Concept

Architectural theory

Overview

Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, and writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in all architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are the lecture or dialogue, the treatise or book, and the paper project or competition entry. Architectural theory is often didactic, and theorists tend to stay close to or work from within schools. It has existed in some form since antiquity, and as publishing became more common, architectural theory gained an increased richness. Books, magazines, and journals published an unprecedented number of works by architects and critics in the 20th century. As a result, styles and movements formed and dissolved much more quickly than the relatively enduring modes in earlier history. It is to be expected that the use of the internet will further the discourse on architecture in the 21st century.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

The most universal of the forms in which this difference of method is accustomed to present itself, is the ancient feud between what is called theory, and what is called practice or experience. There are, on social and political questions, two kinds of reasoners: there is one portion who term themselves practical men, and call the others theorists; a title which the latter do not reject, though they by no…
John Stuart Mill, Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy
States what Architectural theory is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
The mind is simply endowed with the power of producing various qualities in reaction to the various realities which act upon it. These qualitatively different reactions are called presentations (Vorstellungen). Every presentation once called into being persists; it may be driven below the "threshold" of consciousness by new and stronger presentations, produced by the reaction of the soul to new material, but its…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
States what Architectural theory is.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
If now we consider _architecture_ simply as a fine art and apart from its application to useful ends, in which it serves the will and not pure knowledge, and therefore ceases to be art in our sense; we can assign to it no other aim than that of bringing to greater distinctness some of those ideas, which are the lowest grades of the objectivity of will; such as gravity, cohesion, rigidity, hardness, those universal…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea
Close in meaning to Architectural theory; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Architectural theory

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Robert Venturi

Place in the tradition

Part of Contemporary Islamic philosophy.

Explore Architectural theory in the interactive graph →