Sources of architectural form: a critical history of Western design theory

Abstract

Contents. 1. Introduction: The central problem of design theory. Theories of form. A paradox in western theories of design. The subject-object problem 2. The Ancient World: The origins of design theory and education. The Greek revolution in philosophy. Greek Art and Architecture theory. Vitruvius 3. The Middle Ages: Shift from the secular to the divine. Medieval art and architecture theory. Scholasticism. Education in the guilds and universities 4. The Renaissance: The revival of ancient concepts. Art theory in the High Renaissance. The Mannerist extremes. The new art academies. The rise of Positivist science 5. The Baroque: The Baroque dualities. Rationalism and the priority of reason. Empiricism and the priority of sense. Art and architecture theory and the academics 6. The Enlightenment: Revolutionary foundations of the modern world. Positivism and the new deterministic sciences of man.The Romantic rebellion. Neo- Classicism and the academics. Immanual Kant and the synthesis of subject and object. 7. The Nineteenth century: Philosophical relativism and artistic eclecticism Classicism and The Ecole Des Beaux-Arts. German idealism, romanticism, and the Gothic revival. Positivism and artistic determinism. The shift to abstraction in art 8. The Twentieth Century (I): The reaction to the relativism in philosophy. The opposed sources of architectural form. the opposed sources of artistic form. The Bauhaus conflation. The Modern Movement 9. Twentieth Century (II): Late Modernism. Positivism and environmental design. Structuralism. Post-modernism and Post-structuralism List of illustrations Bibliography