Analyzing Architectural Types and Themes as a Design Method

How to draw inspiration from historical architectureas a contemporary architect is an ever-present subjectin architecture theory. Contemporary architects cannow look to a rich pool of concepts on how to refer tohistorical architecture in their designs. Despite suchmethods being applied and taught by certain practicesand schools, major parts of architecture nowadaysare focused on uncontrolled growth, repetitive usageof details and signature shape-making.1 In order tocontextualize architecture again the use of historicalanalyses as an actual design method is worth discussing.The aim of this paper is to present such a method,by re-introducing the analysis of architectural typesand themes as a possible way of inspiring the design ofcontemporary buildings. Despite an intense discourseon architectural types from the 1960s to the 1980s,they are nowadays often used merely to classify thefunction of a design project (residential, public, etc.).This notion ignores the complexity of the concept oftypes,2 therefore types and themes will be discussedas a mean for increasing the plausibility of a designscheme. Afterwards, their application will be shownin three of the author’s projects.

Volume Editors
Luis Francisco Rico-Gutierrez & Martha Thorne

ISBN
978-1-944214-08-1