Architectural Criticism Research Articles

Architectural and Art Criticism in Ukraine: State and Prospects

The article discusses current features of architecture and art criticism in Ukraine that occurred due to specific circumstances of the Soviet period. Leading development directions of domestic critical activity have been determined; they are aimed at overcoming consequences of destructive processes in new socio-economic conditions of the twentieth century. Special emphasis has been made on significance of architecture criticism for developing a public discourse on architecture, for embedding architecture into structures of art market

Review: John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, by Mardges Bacon, and Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Review: <i>John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York</i>, by Mardges Bacon, and <i>Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art: The Arthur Drexler Years</i>, 1951–1986, by Thomas S. Hines

Comics: An Alternative Visualization Tool for Post-Rationalist Architecture

Representational tools are never just a neutral vehicle of communication. The postwar critique of modernist architecture and the emergence of certain strands of post-rationalist architecture that prioritized the aesthetic, socio-cultural and sensorial dimensions were accompanied by attempts by architects such as Alison and Peter Smithson and Nigel Coates to come up with alternative methods of architectural visualization that would correspond to their particular interests and directions. This paper traces their developments and then proposes the medium of comics as a way to document the specificity of the socio-cultural makeup of a place and to represent architecture that focuses on human perception and sensorial experiences. The paper focuses on three properties of comics: its sequential nature through the use of panels allowing for the element of time and therefore storytelling, the portrayal of characters and the graphical techniques that strive to render non-visual experiences visually. The architectural comics presented in this paper suggest that the medium has been employed and experimented with by contemporary architects, though works of a more poetical nature are still regarded as hobbies and beyond the boundary of professional practice. While narrative elements such as paneling and characterization have been handled effectively if somewhat straightforwardly, certain distinctive graphical techniques of comics remain little explored.

Game of capitals: Production of influential online architecture

The grassroots can become an online influencer with the help of social media. Similarly, an online influencer mode is applicable in the architecture field. This study introduces the term “influential online architecture” (IOA) and aims to understand the cause and promotion of the IOA phenomenon and its impact on architecture. This research also introduces Bourdieu's four forms of capital, namely, economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capitals, as a framework to argue that IOA is promoted by capitals through visual spectacles, class divisions, national identity, and social recognition. The methodology of this research uses case studies and logical argumentation through presentation and analysis of photos, statistical data, and comments from journals, books, news, and social platforms. The current study concludes that the online influencer mode in architecture should be concerned because the overemphasis on capitals through the production of IOA may erode the design field. This research argues that a well-established architecture criticism and post-occupancy evaluation system and a rational online influencer mode would contribute to the development of the design domain.

Christopher Alexander and the Inadequacy of Genius in the Architecture of the Coming Age

There are only two ways of looking at any design problem despite all the elaborations evolved from these two paths. Either a designer directs an outcome and creates a product, or a solution is derived from a process involving the people and circumstances of the problem. The first way is object focused and is celebrated in architectural criticism and journalism. It is the way of the salvational Genius, whose personal insight pierces all preconceptions and launches into innovation. This operational model is called the architectural canon. The second way, working through a process, is how the rest of us grapple with any issue. The power of Christopher Alexander’s life is not about the distillation of a personal perspective (the profession’s stereotypical Genius model) but his vital focus is on the second way a design is created. Alexander is a polymath, open to a process using human criteria and universal opportunities that can discern and convey the way to create. His life efforts show the future of the practice of architecture in a world soon overwhelmed by technology. Alexander’s “15 Fundamental Properties of Wholeness” describes criteria in architecture—but also in the ways designs can evolve in the wholistic realities of any creation. The Building Beauty Program Alexander helped create responds to the present dysfunctional model of architectural education that often ignores these simple verities in favor of following the architectural canon. Meaning in any creation comes from connection to the world around it. A visceral, essential, human response in design is not anti-intellectual, because it can be understood and taught. No matter what its validity is today, the Genius model of advocating a design savior is being replaced by the coming explosion of technology. What remains after that explosion is all we humans, and we are all polymaths. We see, hear, think, and offer what the technology cannot. Therein lies the meaning of Christopher Alexander’s extraordinary life’s mission.

