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Architecture Essays 101: How to be an effective writer

• Updated: October 25, 2023

The world of architecture stands at a fascinating crossroads of creativity and academia. As architects cultivate ideas to shape the physical world around us, we are also tasked with articulating these concepts through words.

Architecture essays, thus, serves as a bridge between the visual and the textual, allowing for a comprehensive exploration of architectural ideas and their implications.

The ability to articulate thoughts, analyses, and observations on design and theory is as crucial as creating the designs themselves. An architectural essay is not just about presenting information but about conveying an understanding of spaces, structures, and the stories they tell.

Whether you’re delving into the nuances of a specific architectural movement , analyzing the design of a historic monument, or predicting the future of sustainable design, the written word becomes a powerful tool to express intricate ideas.

This guide provides a comprehensive roadmap for crafting insightful architectural essays, ensuring that your perspectives on this multifaceted discipline are communicated effectively and engagingly.

Understanding the Unique Nature of Architecture Essay s

Architecture sits on a unique line between the aesthetic and the analytical, where designs are appreciated not only for their aesthetic appeal but also for their functionality and historical relevance.

An architecture essay isn’t just a manifestation of this intricate blend; it’s a testament to it. Aspiring architects or students of architecture must grasp the singular characteristics of this type of essay to truly succeed.

Embracing Creativity

When one imagines essays, the mind typically conjures up dense blocks of text. However, an architecture essay allows, and even demands, a flair of creativity.

Visual representations, be it in the form of diagrams , sketches , or photographs , aren’t just supplementary; they can form the core of your argument.

For instance, if you’re discussing the evolution of skyscraper designs , a chronological array of sketches can provide an insightful, immediate overview that words might struggle to convey.

Recognizing and capitalizing on this visual component can elevate the impact of your essay.

Theoretical Foundations

Yet, relying solely on creative illustrations won’t suffice. The foundation of every solid architecture essay is a strong understanding of architectural theories, principles , and historical contexts. Whether you’re analyzing the gothic cathedrals of Europe or the minimalist homes of Japan, delving deep into the why and how of their designs is crucial.

How did the social, economic, and technological conditions of the time influence these structures?

…How do they compare with contemporary designs?

Theoretical exploration provides depth to your essay, grounding your observations and opinions in recognized knowledge and pre-existing debates.

Furthermore, case studies play an essential role in these essays.

Instead of making sweeping statements, anchor your points in specific examples. Discussing the sustainability features of a particular building or the ergonomic design of another offers tangible evidence to support your arguments.

Blending the Two

The magic of an architecture essay lies in seamlessly weaving the creative with the theoretical.

While you showcase a building’s design through visuals, delve into its history, purpose, and societal implications with your words. This blend not only offers a holistic understanding of architectural marvels but also caters to a broad audience, ensuring your essay is both engaging and enlightening.

In conclusion, understanding the unique blend of design elements and theoretical discussion in an architecture essay sets the foundation for an impactful piece.

It’s about striking a balance between showing and telling, between the artist’s sketches and the academic’s observations. With this understanding, you’re better equipped to venture into the exciting world of architectural essay writing.

Choosing the Right Topic

Architectural essays stand apart in their blend of technical knowledge, aesthetic sense, and historical context. The topic you choose not only sets the tone for your essay but can also significantly affect the enthusiasm and rigor with which you approach the writing.

Here’s a comprehensive guide to selecting the right topic for your architecture essay:

Find your Golden Nugget:

• Personal Resonance: Your topic should excite you. Think about the architectural designs, movements, or theories that have made an impact on you. Perhaps it’s a specific building you’ve always admired or an architectural trend you’ve noticed emerging in your city.
• Uncharted Territory: Exploring less-known or under-discussed areas can give you a unique perspective and make your essay stand out. Instead of writing another essay on Roman architecture, consider focusing on the influence of Roman architecture on contemporary design or even on a specific region.

Researching Broadly:

• Diversify Your Sources: From books and academic journals to documentaries and interviews, use varied materials to spark ideas. Often, an unrelated article can lead to a unique essay topic.
• Current Trends and Issues: Look at contemporary architecture magazines , websites , and blogs to gauge what’s relevant and debated in today’s architectural world. It might inspire you to contribute to the discussion or even challenge some prevailing ideas.

Connecting with Design Projects:

• Personal Projects: If you’ve been involved in a design project, whether at school or professionally, consider exploring themes or challenges you encountered. This adds personal anecdotes and insights which enrich the essay.
• Case Studies: Instead of going broad, consider going deep. Dive into a single building or architect’s work. Analyzing one subject in-depth can offer nuanced perspectives and help demonstrate your analytical skills.

Feasibility of Research:

• Availability of Resources: While choosing an obscure topic can make your essay unique, ensure you have enough resources or primary research opportunities to support your arguments.
• Scope: The topic should be neither too broad nor too narrow. It should allow for in-depth exploration within the word limit of the essay. For instance, “Modern Architecture” is too broad, but “The Influence of Bauhaus on Modern Apartment Design in Berlin between 1950-1970” is more focused.

Finding the right topic is a journey, and sometimes it requires a few wrong turns before you hit the right path. Stay curious, be patient, and remember that the best topics are those that marry your personal passion with academic rigor. Your enthusiasm will shine through in your writing, making the essay engaging and impactful.

Organizational Tools and Systems for an Effective Architecture Essay

Writing an essay on architecture is a blend of creative expression and meticulous research. As you delve deep into topics, theories, and case studies, it becomes imperative to keep your resources organized and accessible.

This section introduces you to a set of tools and systems tailored for architectural essay writing.

Using Digital Aids

• Notion: This versatile tool provides a workspace that integrates note-taking, database creation, and task management. For an architecture essay, you can create separate pages for your outline, research, and drafts. The use of templates can streamline the writing process and help in maintaining a structured approach.
• MyBib: Citing resources is a crucial part of essay writing. MyBib acts as a lifesaver by generating citations in various styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) and organizing them for easy access. Make sure to cross-check and ensure accuracy.
• Evernote: This tool allows you to clip web pages, articles, or images that inspire or contribute to your essay. You can annotate, highlight, and categorize your findings in different notebooks.

Systematic Research

• Organizing Findings: Develop a system where each finding, whether it’s a quote, image, or data point, has its source attached. Use color-coding or tags to denote different topics or relevance levels.
• Note Galleries: Convert your key points into visual cards. This technique can be especially helpful in architectural essays, where visual concepts may be central to your argument.
• Sorting by Source Type: Separate your research into categories like academic journals, books, articles, and interviews. This will make it easier when referencing or looking for a particular kind of information.

Strategies for Effective Literature Review

• Skimming vs. In-depth Reading: Not every source needs a detailed read. Learn to differentiate between foundational texts that require in-depth understanding and those where skimming for key ideas is sufficient.
• Note-making Techniques: Adopt methods like the Cornell Note-taking System, mind mapping, or bullet journaling, depending on what suits your thought process best. These methods help in breaking down complex ideas into manageable chunks.
• Staying Updated: The world of architecture is evolving. Ensure you’re not missing any recent papers, articles, or developments related to your topic. Setting up Google Scholar alerts or RSS feeds can be beneficial.

Organizing your research and using tools efficiently will not only streamline your writing process but will also enhance the quality of your essay. As you progress, you’ll discover what techniques and tools work best for you.

The key is to maintain consistency and always be open to trying out new methods to improve your workflow and efficiency.

Writing Techniques and Tips for an Architecture Essay

An architecture essay, while deeply rooted in academic rigor, is also a canvas for innovative ideas, design critiques, and a reflection of the architectural zeitgeist. Here’s a deep dive into techniques and tips that can elevate your essay from merely informative to truly compelling.

Learning from Others

• Read Before You Write: Before diving into your own writing, spend some time exploring essays written by others. Understand the flow, the structure, the narrative techniques, and how they tie their thoughts cohesively.
• Inspirational Sources: Journals, academic papers, architecture magazines, and opinion pieces offer a wealth of writing styles. Notice how varied perspectives bring life to similar topics.

Using Jargon Judiciously

• Maintain Clarity: While it’s tempting to use specialized terminology extensively, remember your essay should be accessible to a broader audience. Use technical terms when necessary, but ensure they’re explained or inferred.
• Balancing Act: Maintain a balance between academic writing and creative expression. Let the jargon complement your narrative rather than overshadowing your message.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

• Plagiarism – The Silent Offender: Always give credit where credit is due. Even if you feel you’ve paraphrased sufficiently, ensure your sources are adequately referenced. Utilize plagiarism check tools to ensure originality.
• Stay Focused: It’s easy to get lost in the vast world of architecture. Ensure your writing stays on topic, refraining from veering too far from your central theme.
• Conciseness: While detailed elaboration can be insightful, verbosity can drown your main points. Be succinct where necessary.

Craft a Compelling Introduction and Conclusion

• First Impressions: Your introduction should provide context, state the purpose of your essay, and capture the reader’s interest. Think of it as the blueprint of a building – it should give an idea of what to expect.
• Tying it All Together: Your conclusion should summarize your main points, reflect on the implications of your findings, and perhaps even propose further areas of study or exploration.

Use Active Voice

• Direct and Dynamic: Active voice makes your writing sound more direct and lively. Instead of writing, “The design was critiqued by several architects,” try “Several architects critiqued the design.”

Personalize your Narrative

• Your Unique Voice: Architecture, at its core, is about human experiences and spaces. Infuse your writing with personal observations, experiences, or reflections where relevant. This personal touch can make your essay stand out.

Revise, Revise, Revise

• The First Draft is Rarely the Final: Writing is a process. Once you’ve penned down your initial thoughts, revisit them. Refine the flow, enhance clarity, and ensure your argument is both cogent and captivating.

Remember, an architecture essay is both a testament to your academic understanding and a reflection of your perspective on architectural phenomena. Treat it as a synthesis of research, observation, creativity, and structured argumentation, and you’ll craft an essay that resonates.

Incorporating Sources Seamlessly

In architectural essays, as with most academic endeavors, sources form the backbone of your assertions and claims. They lend credibility to your arguments and showcase your understanding of the topic at hand. But it’s not just about listing references.

