whole building…
there is no central view point
• Flat roof, allowed the glass surface to overlap the edges, thereby creating
the impression of lightness.
• Walter Gropius resigned and Mies Van Der Rohe came
• Tel Aviv, in fact, in 2004 was named to the list of world heritage sites by
the UN due to its abundance of Bauhaus architecture
• Marcer Breuer’s tubular steel chair
 Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
• AN ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER
• BORN IN AACHEN, GERMANY
• MARCH 27, 1886 – AUGUST 17 1969
• Inspired from fine sense of proportions,
clear forms, and close relationship with
the surrounding countryside
 Modernism and Mies

• "traditional" forms of art, architecture, literature, religious faith, social

organization and daily life were becoming outdated in the new economic,
social, and political conditions of an emerging fully industrialized world
• a new architectural style that best represented modern times
• an influential 20th century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity
and simplicity
• "less is more" "God is in the details".
• Based theories and principles on his own personal re-combination of ideas
developed by many other thinkers and designers who had pondered the
flaws of the traditional design styles.
 In his own words
• “The demand of our time for realism and functionalism must be met. 
Only then will our buildings express the potential greatness of our time;
and only a fool can say that it has no greatness.”
• “Greek temples, Roman basilicas and medieval cathedrals are impersonal
by their very nature.  They are pure expressions of their time.” 
• “It is hopeless to try to use the forms of the past in our architecture.  Even
the strongest artistic talent must fail in this attempt.”
• “We must be as familiar with the functions of our building as with our
materials. We must learn what a building can be, what it should be, and
also what it must not be...”
 The Barcelona Pavilion
(1928-1929, demolished 1930)

 Designed as the German national

pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona
international exhibition.
 Open plan with its unexpected
encounters (sculpture, pool)
 Unique sense of place for visitors
 The ceremonial hall had a flat roof on
chrome columns.
 Rectangular planes of marble, glass,
onyx placed vertically or horizontally,
were freely positioned that made space
to flow through them.
Tugendhat House

 Located in Brno, Czech Republic between 1928-

1930 for Fritz Tugendhat
 Designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO
 Exquisite materials and modern technologies
used in construction
 The idea of a visual connection between the
interior and exterior
 3 floors, each with a unique distribution and
façade
 Controversies whether the open plan house is
suitable for living
 The Seagram Building

• Pinnacle of modernist high – rise

architecture, in New York city
• Acclaimed use of urban design features
• Use of a bronze curtain wall with mullions –
criticised
• Bold move of setting the tower back from
the property line – forecourt plaza and
fountain - enhance the presence and
prestige of the building
• Prototype for later alike high – rise
architecture
• New language for skyscrapers
• Glass curtain wall as transparency,
practicality, lightness, elegance
 Lake Shore Drive Apartments

 Located at Chicago, Illinois(1948-1951)

 Skyscraper apartment towers
 Facades of steel and glass, radical
departure from the typical residential
brick apartment buildings of the time
 Twin apartment towers with simple
exterior
 feeling of light, openness, and freedom
of movement at the ground level -
sophisticated urban space at ground
level
 included nature by leaving openings in
the pavement
 Farnsworth House
• Concieved in 1945 as a country retreat for client

• Pivtoal moment of Rohe’s Career

• Dominance of a single, geometric form

• Glass wall redefines character of boundary

between in and out

• explored the relationship between people,

shelter, and nature

• glass pavilion is raised six feet above a

floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by
forest and rural prairies
 Farnsworth House
• simple rectilinear interior space, allowing nature and light to envelop
the interior space
• No partitions
• minimal "skin and bones" framework
• clarity and simplicity, using materials that are configured to express
their own individual character.
• Mrs. Farnsworth stay no more than a week
Reflecting the different season of Nature
 MIES AND FURNITURE DESIGN

• Mies designed modern furniture pieces using

new industrial technologies
• They have become popular classics, such as
- The Barcelona chair and table
- the Brno chair and the
- Tugendhat chair.
• His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship,
a mix of traditional Luxurious fabrics 