La relación entre las técnicas de representación arquitectónica y la especulación y vanguardia en el Siglo XX

&lt;p&gt;A través de un repaso histórico de la crítica y las vanguardias arquitectónicas del siglo xx, con énfasis en los métodos de representación propios de cada etapa, se aborda la trayectoria de Rem Koolhaas, uno de los arquitectos más relevantes de los últimos años. Entender el bagaje que alimenta su primera postura ante la arquitectura, expresada en su tesis &lt;em&gt;Exodus, or the voluntary prisioners of architecture, &lt;/em&gt;como una respuesta a las contradicciones de la modernidad y al fetiche posmoderno nos permite proponer una lectura para su segunda etapa ejemplificada por el proyecto de oma para cctv.&lt;/p&gt;

The Boundaries of Representation of Architecture and Art in Public Space, International Architecture Biennial

The physical environment generates myriad of values and comprises various connotations. These values and connotations, which are directly or indirectly represented by the output, generate a sampling area to understand the production and consumption forms of the physical environment, of its cultural, social and economic priorities and contextual relations. Therefore, architecture is utilized as a tool to understand the historical transformations and relations in various disciplinary fields while architectural criticism tries to understand the architectural building process and its outcome by exceeding its professional boundaries and observing the relationships between different disciplines and architectures. Literature, art, philosophy, politics are alternative means of expression, which complement architectural criticism. In this context, architectural biennials perform as periodical discussion platforms, which perform as an alternative space for the criticism and documentation of the current issues of architectural production and its most dire problems through a selection of works under a certain theme. The works exhibited at the biennial use different tools of narration in various disciplinary bases in addition to architecture itself, and therefore create an environment for generating content and values with multiple inputs for discussions as well as concepts defining the architectural outcome. In this paper, it aimed to discuss and evaluate the accumulation of works exhibited at the biennial with various contextual and conceptual arguments and interpretations, and the boundaries of functionalization of biennial exhibitions as a platform for architecture criticism.

The Open-Ended City: David Dillon on Texas Architecture ed. by Kathryn E. Holliday

Reviewed by: The Open-Ended City: David Dillon on Texas Architecture ed. by Kathryn E. Holliday Joel Barna The Open-Ended City: David Dillon on Texas Architecture. Edited by Kathryn E. Holliday. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. 448. Illustrations, notes, index.) David Dillon, with a Ph.D. in literature from Harvard, came to Dallas to teach at Southern Methodist University in 1969. In 1980, he wrote an essay for D Magazine, provocatively titled “Why is Dallas architecture so bad?” In 1981, he became the full-time architecture critic for the Dallas Morning News, a position he held until 2006. During that twenty-five-year stretch, he wrote more than one thousand articles for the newspaper, while also contributing to national and regional architecture magazines and other publications. In the mid-1990s, he moved back to Massachusetts, where he taught at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and continued his prolific writing output. He died in 2010. The quality and the volume of his writings, which have touched on and helped shape many significant changes in Dallas and the North Texas region, made Dillon respected in his field and beloved in the city that was his sometime-home. In 2011, donors came together to fund creation of the David Dillon Center for Texas Architecture in the University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Architecture, Planning, and Public Affairs. University buildings and programs are almost never named for anyone but a big donor any more. In that context, the existence of the Dillon Center is testimony to the impact of his career. The Open-Ended City was edited by Kathryn E. Holliday, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington and the founding director of the Dillon Center. In her introduction, Holliday says that she chose the sixty-odd pieces that make up the book with the goal of showing Dillon’s role as an interpreter of architecture outside the confines of the profession, and as a key figure in creating a new tradition of architectural criticism in Texas. Holliday’s argument is bolstered by an afterword, “The Tradition of Architecture Criticism in Texas,” by architectural historian Stephen Fox of Houston, who writes: “Dillon demystified architectural criticism in Dallas. He demonstrated that the goal of criticism was not stylistic commentary but a clarification of the processes through which decisions are made about how the public landscape is shaped” (406–407). Though mostly centered on contemporary projects in Dallas and Fort Worth, Dillon’s essays tackled issues that affect virtually all American cities. The early1980s was a wild time in land development in Dallas and throughout Texas. New buildings were going up fast, driven by one of the state’s periodic oil booms and, most of all, by a bubble in financing from newly deregulated banks and savings and loan institutions. Much of the building was nondescript, and as the boom continued, block after block [End Page 491] of old buildings were razed, leaving scattered new towers amidst acres of surface parking lots. Some downtown streets held no more urban vitality than freeway ramps. Throughout Texas, cities became, in Dillon’s words, the hole in the doughnut. The architectural press played a role as gatekeepers—independent assessors of taste who could translate the cloistered traditions and aesthetics of architecture for the public and also stoke the market. But over time, architectural criticism decreased until it had largely retreated to specialized academic and professional journals. However, things have changed in Texas downtowns, largely for the better. People have moved into them by the thousands; entertainment districts bring people from the suburbs to what in the 1980s had been a frightening wasteland. As the essays in The Open-Ended City show, David Dillon played an important role in making that transition happen. From the first essay to the last, he condemned simplistic “big-picture thinking” (the reason he thought Dallas architecture was so bad in 1980) and argued for design that would bring actual human connection back to city streets. Holliday writes that Dillon “maintained a persistent belief in the ability of an engaged citizenry to demand higher quality and greater accountability for urban context,” and that he championed...

