analysing ARCHITECTURE

 

 

Modern builders need a classification of architectural factors irrespective of time and country, a classification by essential variation.... In architecture more than anywhere we are the slaves of names and categories, and so long as the whole field of past architectural experiment is presented to us accidentally only under historical schedules, designing architecture is likely to be conceived as scholarship rather than as the adaptation of its accumulated powers to immediate needs...

W.R.Lethaby, Architecture, London, 1912, pp.8-9

These web pages supplement the books Analysing Architecture (published by Routledge, London and New York, Spring 1997, a Chinese language edition of which was published in Beijing in 2002, and a second English edition of which will be available from summer 2003) and An Architecture Notebook: Wall (also published by Routledge, London and New York, Spring 2000).

These books offer the beginnings of a conceptual framework for analysing works of architecture in ways which can help student architects understand something of what they are doing, and of what they might do, when designing. These web pages further illustrate the themes in the book (in some instances adding photographs to the line drawings of the book), and provide a facility for developing the conceptual framework for analysis, incorporating amendments and additions from those who wish to contribute. This site is maintained by the author of Analysing Architecture and An Architecture Notebook: Wall, Simon Unwin, who will (in the early stages at least) be arbiter of what is or is not included. (Eventually it may be necessary to establish an editorial panel.)

The conceptual framework for analysis is a structure of themes observed in examples. The themes included in the book are also listed in the 'contents' frame on the left. Each heading is a link to pages which contain material related to that theme. The last heading in the contents list - 'more themes' - links to pages which put forward themes that were not included in the book but which might usefully be considered for inclusion in the developing framework for analysis. Eventually these additional themes, after having been 'tested' here, may be included in a revised edition of Analysing Architecture, or perhaps be composed into a separate 'architecture notebook'.

THIS SITE IS STILL GROWING, IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS, AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO...

These pages are intended as a shared resource. Their value will increase with the range and quality of contributions. As a start, and as an indication of how they might develop, the pages contain some material for which space was not found in the book, some that has been collected since the book went to press, and some from exercises carried out by students at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff University (UK), where the book is related to a taught module of the same name.

If you have material which you would like to be considered for inclusion on these pages, please e-mail unwins@cf.ac.uk.

IF YOU ARE USING ANALYSING ARCHITECTURE IN YOUR STUDIES OR TEACHING, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

Simon Unwin, February 2002