It’s about weaving them into your essay so seamlessly that your reader not only comprehends your point but also recognizes the strong foundation on which your arguments stand. Here’s how you can incorporate sources effectively:

Effective Quotation:

• Blend with the Narrative: Direct quotations should feel like a natural extension of your writing. For instance, instead of abruptly inserting a quote, use lead-ins like, “As architect Jane Smith argues, ‘…'”
• Use Sparingly: While direct quotes can validate a point, over-relying on them can overshadow your voice. Use them to emphasize pivotal points and always ensure you contextualize their significance.
• Adapting Quotes: Occasionally, for the sake of flow, you might need to change a word or phrase in a quote. If you do, denote changes with square brackets, e.g., “[The building] stands as a testament to modern design.”

Referencing Techniques:

• Parenthetical Citations: Most academic essays utilize parenthetical (or in-text) citations, where a brief reference (usually the author’s surname and the publication year) is provided within the text itself.
• Footnotes and Endnotes: Some referencing styles prefer notes, which can provide additional context or information without interrupting the flow of the essay.
• Consistency is Key: Stick to one referencing style throughout your essay, whether it’s APA, MLA, Chicago, or any other format.

Using Notes Effectively:

• Annotate as You Go: When reading, jot down insights or connections you make in the margins or in your note-taking app. This will help you incorporate sources in a way that feels relevant and organic.
• Maintain a Bibliography: Keeping a running list of all the sources you encounter will make the final citation process smoother. With tools like Zotero or MyBib, you can auto-generate and manage bibliographies with ease.
• Critical Analysis over Summary: While it’s vital to understand and convey the main points of a source, it’s equally crucial to critique, interpret, or discuss its relevance in the context of your essay.

Remember, the objective of referencing isn’t just to show that you’ve done the reading or to avoid accusations of plagiarism. It’s about building on the work of others to create your unique narrative and perspective.

Always strive for a balance, where your voice remains at the forefront, but is consistently and credibly supported by your sources.

Designing Your Essay

Architecture is an intricate tapestry of creativity, precision, and innovation. Just as a building’s design can make or break its appeal, the visual presentation of your essay plays a pivotal role in how it’s received.

Below are steps and strategies to ensure your architecture essay isn’t just a treatise of words but also a feast for the eyes.

Visual Aesthetics: More Than Just Words

• Whitespace and Balance: Much like in architecture, the empty spaces in your essay—the margins, line spacing, and breaks between paragraphs—matter. Whitespace can make your essay appear more organized and readable.
• Fonts and Typography: Choose a font that is both legible and evocative of your essay’s tone. A serif font like Times New Roman may offer a traditional, academic feel, while sans-serif fonts like Arial or Calibri lend a modern touch. However, always adhere to submission guidelines if provided.
• Use of Imagery: If allowed, incorporating relevant images, charts, or diagrams can enhance understanding and add a visual flair to your essay. Make sure to caption them properly and ensure they’re of high resolution.

Relevance to Topic: Visuals That Complement Content

• Thematic Design: Ensure any design elements—be they color schemes, borders, or footers—tie back to your essay’s topic or the architectural theme you’re discussing.
• Visual Examples: If you’re discussing a specific architectural movement or an iconic building, consider incorporating relevant images, sketches, or blueprints to give readers a visual point of reference.

Examples of Unique Design Ideas

• Sidebars and Callouts: Much like how modern buildings might feature a unique design element that stands out, sidebars or callouts can be used to highlight crucial points, quotes, or tangential information.
• Integrated Infographics: For essays discussing data, trends, or historical timelines, infographics can be an innovative way to present information. They synthesize complex data into digestible visual formats.
• Annotations: If you’re critiquing or discussing a specific image, annotations can be helpful. They allow you to pinpoint and elaborate on specific elements within the image directly.

Consistency is Key

• Maintain a Theme: Just as in architectural design, maintaining a consistent visual theme throughout your essay creates harmony and cohesion. This could be in the form of consistent font usage, header designs, or color schemes.
• Captions and References: Any visual aid, be it a photograph, illustration, or chart, should be captioned consistently and sourced correctly to avoid plagiarism.

In the realm of architectural essays, the saying “ form follows function ” is equally valid. Your design choices should not just be aesthetic adornments but should serve to enhance understanding, readability, and engagement.

By taking the time to thoughtfully design your essay, you are not only showcasing your architectural insights but also your keen eye for design, thereby leaving a lasting impression on your readers.

Finalizing Your Essay

Finalizing an architecture essay is a task that demands a meticulous approach. The difference between an average essay and an outstanding one often lies in the refinement process. Here, we explore the steps to ensure that your essay is in its best possible form before submission.

Proofreading:

• Grammar and Syntax Checks: Always use tools like Grammarly or Microsoft Word’s spellchecker, but remember, they aren’t infallible. After an initial electronic check, read the essay aloud. This can help in catching awkward phrasing and any overlooked errors.
• Consistency in Language and Style: Ensure that you maintain a uniform style and tone throughout. If you begin with UK English, for instance, stick with it till the end.
• Flow and Coherence: The essay should have a logical progression. Each paragraph should lead seamlessly into the next, with clear transitions.

Feedback Loop:

• Peer Reviews: Having classmates or colleagues read your essay can provide fresh perspectives. They might catch unclear sections or points of potential expansion that you might have missed.
• Expert Feedback: If possible, seek feedback from instructors or professionals in the field. Their insights can greatly enhance the quality of your content.
• Acting on Feedback: Merely receiving feedback isn’t enough. Be prepared to make revisions, even if it means letting go of sections you’re fond of, for the overall improvement of the essay.

Aligning with University Requirements:

• Formatting: Adhere strictly to the specified format. Whether it’s APA, Chicago, or MLA, make sure your citations, font, spacing, and margins are in line with the guidelines.
• Word Count: Most institutions will have a stipulated word count. Ensure you’re within the limit. If you’re over, refine your content; if you’re under, see if there are essential points you might have missed.
• Supplementary Materials: For architecture essays, you might need to attach diagrams, sketches, or photographs. Ensure these are clear, relevant, and properly labeled.
• Referencing: Properly cite all your sources. Any claim or statement that isn’t common knowledge needs to be attributed to its source. Also, ensure that your bibliography or reference list is comprehensive and formatted correctly.

Final Read-through:

• After making all the changes, set your essay aside for a day or two, if time permits. Come back with fresh eyes and do one last read-through. This distance can often help you catch any remaining issues.

Finalizing your architecture essay is as vital as the initial stages of research and drafting. The care you take in refining and polishing your work reflects your commitment to excellence. When you’ve gone through these finalization steps, you can submit your essay confidently, knowing you’ve given it your best shot.

To Sum Up…

Writing an architecture essay is a unique challenge that requires a balance of creativity, critical thinking, and academic rigor. The process demands not just a deep understanding of architectural theories and case studies but also an ability to express these complex ideas clearly and compellingly.

Throughout this article, we have explored various facets of crafting an excellent architecture essay, from choosing a resonant topic and conducting thorough research to employing effective writing techniques and incorporating sources seamlessly.

The visual aspect of an architecture essay cannot be overlooked. As architects blend functionality with aesthetics in their designs, so too must students intertwine informative content with visual appeal in their essays. This is an opportunity to showcase not only your understanding of the subject matter but also your creativity and attention to detail.

Remember, a well-designed essay speaks volumes about your passion for architecture and your dedication to the discipline.

As we wrap up this guide, it is crucial to emphasize the importance of meticulous proofreading and seeking feedback. These final steps are vital in ensuring that your essay is free from errors and that your arguments are coherent and compelling.

Engaging in a feedback loop with peers, mentors, or advisors can provide valuable insights and help to refine your work further.

Additionally, always ensure that your essay aligns with the specific requirements set forth by your university or institution. Pay attention to details like font styles, referencing methods, and formatting guidelines.

These elements, while seemingly minor, play a significant role in creating a polished and professional final product.

Keep practicing, keep learning, and remember that each essay is a stepping stone toward mastering the art of architectural writing.

FAQs about Architecture Essays

Do architecture students have to write essays.

Yes, architecture students often have to write essays as part of their academic curriculum. While architecture is a field that heavily involves visual and practical skills, essays and written assignments play a crucial role in helping students develop their critical thinking, research, and analytical skills.

While hands-on design work and practical projects are integral parts of an architectural education, essays play a crucial role in developing the theoretical, analytical, and communication skills necessary for success in the field.

By writing essays, architecture students learn to think critically, research effectively, and communicate their ideas clearly, laying a strong foundation for their future careers.

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Best Architecture Essay Examples & Topics

Architecture essays can be challenging, especially if you are still a student and in the process of acquiring information. First of all, you are to choose the right topic – half of your success depends on it. Pick something that interests and excites you if possible. Second of all, structure your paper correctly. Start with an intro, develop a thesis, and outline your body paragraphs and conclusion. Write down all your ideas and thoughts in a logical order, excluding the least convincing ones.

In this article, we’ve combined some tips on how to deliver an excellent paper on the subject. Our team has compiled a list of topics and architecture essay examples you can use for inspiration or practice.

If you’re looking for architecture essay examples for college or university, you’re in the right place. In this article, we’ve collected best architecture essay topics and paper samples together with writing tips. Below you’ll find sample essays on modern architecture, landscape design, and architect’s profession. Go on reading to learn how to write an architecture essay.

Architecture Essay Types

Throughout your academic life, you will encounter the essay types listed below.

Argumentative Architecture Essay

This type uses arguments and facts to support a claim or answer a question. Its purpose is to lay out the information in front of the reader that supports the author’s position. It does not rely on the personal experiences of the writer. For instance, in an argumentative essay about architecture, students can talk about the positive aspects of green construction. You can try to demonstrate with facts and statistics why this type of building is the ultimate future.

Opinion Architecture Essay

This essay requires an opinion or two on the topic. It may try to demonstrate two opposing views, presenting a list of arguments that support them. Remember that the examples that you use have to be relevant. It should be clear which opinion you support. Such an essay for the architecture topic can be a critique of architectural work.

Expository Architecture Essay

This writing shares ideas and opinions as well as provides evidence. The skill that is tested in this essay is the expertise and knowledge of the subject. When you write an expository essay, your main goal is to deliver information. It would be best if you did not assume that your audience knows much about the subject matter. An expository essay about architecture can be dedicated to the importance of sustainable architecture.