Senate House, University of Lagos, Akoka, Nigeria: An Architectural Critique

This study is an architecture critique using graphics and verse to provide an understand of the architecture of the senate building of University of Lagos in order to logically create an awareness of the intensity and extent of the feelings created by building. It was designed by James Cubitt Architects and was completed in 1986. The study gives a description of the building’s concept, features and environments. An analysis of the conceptual elements was made and these elements are wall, platform, columns and facades. Also, studies of the effects of modifying elements of light, colour, temperature and ventilation, sound, texture, and time were made. The approach used to carry out the study is architectural criticism using the principles discussed in ‘Analysing Architecture’, a book by Simon Unwin. Findings from the study revealed that the architecture of Senate House was iconic and modern with attractive expressions of the African culture. This was generated in line with the design firm’s philosophy and the client’s brief. Also, the beauty of the building is enhanced by the varying heights and forms making it a likely inspiration to tertiary institutions seeking the use of timeless and impressionable architecture which would interpret intellectual desires and values of their citadels of learning.

Can The Book Still Kill The Building?

Three recent books broach architecture criticism from an historical, practical and theoretical angle. Each in their own way, they paint a complex and complete picture of the current situation with regard to this subject: The Printed and the Built traces the European adventure of the 19th century press; From Crisis to Crisis analyzes the globalized world; Critique de l’architecture : un etat des lieux contemporain proposes a novel summary in France, reinstating the historical origins of critic...

Memorial space and its mnemonic function

In this article, I argue that the meaning of memorial space can be better understood by turning our focus to the ambient characteristics of these spaces. Ambience is used here to refer to the environmental features that exist at the periphery of our attention. Here, I offer advice from ancient teachers of the art of memory that prescribes spaces with particular environmental qualities as evidence of the important role that these spaces serve in the storage and recollection of memories. Advice such as practice in solitude in dim lit spaces—or well lit, according to the teacher—highlights the importance that these ancient teachers placed on ambience for the proper storage of memories. We also know that these architectural mnemonic features were also “turned outward” to convey meaning. Instead of the traditional semiotic approach to architectural criticism that looks at commemorative symbolism, this article follows an approach that interrogates architecture’s mnemonic function. An analysis of the ambient features emphasized in Ottawa’s urban planning documents reveals that this is an important yet often overlooked aspect of urban spaces by those who study memorials. The Todd Plan, The Holt Report, and The Gréber Plan serve as a foundation for understanding the character of Ottawa’s space. Other more recent urban planning documents from the National Capital Commission are brought in to demonstrate how the role of ambience is afforded even greater prominence than it already was. Reconsidering the different types of spaces (natural and open space) and the role of sensation as uniquely ambient features of space open up new possibilities for examining the memories that these characteristics invoke in audiences. By unpacking the meaning of memorial space, through a mnemonic lens we are able to more thoughtfully engage with the reception of these spaces by visitors.

Charles Jencks: architectural historian, landscape architect, and co-founder of Maggie’s Centres

Photo credit: Maggie Cancer Care Centres Charles Jencks, landscape architect, critic, and author of 30 books on architectural history, who co-founded Maggie’s Centres to offer support to people with cancer,...

A Critique of the Architecture of Faculty of Science Complex, University of Lagos, Nigeria

Architectural criticism can be carried out using three distinct methods. These are descriptive, normative, and interpretive evaluations. Descriptive evaluation gives in-depth graphical and verbal expressions of pieces of architecture, thereby, ensuring in depth understanding of the work. The paper critiques the architecture of Faculty of Science Complex of the University of Lagos in order to provide intellectual and unbiased understanding of the design and architecture so as to make it a reference/study material which could influence future designs. It was built during the oil boom (1971-1977) by Godwin and Hopwood Architects. The complex can be classified as an international style, mostly related to modern architecture. This paper describes the building form, the building conditions, basic elements and sensory elements using the principles discussed in “Analyzing Architecture” by Simon Unwin. Findings reveal that a pleasing aesthetics of the design were achieved using the principles of orthodox modernism. However the present conditions of the building distorts the innovative facade of the building, thereby reducing the original science behind the orientation and elements of the building which were consciously applied in order to realise maximum energy savings and occupant comfort. Keywords : criticism, architecture, faculty of science, University of Lagos DOI : 10.7176/ADS/77-07 Publication date :October 31 st 2019

