Owen Hopkins - Reading Architecture Second Edition: A Visual Lexicon

Reading Architecture

A Visual Lexicon SECOND EDITION

Owen Hopkins

Laurence King Publishing
An imprint of Quercus Editions Ltd
www.laurenceking.com/pages/student

CHAPTER 1
BUILDING TYPES

CHAPTER 2
STRUCTURES

CHAPTER 3
ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS

What makes a work of architecture? In his seminal An Outline of European Architecture, first published in 1943, the great architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner made a now famous comparison: A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture. Nearly everything, he continued, that encloses space on a scale sufficient for a human being to move in is a building; the term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal.

Few would disagree that a buildings appearance is among an architects chief concerns. However, the insistence that something as subjective as aesthetic appeal be the defining characteristic of a work of architecture is more contentious. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and even if a building is designed with a view to aesthetic appeal, there is no reason why those who view it would necessarily find it appealing.

In reality, peoples responses to architecture are individual, often inconsistent and are constantly changing. A dramatic case in point is the Brutalist architecture of 1960s and 1970s Britain, which polarized opinion when first built and continues to do so today. Yet despite the divergence in opinion, few would doubt its claim to be architecture. Furthermore, the distinction Pevsner draws between a building which he implicitly characterizes as being purely functional, its form and materials solely determined by its intended function and a work of architecture is too stark in reality. Even buildings whose architects proclaim to be following entirely functionalist philosophies crystallized in the dictum form follows function are designed so that they communicate the function they are intended to fulfil through their appearance.

All modes of architecture have the power to transmit ideas and emotions irrespective of whether a building is designed to elicit aesthetic appeal. I would suggest that what makes a building architecture is its ability to communicate and to transmit meaning; indeed, we might say that architecture is building with meaning. Far from a literal art, the ways in which meaning in architecture are encoded and transmitted are unique and quite different to, say, how one might read a painting. Architectural meaning can be constructed in many different ways: through form, materials, scale, ornamentation or, most explicitly, signage. Thus, the meanings that a building can hold inevitably tend to be abstract: for example, the demonstration of a patrons social and cultural status through building in the latest fashionable style; the memories and associations activated by reviving an older architectural style; or the display of wealth and power in a buildings scale and the use of expensive materials and ostentatious ornamentation. At its core, a work of architecture is a representation of its builders or patron and in varying extents, its architect too their ideas, aspirations and motivations, as well as the social, economic, political and environmental contexts in which they are formed. This book, therefore, is about how meaning is constructed in architecture.

The origins of the architectural dictionary or glossary for although this book does not conform to those types, it has its roots in those precursors lie in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the architectural interests of professionals and amateurs alike saw a slew of publications meeting that demand. Sometimes an architectural dictionary or glossary was included as a kind of appendix to a longer work, and this is often still the case today. Even when existing as independent works, most architectural dictionaries or glossaries are, from the very earliest examples, arranged alphabetically, with illustrations a secondary consideration, if present at all.

Some works have tried to give more priority to the visual, most notably Jill Lever and John Harriss Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture, 8001914 (1991; first published in 1969 as Illustrated Glossary of Architecture, 8501830 ). However, even in a work such as this, for someone faced with an unfamiliar architectural element in a building or drawing, it still remains very difficult to find out its name and description. As with a web search engine, you need to know what you are looking for before you can find it.

In addition, as with Lever and Harriss book, few such works cover twentieth- and twenty-first-century architecture or, if they do, hardly at all. The reasons for this deficiency are not hard to understand. While Classical and Gothic architecture, with their relatively coherent repertoires of architectural detail, lend themselves to such classificatory expositions, much modern and contemporary architecture, whose descriptive terms are in any case still in comparative flux, does not employ such readily assimilable stylistic languages. While inevitably heavily indebted to existing works, this book aims to go beyond their limitations both in its structure and extent.

Encompassing Western architecture, from Classical Greece right up to the present day, this book is intended to act as a visual guide to the various ways in which a building can be articulated: from wall renderings and roof structures, to column types and decorative mouldings. It is heavily illustrated so that almost every element is represented in annotated photographs or line drawings. From the start, the intention behind the book has been to transcend the problems inherent in traditional architectural dictionaries or glossaries arranged alphabetically. Consequently, the book prioritizes buildings themselves through photographs and annotations and, in its structure, breaks architecture down to its fundamental ideas and components.

The book consists of four heavily cross-referenced chapters. The first chapter focuses on ten Building Types. Although the examples of each type vary in time and place, they have been chosen because they embody certain characteristics integral to that particular type. Other building groupings included in this chapter have been made in accordance to forms or morphologies which have been deemed enduring over time and been influential on many different building types. In this way, the chapter is intended to act as the readers first port of call, so that when confronted with, say, a public building, one can turn to that section and find the example with the most closely matching architectural characteristics. From there, one can follow the various signposts to , which deal with particular elements in more detail.

The second chapter, Structures, stems from the premise that almost all architectural languages are in some way derived from the basic articulation of a buildings structure. As such, it transcends particular architectural styles to focus on several basic structural elements Columns and Piers and Arches as well as the structures enabled by and which are characteristic to widely used building materials: Timber, Concrete and Steel. This chapter functions similarly to the first in signposting to other chapters but also, because of its greater detail on particular elements, acts as a final destination in its own right.

focuses on Architectural Elements key components present in all buildings irrespective of style, scale or form. These are Walls and Surfaces, Windows and Doors, Roofs, and Stairs and Lifts. Along with a buildings overall form and scale, the way in which particular architectural elements are used is one of the chief means by which a building can be made to convey meaning. Consequently, the articulation of these elements, such as in the rendering of a wall, the spacing and particular style of windows or choice of roof cladding material, can vary dramatically and the chapter aims to chart as many of these as possible.