Informative Architecture Essay

Such essays do not provide any personal opinions about the topic. It aims to provide as much data as possible and educate the audience about the subject. An excellent example of an informative essay can be a “how-to essay.” For instance, in architecture, you can try to explain how something functions or works.

Descriptive Architecture Essay

It’s an essay that aims to create a particular sentiment in the reader. You want to describe an object, idea, or event so that the reader gets a clear picture. There are several good ways to achieve it: using creative language, including major and minor details, etc. A descriptive essay about architecture can be focused on a building or part of a city. For instance, talk about a casino in Las Vegas.

Narrative Architecture Essay

Here, your goal is to write a story. This paper is about an experience described in a personal and creative way. Each narrative essay should have at least five elements: plot, character, setting, theme, and conflict. When it comes to the structure, it is similar to other essays. A narrative paper about architecture can talk about the day you have visited a monument or other site.

Architecture Essay Topics for 2022

• The most amazing architecture in the world and the most influential architects of the 21st century.
• Some pros and cons of vertical housing: vertical landscape in the history of architecture.
• A peculiar style of modern architecture in China.
• The style of Frank Lloyd Wright and architecture in his life.
• New tendencies in rural housing and architecture.
• Ancient Roman architecture reimagined.
• The role of architecture in pressing environmental problems in modern cities.
• Islamic architecture: peculiar features of the style.
• Earthquake-resistant infrastructure in building houses.
• How precise is virtual planning?
• Houses in rural areas and the cities. How similar are they?
• A theory of deconstruction in postmodern architecture.
• The influence of Greek architecture on modern architecture.
• Aspects to consider when building houses for visually impaired people.
• Disaster-free buildings: challenges and opportunities.
• European architectural influence on the Islamic world.
• The architecture of old Russian cities.

In the above section, we’ve given some ideas to help you write an interesting essay about architecture. You can use these topics for your assignment or as inspiration.

Thank you for reading the article. We’ve included a list of architecture essay examples further down. We also hope you found it helpful and valuable. Do not hesitate to share our article with your friends and peers.

410 Best Architecture Essay Examples

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Architecture Essay Examples

20 Must-Read Architecture Essay Examples for Students

Published on: May 5, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 30, 2024

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Are you a student struggling with writing an architecture essay? Perhaps you are looking for inspiration, or maybe you need guidance on how to develop your argument. 

Whatever the reason may be, you have come to the right place!

In this blog, we provide a range of architecture essay examples covering different styles, time periods, and topics. From modernist to postmodernist architecture, we offer examples that will help you gain a deeper understanding of the subject.

So, let's take a journey through the world of architecture essay examples together!

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What Is Architecture Essay 

An architecture essay is a type of academic writing that explores the design, construction, and history of buildings, structures, and spaces.  It requires technical knowledge and creative thinking to analyze and interpret architectural theories, and practices.

Let’s take a look at a short essay on architecture:

Architecture College Essay Examples 

Let's take a look at some examples of compelling architecture college essays that demonstrate creativity and critical thinking skills.

The Influence of Cultural Heritage on Architectural Design

The Importance of Aesthetics in Architecture

Scholarship Essay Examples For Architecture

These scholarship essay examples for architecture demonstrate the writers' devotion to excellence and creativity. Let’s check them out!

From Blueprint to Reality: The Importance of Detail in Architecture

The Intersection of Technology and Artistry in Architecture

Common Architecture Essay Examples

Let's take a look at some common architecture essay pdf examples that students often encounter in their academic writing.

History of Architecture Essay Examples

The Evolution of Egyptian Architecture

The Influence of Islamic Architecture

Gothic Architecture Essay Examples 

The Key Characteristics of Gothic Style Architecture

The Role of Gothic Architecture in Medieval Europe

Modern Architecture Essay Examples 

The Development of Modernist Architecture

The Influence of Postmodern Architecture

Cornell Architecture Essay Examples 

The Legacy of Cornell Architecture

Innovative Design Approaches in Cornell Architecture

Types of Architectural Essay 

Here are some potential sample papers for each type of architectural essay:

• Historical Analysis

The Effect of Ancient Greece Architecture on Contemporary Design

• Critical Analysis

The Role of Materiality in Herzog and de Meuron's Tate Modern

• Comparative Analysis

A Comparison of Modernist and Postmodernist Approaches to Design

Additional Architecture Essay Examples

Architecture essays cover a broad range of topics and styles. Here are some additional architecture essay prompts to help you get started.

Essay on Architecture As A Profession

Essay About Architecture As Art

Architecture Essay Question Examples

How To Write An Architecture Essay 

To write a successful architecture essay, follow these steps:

Step#1 Understand the assignment 

Read the assignment prompt carefully to understand what the essay requires.

Step#2 Research 

Conduct thorough research on the topic using reliable sources such as books, journals, and academic databases.

Step#3 Develop a thesis 

Based on your research, develop a clear and concise thesis statement that outlines the main argument of your essay.

Step#4 Outline 

Create an outline to organize your ideas and ensure that your essay flows logically and coherently.

Step#5 Write the essay 

Start writing your essay according to your outline:

Introduction:

• Begin with a hook that grabs the reader's attention.
• Provide background information on the topic.
• End with a clear thesis statement.

Architecture Essay Introduction

• Use evidence to support your arguments.
• Organize your ideas logically with clear transitions.
• Address counterarguments.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the main points and restate the thesis.
• Provide final thoughts and consider broader implications.
• End with a memorable closing statement.

Architecture Essay Conclusion

Step#6 Edit and proofread 

Review your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors. Make sure that your ideas are expressed clearly and concisely.

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History of Architecture Essay Topics

• The Impact of Ancient Greek Architecture on Modern Building Design in the United States
• The Development of Gothic Architecture as an Architectural Movement in Medieval Europe
• A Case Study of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Style Architecture and its Influence on American Home Design
• The Rise of Skyscrapers in the United States. A Look at the History and Impact of Tall Buildings on People Living and Working in Cities
• The Origins of Modernism in Architecture: Tracing the Roots of this Architectural Movement from Europe to the United States
• A Comparative Analysis of Chinese and Japanese Traditional Architecture: Exploring the Differences and Similarities of These Two Styles Originated from Asia
• The Influence of Islamic Architecture on the Development of Spanish Colonial Architecture in the United States
• A Case Study of Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye: Analyzing the Characteristics of This Architectural Movement and Its Influence on Modern Architecture
• The Evolution of Green Architecture: Examining the History of Sustainable Building Design and Its Impact on People Living and the Environment
• The Revival of Art Deco Architecture. Tracing the Return of This Style Originated in the 1920s and 1930s in the United States.

In summary!

We hope the examples we've provided have sparked your imagination and given you the inspiration you need to craft your essay. Writing about architecture requires good skills, and your essay is an opportunity to showcase your unique ideas in the field.

Remember, even the greatest architects started somewhere, and the key to success is practice. But if you're feeling stuck and need a little help bringing your vision to life, don't worry! 

At CollegeEssay.org , our expert writers are here to provide you with top-quality essay writing service that will impress even the toughest critics.

Whether you need help finding the right words or want assistance with organizing your ideas, our AI essay generator can guide you every step of the way. 

So why wait? Contact our architecture essay writing service today and take the first step toward building your dream career in architecture!

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How to write an architecture essay tips

How to write an architecture essay advice, Architectural assignment writing tips, Online student work guide

How to Write an Architecture Essay

post updated 17 February 2024

Writing an essay can be a difficult assignment for any student. However, they are critical in advancing your academic career. These essays, especially if you’re pursuing architecture, demonstrate your knowledge of a subject as well as your ability to compose and present it elegantly on paper.

It’s not easy to write a good architecture essay. You won’t have to write an essay like this unless you’re an architectural student, and even then, you can have trouble finding suitable rules, even if you want to buy essays online. This article seeks to fill that need.

22 February 2022

So, what goes into writing an outstanding architectural essay? What are the considerations you should make before writing one?

You can get the best essay writing service today by following the link https://goalessay.com/

Read on as we walk you through the vital elements of a well-crafted architecture essay that will captivate your audience and aid your academic career!

It’s time to do some research now that you have a good notion about the issue you’re interested in. Investigate the journals, encyclopaedias, and articles available. It could be from your college’s library or a reputable online source.

Any source would suffice as long as it is credible and of good quality. Remember to alternate between your research and the architecture thesis statement you chose in the previous phase. You won’t get sidetracked this way. For instance, suppose you’re writing about a certain architectural structure or the works of a notable architect in history. You could start your essay by describing the aesthetics of a well-known structure. Move on to preparing the arrangement of your essay if you’re satisfied with your research abilities.

Develop Your Writing Creativity

You must be familiar with appropriate terminology and characterising terms when writing this type of essay. There is no way around it because it is a requirement of an architectural paper. Consider the following scenario: you’re describing a potential project to your lecturer or boss.

You must be in a position and possess the necessary skills to communicate your vision to them in the same way that you have it in your head. It’s how you’ll present your concept to others. You must learn to use adjectives effectively, unlike in other forms of essays. Visual imagery must be presented in such a way that the listener or reader can live vicariously through your wonderfully weaved words.

Write an Introduction

The first thing you should work on when writing an essay is the introduction paragraph. In no more than five sentences, try to capture the essay’s main point. However, you must make sure that these statements are strong enough to hold the reader’s attention and persuade them to finish reading. Your thesis statement must also be included here.

The Essay’s Body

These paragraphs should at the very least concisely describe one fact, with sufficient proof to back up your thesis. Now that you’ve learned how to write an excellent essay, it’s time to put your own spin on things.

This will help your work stand out and add a personal touch. Throughout the key portions of this essay, you must demonstrate your ability to write academically logical and sharp information. You can always start with a rough draft and work your way up to a polished essay. Keep the paper’s focus; this is when the planning comes in handy.

Concluding Paragraph

Finally, your architecture-based essay should be concluded in such a way that it recapitulates the main topic. This area is just as important as the others, and it requires your meticulous attention to detail in order to be perfected. Its purpose is to emphasise your idea one last time in order to create a lasting impression on the reader.

In one last paragraph, summarise the main points of your essay in a thought-provoking and convincing manner. To avoid losing effectiveness, try not to make this too long. Did you believe you’d be able to submit it now that you’ve finished it? – Certainly not. Even professionals stress the importance of proofreading. Check your essay for errors and coherence several times. For an unbiased evaluation, you can even ask a trustworthy person to conduct it for you.

