reklam

Ozkan went on to explain that the 17th century witnessed an increase in abstraction in the representation of theoretical material. With the maturity of the Renaissance, works of architecture represented high levels of accomplishment. In the Islamic world, this is around the same time at which the Taj Mahal, Suleymaniye, and Selimiye were built, and which expressed equal levels of architectural accomplishment. 

However, we lack significant written information on these great monuments. Ozkan mentions that a number of Turkish treatises on architecture do exist, but they primarily tackled the physicality of a building for "accounting" purposes (i.e. to calculate costs of materials and labor), but did not approach the theoretical aspects of it. Consequently, Islamic resources are very much lacking when it comes to architecture. (5)

As a representative of the 17th century, Ozkan gave an example of the French Claude Perrault (1613 - 88). Perrault associated entablatures and profiles of buildings with human beings, again giving them an aesthetic quality or elegance, as he sees it (fig. 6). In this way, an entablature or frieze carried out in a certain profile would have direct perceptual associations with the human figure as profile.

Ozkan moved on to the 18th century, the age of enlightenment. It was a time when most of the ideas that inform today's architectural theory, such as the Functionalism of Carlo Lodoli (1690 - 1761), were first pronounced. His statement that things should perform a function that is more than just utility is a basic tenet of the modern movement, which finds its roots in this period. According to Ozkan, the sketches of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 - 78) redefined existing perceptions along a utopic line (fig. 7). 

Many canons and abstraction were produced, especially in the Italian intellectual discourse on architecture, and writings coming out of Italy and England informed the descriptive nature of it. It was a period characterized by inquisitiveness, and by investigating the whys and wherefores behind processes. Also, for the first time, there was an attempt at bridging architecture, via aesthetics, with the other fields of philosophy. Ozkan noted that before that the isomorphic aspect of architecture was almost completely absent, and no attempt had been made to define it as part of architectural theory.

A most important contribution to architecture thinking was made by Marc Antoine Laugier (1719 - 69) through his writings that included Essai sur l'Architecture (Essays on Architecture). Laugier was a priest who also was highly interested in architecture. Ozkan feels that Laugier must have been an architect in some form since he is so well informed about building and construction techniques. Laugier detested the opulence of architectural decoration and rejected all that does not belong to architecture itself. Instead he called for a return to what he referred to as "the primitive hut" (fig. 8). 

Ozkan pointed out that when referring to Filarete earlier in the presentation, he noted that Filarete also viewed the basis of architecture as four columns and a pitched roof on top of it, which to him exemplified beauty in its essence. Ozkan explained that Laugier started from this point, but his goal was to particularly attack existing architectural conceptions, which were bourgeois, opulent, and unnecessarily decorative in nature. Laugier's work was widely read and was translated into a number of languages.

Ozkan explained that the 19th century expresses the advent of the architectural thinking that is with us today. He gave as examples the descriptive works of John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770 - 1831), and Gottfried Semper (1803 - 79), all of which tackle the different aspects of aesthetics. Also important in this regard is the work of Emmanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), who discussed the notions of 'wild beauty' and developed a theory of beauty and its perception, and raised the question of whether beauty is in the essence of the object or in the object itself. Ozkan explained that it is through these thinkers that the theory of aesthetics informed architecture, directly and indirectly. In this context Ozkan pointed out that in the writings of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814 - 79) and Theodor Lipps (1851 - 1914), the interest was directly in architecture, while others were more interested in exploring the realm of aesthetics in architecture.

According to Ozkan, numerous abstractions were made to define issues on the same terms as the Renaissance, and considerable efforts were made to refer to the essence of beauty and how to define, decipher, and present it. For example, drawings and analyses of proportion were carried out to inform architects, explain the past, and also build for the future with an underlying abstract notion. This approach carried special importance in Soviet Russia, where most of the academic work carried out was of this nature. 