The Self-Organizing City and the Architecture of Metabolism: An Architectural Critique on Urban Growth and Reorganization

Over decades, cities have undergone rapid urbanization and uncontrolled urban growth. The need for future cities to operate as adaptable complex systems has generated an interest in the self-organizing resilient city. The main aim of the study is to find ways of conceptualizing self-organizing the resilient city as an emerging field of research for urban design and architectural theory. Based on these assumptions, an integrated relationship between architecture and urban design are seen as potential catalysts for absorbing the uncertainty and disturbances of urban growth and preparing the structure, function, and identity of a city as a self-organizing system that can continuously and freely adapt to changes. The paper seeks to determine the role of architecture in urban design as a main key for facilitating a self-organizing system. A systematic theoretical research method was used to describe resilience theory and self-organizing systems within an adaptive cycle and hierarchical thinking across scales. The study then sought to identify the earliest point that architectural theory conceptualized future cities from the perspective of self-organizing systems. The Metabolism movement was chosen to provide a basis for the discussion of the study. Cities as self-organizing systems need to be considered through cross-scale interactions. For a self-organizing resilient city, the inter-reliance between architecture and urban design drive the main inputs to the system.

Design Developer Competition in Stockholm

This case study examines a developer competition held in Stockholm in 2013-2014 organized by the municipal government. The objective was to develop good and affordable housing for young citizens. Fifteen design teams took part in the competition. The jury compared two different proposals in the final evaluation: one with separate rooms linked to a collective space and one that consisted of small housing units. This sorting of design proposals in two main categories had a major impact on the judging in the competition. The jury declared the solution with small housing units as the winner, which reinforced the overall category as the appropriate direction for the design solution.&#x0D; There are three typical key players in the competition: the organizer, the jury, and the design teams. The organizer was responsible for the objective and terms presented in the brief. The jury was responsible to assign a winner. Architects, builders, and developers responded to the task by organizing design-teams and producing architectural design solutions. They had to understand affordability as both cost (rent level) and architectural design (area-effective apartments).&#x0D; The competition in Stockholm was investigated in a case study. Research data was collected from archives and through questionnaires answered by jury members and design teams. Methods used for analyzing documents and design solutions were close reading and architectural criticism.&#x0D; Twenty-two architectural students studied the competition in a course. In this case study, I compare how the professional jury evaluated the proposals to jury reports from the students focusing on innovative solutions. The professional jury and the student juries used the same criteria for judging but appointed different winners. The students preferred the solution with collective living. One explanation for this difference can be found in the structure of the evaluation process.&#x0D; The results of the study can be summarized in ten conclusions that deal with sorting and ranking of design proposals, criteria for judging, marketing of the competition, uncertainty and knowledge, motives for competing, innovation, and the competition as a tool for the political ambition of the public organizers. The result produced new knowledge. There are few studies focusing on developer competition as the production of design proposals and architectural quality.

Archetypal Concept and Contemporary Architectural Criticism

Archetypal Concept and Contemporary Architectural Criticism

Animals that Live in the Mirror: On Colonial Bestiaries and Interspecies Architecture

In 1934 Berthold Lubetkin unveiled a new development designed for a peculiar client and located in a curious place. Lubetkin’s “The Penguin Pool” was the second building that he had built in as many years for the London Zoo and it was meant to house the zoo’s newest acquisition of Antarctic penguins. The Penguin Pool was well received amongst architectural critics and the popular press alike and, as a relatively small concrete oval sunk into the ground with two elevated paths extending from the walls (Fig. 1), it represented a particular modernist ideal of visuality. At the same time though, what’s good for viewing subjects may not necessarily be good for the subjects themselves. And what’s good for people may not necessarily be good for penguins. The pool, designed for the eyes of the human spectator, resulted in a lengthy and list of problems for the penguins. Even that most modernist choice of materials – the decision to form the entire living area out of concrete – proved harmful as many of the penguins developed aching joints from having to walk on the hard surface.In taking this architectural episode as one that is emblematic of the broader role of the animal in modern architecture, this article explores the curious relationship between animal, human and environment. Specifically, it argues that the construction choices of Lubetkin’s pool make visible a common theme that extends across all of modern architecture: a willful ignorance of, or a concerted effort to control, biological life. Through an analysis of three related objects: the Penguin Pool, an archive of Le Corbusier’s sketches of animals, writings about his experiences in Algeria and hybridized creatures, and the artist Dan Graham’s installations, My Two-Way Mirror Pavilions, this work draws together these attempts to control biological life with colonial discourses on the animality of the colonial subject and on Neo-Darwinist ideas of natural hierarchy. By exploring these discourses as they are related to an imagined incommensurability and stratification of species, this article highlight the discursive constructs that work against shared, communal, and engaging multi species environments. And against these discursive forces, this work closes with a rereading of both interspecies communication and evolutionary agency by pushing against arguments of interspecies incommensurability and focusing on instead on a call to reconsider the environment as a totality of shared, interspecies, experiences.