You’ll undoubtedly entice the assessor if you follow these methods. You’ll be able to compose an essay that sticks with them for a long time. Without patience and hard work, nothing can be perfected. Begin practising and you’ll soon find yourself on your way to becoming an outstanding future architect.

Comments on this guide to how to write an architecture essay article are welcome.

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How to Write an Ideal Architecture Essay

Composing a strong essay on architecture is far from easy. You will probably not have to write an essay of this type unless you are an architecture student, and when you do, you might find it hard to get your hands on relevant guidelines even if you’d like to  buy essay online . That is precisely the gap this article aims to fill.

Getting started on your essay

Being unable to find a head-start is one of the most common difficulties a writer faces when it comes to devising an essay. Brainstorming ideas for choosing a topic is pressure in itself. If you get overwhelmed just by the thought of it, you are not alone. When it comes to essays about architecture, the field is undoubtedly broad and requires you to narrow down the scope of your focus. This is the first step you need to nail in order to come up with a good essay. You can put in all the effort, but it will go all in vain if the basic idea that you started with was not as impactful. You should check out Edu Jungles to find some high-level essays to get inspiration from. For this purpose, you need to zero in on a subject that can be broken down based on time period, geographical location, and style. This will provide you with the much-needed structure of your essay. Once you have it a decent idea about the direction you need your ship needs to be steered in, try shortlisting smaller topics in the subcategory. Depending on your interest, previous knowledge, and availability of sources decide a topic for crafting your essay.

Now that you would have a decent idea about the topic you are interested in, it is time to research.  Dive into the journals, encyclopedias and articles that you can find. It can be from your college’s library or a reliable source on the internet. Any source would do as long as it has credibility and quality. Do not forget to keep switching between the research work and the architecture thesis statement that you settled on in the previous step.This will prevent you from getting sidetracked. For example, you are writing on a specific architectural structure or maybe describing the works of a famous architect in history. You may include the description of the aesthetics of a famous building and start building your essay from there. Once satisfied with your research proficiency, move to the planning of the structure of your essay. Needless to say, it will depend on the audience of your work. So keep in mind the requirements and expectations of the evaluator before starting working on your masterpiece.  You have to be strategical and tactical when it comes to choosing the style. Mostly, you will be asked to follow an analytical style.

Tap into Creative Writing Skills

While crafting this type of essay, you need to be proficient with relevant vocabulary and describing words. It is the demand of an architecture paper, and there is no way around it. Now think about this, you are describing a future project to your professor or employer. You must be in the position and have the skillset to convey the vision to them just like you have in your mind. It is the way you will be pitching your idea. Unlike other types of essays, you must learn using adjectives effectively. You need to present visual imagery in such a way that the listener or reader lives vicariously through your beautifully woven words. It is an art form that not everybody can master but if you are here taking the initiative, consider it half the battle won. If you find yourself weak in this department, take support and get pre-written essays and learn to master the art of essay writing.

Writing an introduction

When you start building an essay, the first thing that needs to be perfected will be your introductory paragraph.  Try to encapsulate the essential idea of the essay in no more than five sentences. However, you need to ensure that these statements are compelling enough to get the reader engrossed and convinced to read till the end. Here you will also have to include your thesis statement. Let us take a look at a few persuasive architecture thesis statement examples.

“Cities should allow for open spaces and structures that go well with surroundings” or maybe something along the lines of explaining the structure of a building and the reason for its prominence. Ensure that whatever you decide to go with has a debatable element. The reader does not want you to parrot back to them. Instead, they want your take on the subject.

  The body of the essay

These paragraphs should aim to concisely articulate one fact at the least, with having enough evidence to support your thesis. Now that you are learning ways of crafting essay effectively, it is highly encouraged to add your original thoughts.  This will help your work stand out and bring an element of uniqueness to it. You have to convey your ability to produce academically coherent and sharp content through the main sections of this essay. You can always start from a draft and work your way up to a well-thought-out essay. Do not lose the focus of the paper; this is where the planning helps.

Concluding paragraph

Lastly, conclude your architecture-based essay in such a way that it recapitulates the idea behind it.  This section is just as significant as the others and needs your attention to detail for perfecting it. It aims to stress your point one last time to leave a lasting impact on the reader. Summarize the highlights of your essay in one final paragraph and write it in a thought-provoking and persuasive manner. Try not to elongate this to prevent losing effectiveness. Now that you are done with it, did you think you could submit it already? -Absolutely not. Even the experts emphasize on the significance of proofreading. Go through your essay multiple times to catch any possible mistakes and check for coherence while you are at it. You can even ask a reliable person to do it for you for an unbiased review.

With these steps followed, you are surely going to entice the evaluator. You will be able to write an essay that would linger in their heads for quite a while. With that said, nothing can be perfected without patience and hard work. Start practicing and see yourself emerge as an excellent future architect.

Hire an Expert:

Essay writing is a very daunting and time taking task, specially for those students who are not from English background or doing part-time jobs. In such a situation, it is always advisable to take help from an expert. There are many expert  UK essay writers  online and provide top essay writing services, which can provide you with high-quality and error-free essays.

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The AR looks beyond isolated buildings, commissioning in-depth theoretical essays that engage with the wider social, cultural and political context architecture sits in, as well as the impact and potential of architectural cultures and practices. Our writers include world-renowned critics, theorists, and architects, whose independent voices contribute to a thick-woven fabric of industrious longform journalism

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Photo essay: life is a beach, in practice: daar on spatial justice in sicily and palestine, alberto ponis (1933–), salt of the earth: the past and future of building with brine, as far as the olive tree grows: unpacking the mediterranean diet, the long shadow of rome, regenerational divide: nicosia, cyprus, the mediterranean hypersea: mapping troubled waters, bodies of land: feminism and decolonisation, in practice: mycket on queerness, clubbing and architecture as the crowd, iwona buczkowska (1953–), angela davis (1944–), reparations as reconstruction, repairing allensworth, interview with kader attia, lin huiyin (1904–1955) and liang sicheng (1901–1972), retrospective: theaster gates, rebuilding gaza, in what style should we repair, who, where, when, why, what " rel="bookmark"> folio: who, where, when, why, what, editorial: open house, building coalition through contradictions: the sharjah architecture triennial 2023, dress rehearsal: chicago architecture biennial 2023, photo essay: the photographic work of francesca torzo, frames of reference: against the blank canvas, model matters: starting with found materials, tough competition: negotiating architecture contests, uneven playing fields: untold stories of starting a practice, back of a napkin: the enduring influence of an ephemeral sketch, forgotten history: a vision for palestinian refugees’ agricultural self-sufficiency, folio: ryue nishizawa’s desk, where to begin: ‘i started with coffee and cities’, editorial: first principles, donald judd (1928–1994), retrospective: khammash architects, apocalypse urbanism: cities for an uninhabitable world, dry ice: antarctica under review, desert dystopias: warnings from desertified worlds, interview with salma samar damluji, in practice: aziza chaouni on preserving morocco’s cultural heritage, border sands: policing in the sonoran desert, nuclear colonialism in maralinga, experimental saharanism: exploiting desert environments, folio: trafalgar road housing by james gowan, editorial: just deserts, return and resettlement: masterplan in ngarannam, nigeria by tosin oshinowo, imaginary property: artificial intelligence and design, cost of care: reflections on the skid row housing trust, the public housing paradox in singapore, this gameworld is yours: virtual exploitation, outrage: proptech, herman jessor (1894–1990), fiction: deeds, collective ownership against deforestation, cottage colonialism: lakeside property in ontario, in practice: architects against housing alienation on building an equitable housing system, typology: co-housing, property values: the enclosure of aotearoa new zealand, folio: stop hoarding housing by darren cullen, editorial: no trespassing.

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Architecture in renaissance italy.

Recto: Temple Types: in Antis and Prostyle (Vitruvius, Book 3, Chapter 2, nos. 2, 3); Verso: Temple Types: Peripteral (Vitruvius, Book 3, Chapter 2, no. 5).

Attributed to a member of the Sangallo family

Villa Almerico (Villa Rotunda), from I quattro libri dell'architettura di Andrea Palladio (Book 2, page 19)

Andrea Palladio

I quattro libri dell'architettura di Andrea Palladio. Ne'quale dopo un breue trattato de' cinque ordini (Book 2, page 19)

Department of European Paintings , The Metropolitan Museum of Art

October 2002

Italian Renaissance architects based their theories and practices on classical Roman examples . The Renaissance revival of classical Rome was as important in architecture as it was in literature. A pilgrimage to Rome to study the ancient buildings and ruins, especially the Colosseum and Pantheon, was considered essential to an architect’s training. Classical orders and architectural elements such as columns, pilasters, pediments, entablatures, arches, and domes form the vocabulary of Renaissance buildings. Vitruvius’ writings also influenced the Renaissance definition of beauty in architecture. As in the classical world, Renaissance architecture is characterized by harmonious form, mathematical proportion, and a unit of measurement based on the human scale .

During the Renaissance, architects trained as humanists helped raise the status of their profession from skilled laborer to artist. They hoped to create structures that would appeal to both emotion and reason. Three key figures in Renaissance architecture were Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, and Andrea Palladio.

Brunelleschi Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446) is widely considered the first Renaissance architect. Trained as a goldsmith in his native city of Florence, Brunelleschi soon turned his interests to architecture, traveling to Rome to study ancient buildings. Among his greatest accomplishments is the engineering of the dome of Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo). He was also the first since antiquity to use the classical orders Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian in a consistent and appropriate manner.

Although Brunelleschi’s structures may appear simple, they rest on an underlying system of proportion. Brunelleschi often began with a unit of measurement whose repetition throughout the building created a sense of harmony, as in the Ospedale degli Innocenti (Florence, 1419). This building is based on a modular cube, which determines the height of and distance between the columns, and the depth of each bay.

Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) worked as an architect from the 1450s onward, principally in Florence, Rimini, and Mantua. As a trained humanist and true Renaissance man, Alberti was as accomplished as an architect as he was a humanist, musician , and art theorist. Alberti’s many treatises on art include Della Pittura (On Painting), De Sculptura (On Sculpture), and De re Aedificatoria (On Architecture). The first treatise, Della Pittura , was a fundamental handbook for artists, explaining the principles behind linear perspective, which may have been first developed by Brunelleschi. Alberti shared Brunelleschi’s reverence for Roman architecture and was inspired by the example of Vitruvius, the only Roman architectural theorist whose writings are extant.