It was called "scientific" because measurements and proportions were taken and then explained. However, Ozkan points out that nobody really can very well explain why a certain line was chosen over another, but theorists nonetheless were more interested in explaining what is harmonious and beautiful. Saint Peter's Cathedral, the Suleymaniye, and other monuments all were deciphered and researched in the nineteenth century in the hope of explaining or formulating geometric relationships of the hidden reality of aesthetic truth. This approach came to govern architectural theory in the 19th century.

Ozkan then touched upon the issues of catalog design and computer-aided design. He gave as an example the Neo-classical catalogs of Jean Nicolas Louis Durand (1760 - 1834), which took the form of plans, elevations, and roof forms (fig. 9). Durand's approach represented a main school of thought in France during the nineteenth century, and the idea was directly imported into the United States of America. For years in the United States, and until the advent of the Modern movement, every school had to have a Beaux-Arts teacher who would teach Durand's catalog of forms. The idea was to enable architects to derive their designs and carry them out in Neo-classical forms.

Ozkan stated that the 20th century was an era during which enormous impetus on architectural thinking had evolved. Mies van der Rohe (1886 - 1969) and Walter Gropius (1883 - 69) presented iconic images. Mies did not do much writing, but Gropius, on the other hand, explained his own model set of values composed of dos and don'ts. Le Corbusier essentially presented his ideas in the same manner as Gropius: the roof should be a terrace, the building should be elevated from the ground, … etc. 

Ozkan went on to add that early in the century, contributions were made in almost every aspect of architecture, whether on the iconic or pragmatic levels. Consequently, canons and building techniques were put forward. One example is found in the writings of Julien Guadet (1834 - 1908), who was a professor at the French Academy of the Beaux-Arts. Guadet put down a set of design rules that relied on beaux-arts principles such as symmetry and axiality. Also, Ezra Ehrenkrantz developed in the 1960s modular building systems that addressed certain servicing elements of the building, but left its appearance to be determined by the architect. In addition, Le Corbusier made analogies with other areas of technology and produced his own utopia for new urban life.

On the other hand, authors such as Nikolaus Pevsner (1902 - 83), Sigfried Giedion (1888 - 1968), and Bruno Zevi (1918 - 2000) developed a more descriptive handling of architecture. This also is a time when analogies with music arose again under what was called the "theosophy of architecture." Some theories, he explained, aimed at showing how musical scores correspond to buildings, and thus turning them into melodies. For example, in his proportioning of facades and plans architect Claude Bragdon (1866 - 1946) employed ratios expressive of musical intervals (fig. 10).

Ozkan explained that a substantial re-formulation came from Giedion who for the first time took and abstract concept "space" as an entity to explain the works of architecture. In a related manner, Zevi analyzed various aspects of a building such as Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rome. He examined its structure, circulation, building mass, and levels, and accordingly made exhaustive diagrams of the cathedral (fig. 11). This served to draw the space, redefine it in plan form, and use it as an abstract entity to define architecture itself. This approach to architectural theory was very much favored by members of Ozkan's generation. 

According to this approach, people started thinking of space apart from many other things, and space almost became a faith in conceptualization of architecture. Any exercise from any level could be abstracted and brought to the level of space. Ozkan noted that this would have been the source of an axiomatic theory of architecture, if it were to be known from its beginning as a concept. Ozkan said that architecture, like physics, chemistry, or mathematics, probably would have evolved around the concept of space if it could have been defined with certain explicable forms that would allow us to make some associations, abstractions, and constructions.

Increasingly, during the last three to four decades abstract entities were brought into the realm of architecture in order to explain the internal relationships of design complexities. This is expressed in the work of the architect - mathematician Christopher Alexander (b. 1936, see below), the systems scientist M. Asimow, Thomas Markus, and Lionel March. For example, Lionel March, in his The Architecture of Form, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) defined architectural relationships in binary diagrams forms (fig. 12) in order to process them in newly emerging computer techniques. Ozkan noted that most of those responsible for such interpretations were of the generation that studied the Fortran computer programming language, and therefore knew computers when they were at the primitive level, and were defining buildings in abstract language. Ozkan noted that substantial research was conducted in this line in University of Cambridge.

