What is it
Architecture (from the Latin architectūra, architectūrae, in turn from the ancient Greek ἀρχιτέκτων, architéctōn, ‘architect’ or ‘chief builder’, composed of ἀρχός, archós ‘chief’, ‘guide’ and τέκτων, téctōn, ‘builder’) is the art and technique of projecting, designing and building, 1 modifying the human habitat, studying the aesthetics, proper use and function of spaces, whether architectural or urban.2
Architecture was born with man in prehistory, during the Neolithic Age, when various human groups developed a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture. This new way of life led to the development of stable houses and ceremonial enclosures, 2 which were aesthetically evolving from symbolic elements present in the sociocultural context where they were developed. Thus arose, for example, the dolmens and chromlechs in Europe, built with huge blocks of stone. As societies became more complex and extensive, the first closed urban centers emerged, with dwellings clustered around sacred places. In this way the high cultures of the Middle East were born: Mesopotamia and Egypt, which bequeathed numerous architectural works, of which, for example, irrigation systems, ziggurats, temples and pyramids stand out.3
It was the ancient Greeks and Romans who perfected the architecture, laying the foundations for classical architecture and making it a point of reference for centuries to come. During this stage, stylized arches and columns were developed, limestone and marble were worked, irrigation systems and aqueducts, sanitized cities and concrete was created. Examples of the high degree of architectural development during that time include the Parthenon in Athens and the Roman Colosseum.
History
The history of architecture is the branch of art history that studies the historical evolution of architecture, its principles, ideas and achievements. This discipline, as well as any other form of historical knowledge, is subject to the limitations and strengths of history as a science: there are diverse perspectives in relation to its study, most of which are Western. In most cases — although not always — the periods studied run parallel to those of art history and there are moments when aesthetic ideas overlap or become confused.
In ancient times, the first shelters used by humans (Homo erectus) used to be temporary and mobile due to the nomadic lifestyle of that time. The camps were built with lightweight and easily transportable materials: bones, leather, wood, etc. In Chichibu, Japan, pole holes were discovered in a layer of volcanic ash dating back 500,000 years. While in France stone lines were found that served as the basis for stick structures dating back 400,000 years.5 The shelter, as the predominant construction in primitive societies, will be the main element of their spatial organization, several theorists of the Architecture at various times in history (Vitruvian in ancient times, Leon Battista Alberti in the Renaissance, and Joseph Rykwert more recently) evoked the myth of the primitive hut. This myth, with variations depending on the source, postulates that the human being received wisdom from the gods for the construction of his shelter, configured as a wooden construction composed of four walls and a gabled roof.6
Definitions
According to the popular topic, in the oldest surviving treatise on the matter, De Architectura, by Vitruvio, in the 1st century BC. C., it is said that architecture rests on three principles: Beauty (Venustas), Firmness (Firmitas) and Utility (Utilitas). Architecture can be defined, then, as a balance between these three elements, without surpassing any of the others. It would not make sense to try to understand a work of architecture without accepting these three aspects.
However, it is enough to read the treatise to realize that Vitruvius required these characteristics for some very particular public buildings. In fact, when Vitruvius dares to attempt an analysis of the art about which he writes, he proposes to understand architecture as composed of four elements: architectural order (relation of each part to its use), arrangement («the species of arrangement […] are the layout in plan, elevation and perspective “), proportion (“ uniform concordance between the entire work and its members “) and distribution (in Greek οἰκονομία, oikonomia, consists of” the proper and best possible use of materials and of the land, and to ensure the lowest cost of the work achieved in a rational and weighted way »). His doubts in this regard are quite intense, as four pages later he divides architecture into three parts: construction, gnomic and mechanical. As interesting and suggestive as it may be, it should not be forgotten that this treatise is the only classical treatise that has come down to us, and the probability that it is the best of its time is small.
The history of the various versions of the Vitruvian treatise well sums up the conflict when defining architecture. In 1674 Claude Perrault, a physiologist specializing in corpse dissection and a good draftsman, published his abridged translation of the Vitruvian treatise, which was completely reorganized. Perrault’s summary is the means by which Vitruvius became known and which has since influenced the treatises and theories of the following centuries. In this summary in which the Vitruvian triad is going to see the light.
In general, the most renowned architects of the 20th century, among which we can mention Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, Alvar Aalto, Luis Barragán, Tadao Ando, Richard Meier, César Pelli or Pedro Ramírez Vázquez have given their trade a different definition, focusing its purpose in a different way. William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts, gave the following definition:
The substantial difference between Perrault’s version and the previous ones lies, according to José Luis González Moreno-Navarro, in the fact that Perrault misrepresents “the synthetic character of architecture in a strictly analytical and fragmented view into three autonomous branches [which] is a consequence of his mental structure […] formed throughout a life dedicated to the analysis of living organisms, which evidently never recomposed and gave life again ”. On the contrary, according to Vitruvius:
Skyscrapers in Yokohama, Japan.
Architecture is a science that arises from many other sciences, and adorned with very varied learning; for the help that a judgment is formed from those works that are the result of other arts. Practice and theory are its parents. The practice is the frequent and continuous contemplation of the way of executing some given work, or of the mere operation of the hands, for the conversion of the matter in the best way and in the most finished way. The theory is the result of reasoning that demonstrates and explains that the wrought material has been converted to perform as the intended purpose. Because the merely practical architect is not capable of assigning sufficient reasons for the forms that he adopts; and the architect of theory fails too, grasping the shadow instead of the substance. He who is theoretical as well as practical, therefore built doubly; capable not only of testing the convenience of its design, but also of carrying it out.
Beijing National Stadium “Bird’s Nest”. China, 2008. Work of the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
In the academic field, the architectural production process, or project, involves sensitivity as a means of clipping the different associated disciplines, and even when in past times extensive treatises were written, nowadays the legal and the technical dictate the norms, but not the modes. Architecture is then — from the contemporary and supported by new technological resources — an exercise in which order, synthesis, semiology, matter are effectively involved, but even more important than that, it is a creative, innovative, unpublished work, provided that architecture produced from the real estate industry is excluded.
In the academic field, the architectural production process, or project, involves sensitivity as a means of clipping the different associated disciplines, and even when in past times extensive treatises were written, nowadays the legal and the technical dictate the norms, but not the modes. Architecture is then — from the contemporary and supported by new technological resources — an exercise in which order, synthesis, semiology, matter are effectively involved, but even more important than that, it is a creative, innovative, unpublished work, provided that architecture produced from the real estate industry is excluded.
Angkor, Cambodia.
The importance of architecture in the 20th century has been enormous, since its exercise was responsible for no less than a third of the materials carried by humanity in that period.7
During this period, there has not only been a large population increase, with its corresponding building needs (especially housing), but also significant population movements, from rural to urban areas and, after the Cold War, from the countries poor to rich countries. Migratory movements have meant, not only an increase in the demand for new buildings in urban areas, but also the abandonment of the built heritage that, in many cases, has been permanently lost.
This constant change in the needs and uses associated with the building allows to explain another of the characteristics of modern architecture. This constant rethinking of concepts, which goes back to the Enlightenment, has developed different and numerous architectural styles with the aim of giving an answer to this question; In the 19th century, neoclassical orthodoxy was abandoned in favor of a stylistic eclecticism of a historicist nature, giving rise to neo-Gothic, neo-Romanesque, neo-Mudejar … Only with the arrival of the 20th century did truly original styles emerge, such as Arts and Crafts. Crafts, Art Nouveau, Modernism, Bauhaus, International Style, Post-Modernism, etc.