Alberti aspired to re-create the glory of ancient times through architecture. His facades of the Tempio Malatestiano (Rimini, 1450) and the Church of Santa Maria Novella (Florence, 1470) are based on Roman temple fronts. His deep understanding of the principles of classical architecture are also seen in the Church of Sant’Andrea (Mantua, 1470). The columns here are not used decoratively, but retain their classical function as load-bearing supports. For Alberti, architecture was not merely a means of constructing buildings; it was a way to create meaning.

Palladio Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) was the chief architect of the Venetian Republic, writing an influential treatise, I quattro libri dell’architettura (Four Books on Architecture, 1570; 41.100.126.19 ). Due to the new demand for villas in the sixteenth century, Palladio specialized in domestic architecture , although he also designed two beautiful and impressive churches in Venice, San Giorgio Maggiore (1565) and Il Redentore (1576). Palladio’s villas are often centrally planned, drawing on Roman models of country villas. The Villa Emo (Treviso, 1559) was a working estate, while the Villa Rotonda (Vicenza, 1566–69) was an aristocratic refuge. Both plans rely on classical ideals of symmetry, axiality, and clarity. The simplicity of Palladian designs allowed them to be easily reproduced in rural England and, later, on southern plantations in the American colonies .

Department of European Paintings. “Architecture in Renaissance Italy.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/itar/hd_itar.htm (October 2002)

Further Reading

Heydenreich, Ludwig H. Architecture in Italy, 1400–1500 . Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Hopkins, Andrew. Italian Architecture: From Michelangelo to Borromini . London: Thames & Hudson, 2002.

Lotz, Wolfgang. Architecture in Italy, 1500–1600 . Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Additional Essays by Department of European Paintings

• Department of European Paintings. “ The Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity .” (October 2002)
• Department of European Paintings. “ Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) .” (originally published October 2004, last revised March 2010)
• Department of European Paintings. “ Titian (ca. 1485/90?–1576) .” (October 2003)
• Department of European Paintings. “ The Papacy and the Vatican Palace .” (October 2002)

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List of Rulers

• List of Rulers of Europe
• Florence and Central Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
• Rome and Southern Italy, 1400–1600 A.D.
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• 15th Century A.D.
• 16th Century A.D.
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• Architecture
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What Is Architecture: What to Cover in a Student's Short Essay?

The word "architecture" may conjure up ideas for a person of a massive building with many floors and an impressive appearance. In actuality, architecture is so much more than that. If you are interested in learning about architecture, consider attending college and pursuing a degree in architecture, or you can buy architecture essays.

It is the art and science of creating buildings. The Greeks and Romans perfected this art form over thousands of years. Through their toil, architecture can be considered one of the most enduring arts practiced by humanity.

• Architecture

It is the art and science of designing buildings, structures, and spaces that meet the needs of people using them. Architecture originates from the Greek arkhitekton, or "master builder."

Architecture has been defined in different ways throughout history. It is a broad field of study that involves concepts such as engineering, aesthetics, functionality, and sustainability. Alternatively, architecture has been defined as the art and science of thinking about space, form, and scale to create functional structures within our environment.

Additionally, it can be described as a design, planning, and construction process that shapes our built environment to make it functional and beautiful while providing shelter against hazards such as weather or fire. For example, Luxury architecture is more than just a building. It's a lifestyle, a statement, and an experience.

In recent years there has been a shift in focus away from aesthetics toward sustainability. It is now widely accepted that buildings should be designed to meet aesthetic standards and promote good health for those who occupy them through passive heating and cooling strategies.

Architecture is a multi-faceted discipline with various sub-fields, including urban planning, interior design, industrial design, civil engineering, and environmental engineering. Moreover, it also includes construction management, landscape architecture, historic preservation, urban design, and structural dynamics.

Various Types of Architecture

Architecture is a broad discipline that can be divided into categories based on structure, location, or use. These include residential architecture, commercial architecture, industrial architecture, and many more.

1.   Domestic Architecture

This type of architecture is the one that we use in our homes, offices, and other public places. The primary purpose of this type of architecture is to make our lives comfortable.

2.   Vernacular" Architecture

The term vernacular refers to an area's native or indigenous style, often associated with rural regions or minority groups within a country. This architecture is not meant for people with high income but is made so that they can live comfortably with their family members and friends in their own house.

3.   Religious Architecture

Religious architecture is the art and craft of designing places of worship such as churches, synagogues, or mosques; any structure is intended to perform religious rituals and ceremonies.

It includes all types of buildings like temples, mosques, etc., where people pray or meditate on religious matters with their friends once a week or once a month, depending on their religious beliefs (Islam, Christianity, etc.).

4.   Black House

Blackhouse architecture is a design concept that has been stirring up interest in architecture. It's an unconventional building style that aims to use a space's natural elements, such as light and wind, to create an interactive environment.

How Architecture Is A Combination Of Science And Art?

Architecture is a combination of science and art. Architecture is a science because it relies on the laws of physics and mathematics to create structures. It is also an art because it involves creativity in form and function.

Architecture has been around for thousands of years and has evolved from simple structures to complex buildings. Civil Engineering is all about mathematics and physics, so it makes sense that engineers are good architects.

It takes a lot of skill to draw up plans for buildings that will last for centuries, but there's also a lot of creativity involved. You have to imagine how people will use your facility and what they want from it – this is where your imagination comes into play!

Architects don't just design buildings: they design entire cities! Cities need roads, public transport systems, parks, and other green spaces for people to enjoy leisure activities. They also need housing for everyone (who wants to live there).

To understand architecture, it is essential to know what it is not. Architecture is not just buildings or structures like bridges or dams but also includes infrastructure such as roadways and tunnels that support human activities. It also has landscape architecture which deals with outdoor spaces like parks and gardens and indoor areas like lobbies or waiting rooms.

Architecture Can Mean Different Things to Different People

Architecture can mean different things to different people. To some, it's a great way to express themselves and be creative. For others, it's an outlet for their passion for art and design. And then some see architecture as a means of making money!

For example, some architects focus on creating beautiful designs that look good from the outside, while others are more concerned with how well they work inside — how much light comes into rooms at certain times of the day or how easily disabled people can get around in them.

Architecture Is About Making Creative Choices within Limitations

The architect must determine the best way to meet the client's needs and desires within the physical constraints of the site and local building codes. For example, if a site has only 10 feet between two buildings, it won't be easy to accommodate an expansive courtyard or garden area.

Architects must also consider the materials available and how they will be used in a given project. If a client wants a house that looks like one made of stone but has no quarries nearby, then they will have to use other materials (such as concrete or stucco). The architect must make these decisions based on what is possible given their budget and time constraints.

The architect can also choose what style they want to use for a particular project. The chosen type will depend on whether the client prefers modern or traditional design elements. For example, some clients prefer sleek glass towers while others prefer more traditional styles such as colonial revival homes with white columns out the front glass.

Experiencing Architecture First-Hand

Experiencing architecture first-hand is an essential part of understanding the discipline. The best way to learn about architecture is to experience it by visiting an architectural landmark or exploring a new city. Even if you cannot travel, there are plenty of ways to immerse yourself in the world.

By Liliana Alvarez

• Architecture StudentArchitecture

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The Architect and the Accessible City: The Prize-Winning Essay

• Written by Sophia Bannert
• Published on April 29, 2013

Each year, the Department of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley bestows the Berkeley Prize (s) in order to promote the investigation of architecture as a social art. This year's theme was "The Architect and the Accessible City." The following essay, " A day in the life of a wheelchair user: navigating Lincoln, " written by Sophia Bannert of the University of Lincoln, took first prize.

Architectural discourse has gradually become incoherent with the social and ethical needs of the contemporary city. With the relationship between theory and practice strained, lack of social relevance in design is ubiquitous. Practising architects frequently regard theory as esoteric and non-transferable, whilst many theorists do not manifest their ideas into reality and build. With the connection gripping the precipice by its fingers, this paper is conceived; written to persuade, motivate and encourage that there is real value in instigating ideas put forth in this paper. Concepts proposed are not only applicable to the city of Lincoln but are relevant and adaptable to all cities. Inspired by the architecture which has not yet manifested, it hopes to ignite the spirit needed to eradicate social inequities in urban design.

As Albert Einstein said: “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts”. In order to palpably grasp an understanding of what it is truly like to be physically disabled in Lincoln, I rented a wheelchair for one day to see for myself whether the facts fitted the theory.

Read more of Sophia Bannert's prize-winning story, after the break...

Alone and small in the street, my self-awareness heightens. Large swarms of hurried people part when they see me approaching. My whole identity has changed in the eyes of the city within minutes. My wheelchair is my fortress and the enemy. With its large spindly wheels as my first and only defence, they are also my burden. Jarred into an utterly complex version of what I formerly knew as reality, my eyes begin scrutinising and dissecting the cobbled street surface ahead into zones which I can and cannot access. Never before had I seen the streetscape in such meticulous detail. Tiny height differences such as curbs and grooves between cobbles become mountains, cruelly halting progress and making small advances, exhausting. Whilst battling physical obstructions, I myself have become one. If the pavements were widened, perhaps disabled citizens wouldn’t be seen as causing an obstruction.

One of the most historic cathedral cities of Europe, renowned for its vibrant fusion of old and new, Lincoln is situated in the east midlands of England. People are attracted to the city’s picturesque cobbled streets, which weave the city body together like capillaries, constricting the flow of people in places and allowing access via tangles of short cuts, in others.

Currently witnessing an unprecedented population boom , Lincolnshire Research Observatory have released figures stating that since 2010 Lincoln has seen a sharp decrease in deaths and a dramatic rise in births. This correlation is unfolding on both a local and an international scale. Predictions from the World Health Organisation (WHO) state that within the next five years, the number of adults aged sixty-five and over will outnumber all children under the age of five. By 2050, these older adults will outnumber all children under the age of fourteen. The global population is rising at a rapid rate, raising questions about how the new third generation should be accommodated. Increased longevity may not be such a cause for celebration; this worldwide phenomenon is symbiotic with disability. WHO calculates that ‘two thirds of disabled people are over 60’. The process of aging is often accompanied by some form of disability- be it physical or mental. Disability is now more likely to affect your life than ever before. These predictions are threatening chaotic future repercussions. Our urban environment desperately needs to evolve at a rate which mirrors that of humanity.