Ozkan also showed structural relationship diagrams representing different plans reducing them into abstract mathematical matrix formulae in order to manipulate them, as developed by Philip Steadman and Lionel March in their Geometry of Environment: An Introduction to Spatial Organization in Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974) (fig. 13). He noted that when an architectural complexity is reduced to this level of abstraction, the meaning was inevitably lost and therefore these theoretical approaches remained under the privileged realm of "Design Research" and did not have much impact on the mainstream of the theory.

Ozkan went on to explain that during the period following the 1970s, interest arose in the participation of people in the process of architectural creation and the democratization of the environment. Canons and abstract geometric patterns always were thought of as providing guidance, and as analogies with nature. Also, utopias were used to project into the future and produce freer environments. Certain utopic descriptions and descriptive utopias went hand in hand. 

There were those who explained what happened to architecture post-facto, and attempted to define what architecture is, and how it is. With Christopher Alexander's Notes on the Synthesis of Form, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), which aimed at understanding the design process and how design problems are solved, new approaches arose. However, Ozkan added that Alexander himself later on, in anger, declared that he did not want to be associated with what was called then "Design Methods" and that was partly initiated by his own books. Ozkan believes that Alexander made a substantial contribution to the analyses of architectural form due to his background as a mathematician. He was successful in defining architectural and urban entities in a very eloquent, non-simplistic, and sophisticated manner.

Ozkan moved on to mentioning that he had attempted to organize architectural developments from the beginning of the century to recent years in the form of movements, and to illustrate how these movements started and evolved.

In the iconic scale, Reductionism took shape in the designs of Mies van der Rohe, which then became Regionalism informing itself from local tradition and environment. In the 1950s, Bureaucratic and High-Tech building traditions arose. Expressionism started before World War II, while Mannerism and Postmodernism came after it. Postmodernism informed itself from more sublime and sophisticated forms, and became Classicism. Deconstruction was preceded by a short period of Fascist architecture that overpowered the Modern movement in the earlier decades of the 20th century. Vernacularism made an entry as a savior of the environment. (6)

On the pragmatic level, Alternative Technology movements arose, developing structures that could be easily constructed. This was followed by the Developmental approach, and then Democratization, which gave people the right to build their own environment as they would form it. Ad hoc-ism then came into being, which solves problems with the means and ways that are readily available to owners, users, and designers of buildings. Other approaches include Eclecticism and Do-it-yourself approaches, the latter of which turned into Self-help, and in more sophisticated forms became Participationism.

The canonic form had a flow of Neo-Classicism, which was very pragmatic, and therefore also can be located at the upper end of the canonic level. It basically tells one "how it should be done." Geometric minimalism also took shape, followed by Neo-Vernacularism, which again informs itself from existing traditions, and also can be considered a pragmatic movement. Modularism finds itself on the abstract side of canonic thinking, with order and typology being the main discourse in the 1970s and 1980s, when building typologies were compared and used to generate new forms.

At the analogic level, Theosophy, explained earlier with musical scores, is followed by the Organic movement of Frank Lloyd Wright. Symbolism makes use of symbolic analogies, while Abstract Regionalism looked back to old repetitive forms, but with an abstraction of ideas. And those were followed by Metabolic and Biomorphic traditions.

Utopic form manifested itself earlier this century in Futurism. The proponents of this movement, which became quite popular in the 1960s, are still alive but have since stopped building the mega-structures of that day. Consequently, its proponents, such as Fumihiko Maki (b. 1928), brought a new direction to their work. Technophilia was generated by Norman Foster (b. 1935) and others who had a very high regard for technology.