• During this period, he collaborated closely

with interior designer 
• Master architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe believed that a new idea and
vision was forthcoming in architecture, one that would erase the
shortcomings of its predecessors and would reflect the modern age of
man.
• He did not necessarily condescend on what was but rather studied it and
took what could be taken and with it created today what we call Modern
Architecture.
• His works still echo through the epochs of time and still act as concrete
protoypes for buildings of today.
 Le Corbusier
• Architect, Designer, Urbanist, Writer and Painter
• Real name- Charles Edouard Jeanneret
• Born- october 6, 1887 (1887-10-06)
• La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
• Died-August 27,1965(1965-08-27)
• Nationality- Swiss/French
• Buildings-
 Notre Dame du Haut,
 Villa Savoye,France,
 Buildings in Chandigarh, India
 Le Corbusier
• “Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms
assembled in the light.” -Le Corbusier

• "Architecture is a brilliant, orthodox and original jigsaw puzzle of masses

combined in light. Our eyes were created to see the forms in light; light
and shadow reveal the forms. Cubes, cones, balls, cylinders and pyramids
are primary shapes that light so excellently reveals; the picture they give
to us is clear and perspicuous without indecision. That is why they are
beautiful forms."
 Towards a New Architecture
• collection of seven essays written by Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard
Jeanneret), advocating for and exploring the concept of modern
architecture.
• targeted for architects and professors
• rebirth of architecture based on function and a new aesthetic based on
pure form
• “..architecture is disconnected and lost in the past….engineers have begun
to embrace new technologies and build simple, effective structures that
serve their purpose and are honest in construction. In order for architects
to regain relevance, they must embrace the new artistic ideal.”
Le Modular

• Anthropometric scale of proportions

• based on human measurements, the double unit, the Fibonacci numbers,
and the golden ratio
• developed the Modular in the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da
Vinci's Vitruvian Man, the work of Leone Battista Alberti

Fibonacci Numbers
 Le Modular
• based the system on human
measurements; based on the height of
an English man with his arm raised
(height = 1.83 m)
• attempts to discover mathematical
proportions in the human body and
then to use that knowledge to
improve both the appearance and
function of architecture
• "range of harmonious measurements
to suit the human scale, universally
applicable to architecture and to
mechanical things."
Use of Golden Ratio
 Use of Golden Ratio

the modular governs: the plan, section and elevations; the brise-soleil; the roof; the supporting columns and
the plan and section of the apartments.
 Five point of architecture
Formulated by Le Corbusier 1927 as the fundamental principles of the
Modern movement
• Freestanding support pillars
• Open floor plan independent from the supports
• Vertical facade that is free from the supports
• Long horizontal sliding windows
• Roof gardens
 Villa Sovoye
• Situated at Poissy, outside of Paris
•  pilotis elevate building from the
damp earth allowing the garden to
flow beneath.
• flat roof terrace reclaims the area of
the building site for domestic
purposes
• free plan, made possible by the
elimination of load-bearing walls,
consists of partitions placed where
they are needed
• Horizontal windows provide
illumination and ventilation
• The freely-designed facade, consists
of a thin skin of wall and windows.
 Ronchamp Chapel
• Located in Ronchamp, France
• frame of steel structure and metal mesh, over which concrete was sprayed
• Architecture as sculpture, play of concrete
• The walls curve, the roof curves, and even the floor curves
Ronchamp Interiors
 Furniture design by Le Corbusier
• "Chairs are architecture, sofas are bourgeois.“
• Collaborate with Pierre Jeanneret to design furnitures
• Published the book “L'ArtDécoratifd'aujourd'hui”
 "Contemporary City" for three million
inhabitants
• believed that modern
architectural forms would
provide a new organizational
solution that would raise the
quality of life for inhabitants
• Scheme for Paris (not built)
• group of sixty-story, cruciform
skyscrapers; steel-framed
office buildings encased in
huge curtain walls of glass.
 Le Corbusier in India
• Le Corbusier was commissioned to design a city of Chandigarh by Jawahar
Lal Nehru
• Regular gridiron pattern for fast track road
• Head – Capitol Complex
• Heart – City Centre
• Lungs – the leisure valley, innumerable open space and greeneries
• Blood Vessels - Road Networks
• Limbs –Institutions and Industries
 Chandigarh City
• Four basic functions of a city : Living, Working, Circulations and care of the
body and spirit
• Circulations is of great importance to determine other three basic
functions
• Sought to make every place in the city swiflty and easily accessible at the
same time ensure tranquility and safety of living spaces
 Open Hand
• sign for him of "peace and
reconciliation
• open to give and open to receive
• Depicting free bird and an open
hand
• Frank L. Wright – Sits on ground
• Le Corbusier – stands on ground