The architecture of Lincoln City tells of a rich and fascinating history. Divided across the foot and head of a hill, the Romans connected these two districts with Steep Hill. Named ‘Britain’s Great street’ in 2012 by the Academy of Urbanism, two-thousand year-old Steep Hill is well known for its difficulty in ascending and descending, boasting a one in seven gradient.

My wheelchair rattles and comes to a halt, jammed in between the quaint cobbles at the foot of steep hill; I cannot access any further.

Newly laid, flat cobble stones would alleviate this problem, whilst maintaining the historic beauty of Lincoln. A more level surface under foot will improve transitions for everybody. The installation of a funicular railway would bind the two city levels seamlessly, whilst becoming an attraction in itself. This has been discussed to improve the accessibility of Steep Hill by the city council, but is as of yet just an idea.

In the words of Raymond Lifchez, ‘Architecture can be empowering, only if architects develop empathy.’ This quote rang true in my mind after being denied the use of the disabled toilet in the University of Lincoln’s architecture building. Whether the architect, Rick Mather, lacked empathy towards disabled users or whether he was designing according to poor minimum standards, the standing reality is that the disabled toilet was too slim to manoeuvre a wheelchair inside and close the door. In my opinion, minimum standards need to be raised to prevent faults such as this occurring.

Article 9, ‘Accessibility’, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, states that: all parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure people with disabilities are treated equally to others. This includes ‘the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility’, as well as: ‘developing and monitoring the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public.’ Despite being a constituent of the United Nations Convention, Lincoln has not met the terms. Lincoln has also breached at least six of the articles included in The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000), regarding, non-discrimination, human dignity and respect.

I am curiously perplexed how even after signing conventions stating otherwise, Lincoln is still creating inaccessible spaces alienating disabled inhabitants. The fact is that it is cheaper to serve poor access if no one is going to be prosecuted. This raises the question of whether the guidelines should become law; implementing a consistent universal design. The city council are being blind and deaf to the needs of their population. “Until these problems are resolved, policy statements that emphasise the importance of an inclusive urban environment will be perceived by at least some members of society to be little more than empty platitudes.” (Atkins, 2001)

I make my way to a ramp situated at the back entrance of a supermarket, to buy lunch. After several attempts with different approaches; I still can’t heave myself up the ramp. The incline is too steep; with a final attempt my wheelchair falls behind me and I am hurled out of the chair onto the cold, mocking, concrete.

This is a statement to all designers and architects. Within a mere few hours of navigating Lincoln in a wheelchair, my basic human rights have been breached more than once. Being denied the right to use a toilet as well as being unable to access a supermarket to buy food independently is simply unacceptable. The ramp’s incline should be lessened, to fully integrate all users.

Internal environments are just as important as external environments. Visiting a well-known coffee chain, I soon unravelled a domino effect of obstructions which hadn’t been anticipated. With the counter being high above my head, reaching for a scalding hot drink proves just as tricky as holding it whilst manoeuvring a wheelchair with both arms. The severe lack of fully flexible wheelchair spaces is just as much of an inconvenience. Being a well-known global company, one would have expected a highly developed and ergonomic universal design which catered for all kinds of people, but this is, surprisingly, not the case.

Discussing accessibility with wheelchair users of the city offers another perspective. Michael has been bound to a wheelchair since childhood. Having lived in Lincoln all his life, he is well aware of the barriers present; He has mentally mapped out the streets in his head knowing exactly where he can and cannot access, with a shockingly small area in which he feels confident to travel within. He has only ever ventured up to the upper half of the city on several occasions and with enormous difficulty. This constructs a feeling of inferiority; only the physically fit can easily visit and exist in the higher land of the city.

He had longed to travel to the Usher Art gallery but had been wrongly informed that was inaccessible for the physically disabled. This illustrates a lack of information in the city regarding accessibility, leading to perceptions that the urban environment is unsafe. I believe that this can be greatly improved with local campaigning and media coverage.

Public transport is another important element of accessibility within a city, which unlocks parts of the metropolis which would otherwise be unreachable for some. As Norman Foster said; “The spaces that spiral around buildings act as the lungs.” Regulating and guiding the flow of people in and out of the building membranes is just as important as the individual buildings themselves.

When Michael tries to catch a bus, it is common for the bus driver to not stop for him. This is because some old busses are ill-equipped for wheelchairs. He was recently denied access to catching a bus five times in a row. However, one journey he did board a bus which did not have designated wheelchair space to secure his wheelchair down: his wheelchair tipped over on its side, crushing his arm; causing injury. Drivers of busses that are not fully equipped are understandably wary of carrying disabled members on board, and vice versa. Michael is now wary of travelling on buses. Lincoln can remove these fears by ensuring all busses are appropriately equipped with disability facilities such as the ‘kneeling’ feature and providing adequate disabled spaced.

Throughout the discussion with Michael, I was appalled that he did not say one positive about accessibility in Lincoln. In the words of Helen Keller, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Participatory design involving an array of all types of people’s opinion would accurately manifest the physicality of society’s diverse needs.

I have noticed positive aspects of accessibility working in Lincoln. Busy roads are controlled with pedestrian crossing points, each equipped with tactile, twisting and visual cues; excellent for the deaf and blind. Although these road safety design elements are implemented by the government’s Department of Transport as standard, it shows hope for integration of other disability aids in the future.

I returned to the city centre at night time discovering an entirely altered perspective. A place usually bustling with people is now abandoned and quiet. ‘It feels not only empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs’.

Seldom are disabled people seen at night time. I believe this is because of distrust that the streets are safe at night. The fear of being attacked must be attacked itself, in order for it to leave. The city needs clear signage and well lit, open spaces with removal of obstacles. Health and safety is paramount.

The physical architecture overlaps into the psychological architecture formed in our minds. Subtle physical segregation influences the way that the separated individuals are perceived in society. Transition zones in the city, formed through voids between structures, have a continual stream of human activity filtering through them. Conduits of public life, these spaces are animated and brought to life via the energy of human existence. Thus, it can be argued that these spaces have become social organisms themselves; taking on their own psyche; echoing the combined individual minds filling the voids; a collective conscious and unconsciousness is created. Prejudice is embedded into the walls of the city.

Within a society individuals learn social attitudes from one another. Individual thoughts merge into a collective consciousness, displaying ‘herd behaviour’ at an unconscious level. Disability prejudices are often learnt in this way. It can be said that social media sites have recently become a live stream of visualised collective consciousness. Therefore, this medium has great power to battle social barriers.

A Louis Harris Poll showed that 58% of able bodied persons interviewed felt embarrassed and uncomfortable when in the presence of a person with a disability and 47% felt actual fear. Able bodied fearing the largest minority group in the world states that encountering disabled citizens is not a common occurrence; perhaps, this is because of poor access acting as a barrier to public spaces, which have been designed by these people, creating a schism, sectioning off the disabled. This occurrence begs the question of how well one can design a space for everybody, when they are unaware of the entire demographic. Indeed, a barrier ridden landscape is bound to have occurred in such a vicious cycle with detrimental results seen now in our cities.

When observing disabled citizens in the heart of Lincoln, I note that their mere presence provokes undulating reactions from able bodied strangers. They swerve from being completely ignored, to being paid unnaturally full amounts of attention. Being either fully known or unknown, there is no comfortable middle ground of awareness. Swinging from two extremes illustrates how uncomfortable and inexperienced this society is in encountering people with physical disabilities. This unspoken barrier can be gradually removed with social activism and campaigning. More importantly, architecture has an absolutely essential role to play in breaking these stigmas down. If physical barriers are broken down, then the social barriers will quickly follow suit. Once our city is built for everybody then prejudices will vanish.

Cities are in a constant state of flux. In the pursuit of equitable progress in Lincoln, a project such as this will have to be tackled step by step, until the steps have been worn down into a ramp. It will require incremental yet substantial investment of time and capital. But before all of that, the first stride requires a heightened social awareness in society, expanding the boundaries of understanding, engaging citizens; realising the collective need for a more accessible city. The larger the crowd of support; the louder the message; the more suitable the city will be for all, expressing a city belonging to everyone.

We are part of a collective; we must include everyone and fight for all. After all, that is what community is all about, is it not? Failure to respond to the demographic changes occurring will betray our future generations. As Einstein said, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking as we used when we created them.” We need to be forward thinking with guidelines which architects will want to obey for the good of their people.

Egalitarianism is vital to successful accessibility for all. We need designs that are not inherently discriminatory and will facilitate security, access, equality and dignity, regardless of physical or mental ability. Lincoln’s beauty and history should be there for all to enjoy and appreciate. Everybody deserves equal access. In the words of Mahatma Ghandi, ‘A Nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.’

Sophia Bannert is currently earning her architecture degree at the University of Lincoln. She aims to be an advocate for inclusive and accessible design, helping to eradicate the architectural and social discrimination prevalent against disability in our urban environments. Message her at [email protected].

See the article, with complete bibliography, at the Berkeley Prize website

Image of wheelchair in front of barrier via shutterstock.com

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Essay on Architecture

Students are often asked to write an essay on Architecture in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Architecture

Introduction to architecture.

Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings. It involves creating structures that are functional, safe, and aesthetically pleasing.

Role of Architecture

Architecture plays a crucial role in our lives. It provides us with spaces to live, work, and play. Good architecture can inspire us and make our lives better.

Types of Architecture

There are many types of architecture, including residential, commercial, and landscape. Each type serves a different purpose and requires unique design considerations.

Importance of Architecture

Architecture is important because it reflects our values, culture, and history. It’s a way for societies to express themselves and leave a lasting legacy.

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250 Words Essay on Architecture

Introduction.

Architecture, a term that resonates with the design of buildings and physical structures, is a multidimensional discipline that intertwines art, technology, and culture. It’s a field that not only shapes our physical surroundings but also impacts our social, economic, and environmental contexts.