In descriptive terms, Aestheticism was the academic interpretation of the beauty of the building. While Functionalism was more of an ideological stand: form follows function. Vernacular Research was important in circumventing the mistakes of the past. Relativism provided the comparative basis for that research. Semiotics, as developed by Charles Jencks and others, saw meanings become forms of architecture. Then Critical Regionalism made its appearance through Kenneth Frampton (b. 1930) to add a critical element to the repetition of the regional, elevating the level of thinking to a higher level, with a tremendous effect. Architectural Psychology, or the Psycho-Environmental aspects of architecture, also arose with many schools of architecture specializing in this field. 

Psychology and architecture became closely associated with each other since many people thought that satisfaction and perception are based on psychological input. Ozkan noted that much meaningless research was carried out on such issues. A caricature of such research would be to put one chair in a room and find it spacious. Two chairs would be fine. Twenty chairs would make the room crowded, and fifty chairs would make it unbearable. The movement basically went to the level of experimental psychology, putting statistics together, and asking people about their likes and dislikes. It was basically a perception of ideas.

In the isomorphic stage Design Methods, Geometry, and Computer-Aided Design movements came into being, making this stage the most sophisticated aspect of architectural discourse.

Ozkan ended by noting that quite a few valuable books have emerged about the subject of architectural theory. One of them is a compendium of writings by Hanno-Walter Kruft entitled History of Architectural Theory: From Vitruvius to the Present (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), which was published after Kruft's death. It basically is a history of architectural thinking, not theory of architecture, which is a distinction that Ozkan finds imperative. Ozkan added that he has become very cautious in his use of the words 'theory' and 'architecture', which nonetheless are used together in a very casual manner, thus referring to any writing about architecture theoretical, and any speculation about it a theory. It seems that everyone has a theory of their own, a matter which in Ozkan's opinion is the problem with architectural teaching and research today.

Questions and answers
Ozkan was asked concerning the category in which he would place his presentation. He answered that it would be descriptive. He then was asked why he did not develop the presentation beyond the descriptive category. Ozkan noted that the work he has presented has not been published, and he still is involved in a process of exploration. He added that this presentation is based on a manuscript he prepared in 1990, and that he has not been able to update it since then because of his other work commitments. 

He also mentioned that he had developed the categories from examining the literature on operations research, which looks at an organization's operations and uses analytical approaches, including mathematical or computer models, to identify better ways of carrying out those operations. Ozkan specifically examined the work of Russell Ackoff and Ludwig von Bertalanffy. He used their writings as a basis for model making, and explained that a model is built to explain an entity. It would necessarily emphasize certain things, and ignore others, which would be the fault of the researcher. But if the emphasis were placed on the relevant issues, then one would be, more or less, communicating correctly.

Ozkan added that before he decides whether to incorporate a certain reading in his writing, he asks whether the reading informs architectural theory or not. For instance, when he reads Peter Eisenman's (b. 1932) work, he does not know where to place it, as it is very speculative. He sees it as being very interesting and informative, but it is not clear as to what it achieves, and that is why he decided to place it in the iconic category as part of the Deconstruction movement, which also includes the work of Zaha Hadid (b. 1950) and Frank Gehry (b. 1929). However, he added that he could not keep on doing this, as he would then be talking about buildings, not expressions regarding them.

Ozkan admitted that his heart always has been in academia, and if he goes back to teaching, he would like this work to be the basis of a textbook. He would then start from the beginning, and arrange and rearrange the categories with his students in the manner of a jigsaw puzzle, placing books, articles, and ideas within it, and even adding more categories.

Ozkan was asked how he would answer students who often inquire why they should care at all about architectural theory. Here, Ozkan mentioned that this is a very valid question. As a teacher, one equips one's students to perform and function in society. That performance is defined to a great extent by building rules and codes, in addition to a certain expertise in problem solving. However, if the students were to bring depth to such skills, and wanted to go beyond them, they would need to be taught architectural theory. 

Otherwise, they would be "doing their own thing." He admitted that "everyone has a right to commit his own [architectural] crime," but there are many mistakes that can be avoided if students are exposed to the whole spectrum of architectural thinking, and if they are made aware of what, how, and when a given architectural development took place.