Animals that Live in the Mirror: On Colonial Bestiaries and Interspecies Architecture

In 1934 Berthold Lubetkin unveiled a new development designed for a peculiar client and located in a curious place. Lubetkin’s “The Penguin Pool” was the second building that he had built in as many years for the London Zoo and it was meant to house the zoo’s newest acquisition of Antarctic penguins. The Penguin Pool was well received amongst architectural critics and the popular press alike and, as a relatively small concrete oval sunk into the ground with two elevated paths extending from the walls (Fig. 1), it represented a particular modernist ideal of visuality. At the same time though, what’s good for viewing subjects may not necessarily be good for the subjects themselves. And what’s good for people may not necessarily be good for penguins. The pool, designed for the eyes of the human spectator, resulted in a lengthy and list of problems for the penguins. Even that most modernist choice of materials – the decision to form the entire living area out of concrete – proved harmful as many of the penguins developed aching joints from having to walk on the hard surface. In taking this architectural episode as one that is emblematic of the broader role of the animal in modern architecture, this article explores the curious relationship between animal, human and environment. Specifically, it argues that the construction choices of Lubetkin’s pool make visible a common theme that extends across all of modern architecture: a willful ignorance of, or a concerted effort to control, biological life. Through an analysis of three related objects: the Penguin Pool, an archive of Le Corbusier’s sketches of animals, writings about his experiences in Algeria and hybridized creatures, and the artist Dan Graham’s installations, My Two-Way Mirror Pavilions, this work draws together these attempts to control biological life with colonial discourses on the animality of the colonial subject and on Neo-Darwinist ideas of natural hierarchy. By exploring these discourses as they are related to an imagined incommensurability and stratification of species, this article highlight the discursive constructs that work against shared, communal, and engaging multi species environments. And against these discursive forces, this work closes with a rereading of both interspecies communication and evolutionary agency by pushing against arguments of interspecies incommensurability and focusing on instead on a call to reconsider the environment as a totality of shared, interspecies, experiences.

At hylde arkitekturen. Bygningspræmiering som kritisk praksis

Architectural critique is often considered to be in a long-term crisis. Suggested causes&#x0D; are theoretical changes to the role of the critic, as well as reviews being expelled from a&#x0D; changing media landscape. However, critique acts to separate architecture from mere&#x0D; building. The critical assessment is an instrument for qualitative valuation of the built,&#x0D; and through the critiques an architectural canon is established within architectural discourse.&#x0D; The question then is: What instruments take over this role of critique? In recent&#x0D; years, the attention towards awards within architecture has been extensive in social&#x0D; media. Public institutions and foundations institute awards to promote specific aspects of&#x0D; the built, while manufacturers and interest groups establish awards with the aim of propagating&#x0D; specific building materials or products. But what are the conditions surrounding&#x0D; these ovations and what authority should they be ascribed? This article addresses these&#x0D; questions by comparing three types of critical practice surrounding the Mærsk Tower, a&#x0D; major research and teaching facility in Copenhagen completed in 2017. The building has&#x0D; received a significant number of awards and has been the subject of traditional reviews&#x0D; and a competition process. By comparing these three types of critical practice and discussing&#x0D; them in relation to theoretical notions on the role and potential of critique, we&#x0D; point to potentials and weaknesses in the award system. We conclude that awards do possess&#x0D; critical potentials, but that the award-granting processes need development in order&#x0D; to significantly contribute to a landscape of critical discursive practices.

The Theoretical Application of the Architectural Criticism Based on Semiology—Taking the Period of “Manchukuo” Police Agency Building as an Example

On the basis of Pierce's1 symbolic triangle theory, triangle model of spatial symbol was built, and expended to architectural criticism, making the architectural form, significance and content be coordinated and coexistent. Now taking the National Police Agency buildings in the period of Puppet Manchuria State as critical target, it was researched on Architectural criticism from the perspective of semiology.