The Evolution of Architecture

The evolution of architecture is a testament to human ingenuity and adaptability. From the primitive huts of ancient civilizations to the glass skyscrapers of the modern era, architectural designs have evolved in response to changing needs, resources, and technologies. This evolution is not linear but cyclical, with styles and techniques often revisited and reinterpreted in new contexts.

Architecture as a Reflection of Culture

Architecture serves as a mirror to society, reflecting cultural values, beliefs, and aspirations. Each architectural structure is a physical manifestation of the era’s zeitgeist, embodying the prevailing ideologies, technologies, and aesthetic sensibilities. In this sense, architecture becomes a historical narrative, telling stories of societies and civilizations.

The Role of Technology in Architecture

Technology has been a driving force in the evolution of architecture. From the use of simple tools in primitive structures to the implementation of advanced software in modern designs, technology has expanded the possibilities of what can be achieved architecturally. It has facilitated the creation of complex, sustainable, and aesthetically pleasing structures that were once unimaginable.

In conclusion, architecture is a dynamic discipline that intersects various fields and reflects the progression of human society. It’s an art form that not only serves practical purposes but also embodies cultural narratives and pushes the boundaries of technological innovation.

500 Words Essay on Architecture

Architecture is an interdisciplinary field that lies at the intersection of art, science, and culture. It is a discipline that involves designing and constructing environments in which people live, work, and play. Embodying the spirit of an era, architecture reflects societal values, technological advancements, and the creative aspirations of individuals and communities.

The Evolution of Architectural Styles

Architecture has evolved significantly over time, with each epoch producing distinct architectural styles that reflect its unique cultural, technological, and artistic context. The grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids, the symmetry of Greek temples, the ornate details of Gothic cathedrals, and the sleek minimalism of modern skyscrapers each mark a significant phase in architectural evolution.

Architecture as a Reflection of Society

Architecture is often seen as a mirror of society, reflecting the economic conditions, social norms, and cultural values of a period. For instance, the lavish palaces of the Renaissance period showcase the wealth and power of the ruling class, while the functional simplicity of modernist architecture reflects a shift towards efficiency and utility in the wake of industrialization.

Technological advancements have had a profound impact on architecture. Developments in materials, construction techniques, and design software have not only broadened the possibilities for architectural design but have also improved the efficiency and sustainability of buildings. For instance, the advent of steel and reinforced concrete revolutionized the construction of high-rise buildings, while digital design tools have enabled architects to create complex and innovative structures.

Sustainable and Inclusive Architecture

In the face of climate change and increasing urbanization, the focus of contemporary architecture is shifting towards sustainability and inclusivity. Sustainable architecture seeks to minimize the environmental impact of buildings through energy efficiency, use of sustainable materials, and integration of green spaces. Inclusive architecture, on the other hand, emphasizes accessibility and usability for all, regardless of age, ability, or socio-economic status.

Conclusion: The Future of Architecture

The future of architecture is likely to be shaped by further technological advancements, evolving societal needs, and the imperative of sustainability. As architects continue to push the boundaries of design, architecture will remain a dynamic and vital field that contributes significantly to the quality of our built environment and our lives within it.

In conclusion, architecture is a complex and ever-evolving discipline that reflects the spirit of the times. It is a testament to human ingenuity and creativity, shaping our world in profound ways. Through the lens of architecture, we can gain insights into our past, understand our present, and envision our future.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Poundbury, Dorset, England. Photo by RoJohn/Getty

The new architecture wars

Traditionalist and modernist architecture are both mass-produced, industrial and international. is there an alternative.

by Owen Hatherley   + BIO

The ultramodern architecture bubble has burst. Today, in much of the world, new public buildings are no longer designed by the ‘starchitects’ who dominated in the late 1990s and 2000s, including Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry. Cities are no longer filling with vaulting, flowing, gooey, non-orthogonal buildings engineered through advanced computing power. Architecture has been hit by a new sobriety. Tradition, apparently, is back.

The reaction against ultramodern architecture arrived slowly at first, but accelerated with the financial crash of 2008, as the world economy and many political systems became increasingly unsteady. Amid this apparent chaos, the stability of neoclassical architecture was advocated from the very top. In 2020, the United States president Donald Trump signed an executive order advocating ‘classical’ architecture, including ‘beautiful’ traditional styles such as Greek Revival, Gothic, Georgian and neoclassical. This followed the British Conservative government appointing the late philosopher Roger Scruton to head a 2018 commission ensuring that new housing would be ‘built beautiful’, which Scruton made clear meant ‘traditional’.

Even earlier, in 2014, the Chinese president Xi Jinping issued an edict demanding an end to ‘weird architecture’ in China – likely a reference to buildings such as Guangzhou’s curvaceous Opera House (designed by Hadid), the gravity-defying cantilevers of Beijing’s CCTV headquarters (by Koolhaas/OMA) or the nearby ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic Stadium (by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei). Also in Beijing, the traditional alleyways known as ‘hutongs’, many of which were swept away by the Olympics in 2008, have been carefully restored over the past few years as tourist attractions. And in the European Union, particularly Germany and Poland, projects of historical reconstruction – the kind that, in a previous decade, might have involved ultramodern non-orthogonal CGI-optimised arts centres – now feature new traditional-style buildings with gables and pitched roofs, set along winding lanes.

The argument made by the advocates of tradition and classicism is that the answers to the problems plaguing architecture and urbanism in the 21st century lie in the past: the style needed today, the logic goes, is a revival of the traditionally ‘beautiful’ forms of classicism, not some ‘weird’ global version of modernism.

M odernism in architecture is now at least a century old, and has many traditions within it, including gooey CGI formalism, warm Scandinavian architecture from the 1930s, or the harsh and tactile Brutalist monuments built by Britain, Brazil and Japan in the 1960s. There is no single thing called ‘modern architecture’, which is why rejecting it in toto should be as ridiculous as claiming that all jazz or all modern paintings are worthless.

However, in the 21st century, modern architecture has reached an impasse. This problem, according to many of its critics, is that the style is placeless . This argument is not always accurate – most countries have had their own regional or intensely local versions – but, as a broad point against modern architecture, it is a convincing criticism. These buildings could be anywhere; they fail to engage with what is around them. At one time, these features were actually considered virtues.

Consider ‘the International Style’, perhaps the most successful sub-strand of modern architecture, which was formulated by architects and designers such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the first half of the 20th century. It was so named for the way its cubic, repetitious style had emerged in several countries at once during the 1920s, suggesting it could be reproduced around the world. With steel frames, air conditioning and elevators you could build the exact same skyscraper in Stuttgart, Sydney, Seattle, Seoul or Dar es Salaam. The same interchangeability has been true of the ultramodern architecture of the 1990s and 2000s, with designers rolling out similar designs on ex-industrial waterfronts across the globe, often with an exorbitant wastage of energy and materials.

This sensitivity to place was intended to address the dilemmas of globalism

Perhaps the single most prominent campaigner against modern architecture in the world is Charles Windsor, the King of the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth. In the 1980s, he became widely known for his one-liners directed at various modern buildings: the National Theatre in London (now heritage-listed and much-loved) was described as ‘a nuclear power station’; a proposed Brutalist expansion of London’s classical National Gallery was a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’. Putting his money (or, rather, his land holdings) where his mouth was, he then developed an entire town according to traditional design principles grounded in place. Construction began in the early 1990s at a site just outside Dorchester in Dorset that he renamed Poundbury. Over the decades, it has been transformed into a new neoclassical town intended to be attractive, traditional and ecologically sustainable. It stands as a criticism against the apparent coldness, placelessness and disregard for local materials seen in modern architectural styles – a criticism that extends far beyond the opinions and schemes of King Charles III.

The National Theatre, London. Photo by Steve Cadman/Flickr

The theorists and historians of architectural modernism have long been aware of these criticisms. In the 1980s, as the future King Charles III was attacking London’s non-traditional buildings, the British architectural historian Kenneth Frampton wrote that a modern architecture sensitive to place and materials was required – a ‘critical regionalism’, as he called it. This newfound sensitivity to place was intended to address the dilemmas of globalism, and is becoming only more urgent as unsustainable carbon-intensive building practices come under scrutiny.

But contemporary ‘carbuncles’ have failed to solve the deeper problems of the built environment, and the spectacular architecture of the 2000s is now achingly unfashionable. Today, the most respected designers tend to be those who bridge classicism and modernism, such as Caruso St John or Valerio Olgiati. And UK critics such as Oliver Wainwright or Rowan Moore can be relied upon to ridicule the expensive, computer-aided museums and galleries designed by the starchitects who rose to prominence in earlier decades.

The result is that, in the 2020s, modern architecture has become chastened. But by criticising placelessness – a lack of attention to local differences, whether aesthetic or material – architecture’s ‘trads’ are not always being entirely honest. Increasingly, modernism and classicism share the same issues.

S tyle wars have returned to architectural discourse. And, as expected, social media is the place to see these kinds of conflicts (and the false binaries they often represent) in their most grossly caricatural form. Online platforms show two obvious positions, both identifiable with a particular politics. One occupies a similar political location to Trump and the British Tories with their mandated classicism. This position is associated with glossy images of classical buildings, ancient Greek and Roman ruins, Central European historic cities, or American Beaux Arts edifices. These images are presented as bright examples of past solutions to the problems of modern architecture. On X (formerly Twitter), some of the accounts sharing these images, with names along the lines of @TraditionalWesternBeauty, are fairly benign. Others are clearly affiliated with far-Right radicalism, accompanied by faint dog-whistling about ‘globalists’ and ‘cultural Marxists’. From this perspective, modern architecture is seen as an example of a placeless globalism, expressed through the ultramodern buildings of Hadid or Gehry, the concrete Brutalism of the 1970s or the glass skyscrapers of the 1950s. The avatars of these accounts are often images of Greek, Roman or Renaissance statues, as if Michelangelo’s David has stepped down from his perch in Florence, picked up a smartphone and decided to denounce degenerate architecture by making memes.

On the other side of the debate are those sharing longing depictions of postwar international modernist architecture, usually through old photographs of British housing estates, Brazilian and Indian public buildings, and US universities. This side of the debate is related to the fact that, at the same time as traditionalism has revived, there has been a major resurgence of interest in what was once the most hated modern architectural subgenre: Brutalism. A modern style that emerged between the 1950s and ’70s, Brutalism is defined by aggressive, dissonant and uncompromisingly right-angled buildings made from raw, unadorned concrete. This style is exemplified by Charles III’s hated National Theatre in London as well as buildings such as Boston City Hall, the Kyoto International Conference Centre, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre or the National Library of Argentina. In recent years, these enigmatic buildings have found their way onto T-shirts, tea towels and mugs. They also tend to be particularly popular among Millennials. Go, for instance, to the Barbican complex in London – an enormous megastructure involving housing, an arts centre, a concert hall, two schools and a library, all in the same bush-hammered concrete – and you’ll almost always see a tour group of youngish, fashionably dressed people being shown round its walkways and foyers. Though there are far fewer champions of this kind of architecture in party politics, even on the Left, the accounts that advocate for this kind of modernism online, with names such as @BrutalistBoi1987, typically lean Left-Liberal.

Resources, technology and energy use can no longer be taken for granted

I have more in common with @BrutalistBoi1987 than with @TraditionalWesternBeauty. Though I enjoy a nicely fluted marble Ionic peristyle as much as the next man, I’m an unabashed enthusiast for the wild ambitions of postwar modernism with its quest for new worlds and new spaces. I find the welfare states of postwar Europe more attractive as sponsors of architecture than I do the slave states of Athens, Rome and Washington, DC. But there are undoubted similarities. It pains me to concede this, as a confirmed enthusiast of Brutalism and other forms of modernist architecture, but both sides of the style wars in contemporary architecture have a certain amount in common. Online, both movements are nostalgic, whether for a recent past or a much more distant one. Both tend to caricature their opponents and treat buildings as abstracted aesthetic objects – little more than JPEGs. Both prefer images in which human life is largely absent. Both keep commentary and history to a minimum (after all, there is only so much history that can be analysed in an online argument). Both work against the reality that architecture is really about space and can be fully understood only by experiencing it in person. But, above all, both perspectives wrench architecture out of its context in a particular place: both the cosmopolitan, urban Left and the ostentatiously nativist, reactionary Right are really celebrating an international style of architecture.

The false binary extends far beyond social media and the domain of style itself. In many ways, the arguments that characterise the style wars miss the mark. The impasse faced by architecture, whether modern or classical, is really about global approaches to materials and construction, rather than aesthetics. Resources, technology and energy use can no longer be taken for granted when it comes to architectural style.

Modernism’s guilt is easily proved: all that concrete, so proudly displayed. Concrete and steel are the materials upon which most modern architecture relies, especially the heavy Brutalist structures of the 20th century and the spectacular architecture of the early 2000s. These materials are hugely carbon-intensive (and expensive) to produce and distribute around the world. There is likely no way in which modernism could keep being practised as it was in the 20th century. On this, ‘traditionalists’ ought to have an answer grounded in place. However, architecture today of any style tends not to use local materials because, in many parts of the world, it is more expensive and difficult to build that way. Building with local materials – whether local stone, wood or baked brick – can involve highly skilled labour, which is hard to come by at a time when the construction industry has been comprehensively deskilled. Contractors working on just-in-time principles prefer to ornament their buildings with prefabricated pieces that can be produced in a classical style just as easily as a modern one. Style becomes nothing more than an interchangeable facade.

In the UK, since 2008, new luxury apartment blocks in London have been made from raw concrete frames that are clad in a quarter-inch of ‘traditional’ brick panels. In Germany, the recently reconstructed Berlin Palace (also called the Hohenzollern Palace) is made almost entirely from concrete, albeit with neo-baroque details. And in many places around the world, single-family suburban homes may look ‘traditional’ but are equally prefabricated (and predicated on a wasteful and bleak car-centric planning ideology). Classicism is every bit as mass-produced, industrialised and international as modernism. Critics of modern architecture might argue that this is a recent phenomenon: surely, modernist buildings have always been placeless, whereas classicism has only recently become deformed by globalism. This, however, is also a myth.

H ow can an architectural style that prides itself on specificity, localism and traditional materials be accused of placelessness? To understand the emergence of classicism as a global and industrial style, let’s start with a particular historical moment. Though there are precedents in the Greek and Roman empires – Greco-Roman architecture was fundamentally similar wherever you were in the European-Middle Eastern expanse of the Alexandrine and Roman empires, from York to Yerevan – it was the British who went further than anyone else in creating replicated versions of their home environment in the most unlikely places.

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, through British imperialism, architectural styles that might otherwise be firmly associated with locales such as Surrey, the West Midlands or central Scotland were faithfully reproduced when British settlers tried to build a replica of their society on the wastes they’d attempted to make of somebody else’s: in the deserts and coastlines of Australia, in the grasslands of South Africa, in the tundra of Canada, in the bays and volcanic hills of New Zealand. Among the exported architecture, one building in particular was replicated many times in the second half of the 19th century. You’ll find its ‘original’ by crossing the Solent to a small island south of Great Britain. Take a passenger boat from the quayside of Southampton, in the shadow of its 1960s concrete tower blocks. Onboard, you will pass container ships bringing goods to port and car ferries on their way to France before eventually arriving at the town of Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Nearby, facing the sea, is a palace: Osborne House.

People from the area refer to the Isle of Wight as ‘the Island’. It is a place that thrived during the Victorian era, at the height of the empire, due to its microclimate, which created a fair approximation of the Mediterranean in this corner of the north Atlantic. The Island attracted a remarkable parade of the Victorian great and good – a whole league of extraordinary gentlemen and women including Charles Darwin, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and various aristocrats who stayed as seasonal or permanent guests.

Osborne House began as a commission from the reigning monarch Queen Victoria who wanted for herself and her Prince Consort, Albert Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a private house overlooking the estuary that divides the Island from the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth. Construction was completed in 1851 by the developer Thomas Cubitt, who was then building neoclassical terraced houses in much of what is now inner London. Osborne is generally described as a mere ‘house’ in the histories of royal palaces, and seen as a sign of the constitutional monarchy’s supposedly modest tastes and empathy with its subjects – they even used a developer who built ordinary terraced houses! But it is, of course, a palace, with so much space that it housed an entire naval college for a time, until it was finally turned into a museum after the Second World War. However, the term ‘house’ is not altogether fanciful. It may be a palace, but the scale is that of a medium-sized late-19th-century school. This is not Versailles or Peterhof; no absolute monarch, no Sun King, would be satisfied with Osborne. It is as informal as a home for the empress of an empire could possibly be.

Look more closely, and a much more global, imperial and modern structure starts to reveal itself

What exactly is ‘traditional’ about Osborne? First of all, its design is rooted in Mediterranean classicism, especially the Italian Renaissance. Facing away from the sea, the design is similar to other large houses of the period: flat-roofed, stuccoed and slightly stiff. These elements are artefacts of the German prince’s involvement in the design process and reveal his stolid continental good taste. Inside, this taste – marked by history paintings and marble casts of Greek and Roman statuary – fights it out with Victoria and her children’s love of kitsch, displayed through dozens of paintings of their dogs, and seen at its most grotesque in an entire room where the furniture, picture frames and much else have been crafted from antlers.

But Osborne House was also high-tech for its time. There are all manner of lifts, pulleys, switches, dumbwaiters and then-novel electrical devices to keep the royal family in comfort. Outside are more indications of the traditional style: Palladian windows, two campaniles, and a grand terrace of statues and fountains, planted with the semi-tropical flowers and plants that thrive in the Isle of Wight’s microclimate. In front of a rather too-apt statue of a bound slave girl, a pathway appears to lead to the sea, but kinks off into a picturesque garden, with winding paths, dense trees and what was once a private beach, with a glittering little classical alcove for Victoria herself to take in the view of ships passing by. The entire thing is undeniably beautiful, particularly because it does not ram beauty or grandeur down your throat – a contrivance, but an attractive one.

A photograph of Osborne could serve beautifully as an iconic image in the current architectural style wars. It is an elegant building, clean, clear and attractive, indubitably Western, based as it is on the architecture of the Italian Renaissance. It also appears to be rooted in its site, on the bay overlooking the Solent. Any ‘Trad’ could point to Osborne House and say: ‘This is what we want.’ But look more closely at the building and the history around it, and a much more global, imperial and modern structure starts to reveal itself.

At first glance, it may not be clear that the house is an imperial artefact. The references are Greek, Roman and Italian Renaissance. The truly imperial side of the building is carefully hidden within its public shell (like its high technology and simple, mass-produced building materials). The game is up in a large extension to the house built in 1890, furnished by the Indian architect Bhai Ram Singh in collaboration with John Lockwood Kipling, father of the celebrated novelist Rudyard Kipling. You enter it through several corridors lined with portraits of Indian princes, Rajahs and potentates who had ‘accepted’ her imperial overlordship, as well as some portraits of peoples from other corners of her empire: Africans, Arabs, Māori. Victoria apparently longed to visit India but, on deciding it would be too much of a hassle, she commissioned this annex, which would bring India to her. She had it filled with gifts from her Indian subjects: dishes, plates, architectural models, caskets, carpets. The plaster ceiling in one large hall is in a debased Mughal style – a fusion then being created by architects in British India, known as ‘Indo-Saracenic’ style. Goods and ceilings were apparently an adequate substitute for experience.

From the terrace of Osborne House, Victoria would have been able to see two major military and civilian ports at the centre of her empire: Southampton and Portsmouth at Spithead. From Southampton, the liners would leave carrying travellers and settlers to the US, but also loyal subjects who were then creating new Englands (what the historian J G A Pocock called ‘Neo-Britains’) in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Cape. In the mid- 19th century, she would have been able to stand in front of Osborne House and see – with a pair of binoculars – gunboats and warships leaving nearby Portsmouth to subjugate the Indian Mutiny at the cost of millions of lives, or leaving to fight dozens of brutal ‘little wars’ in Africa, or to suppress the Māori in the New Zealand Wars, or to force the Chinese at gunpoint to accept the opium of Scottish trading conglomerates.

It is apt, then, that in the 1870s Osborne House would be reproduced in the new colony of Victoria, in a garden site in the new city of Melbourne in Australia. However, in Melbourne, it became Government House, the seat of British power, overseeing and superintending ‘responsible government’. This replica was a statement of continuity and linkage by its architect, William Wardell, himself an émigré to the new colony. Osborne House and Government House were two substantially similar buildings standing at opposite ends of the globe to symbolically administer a Greater Britain that was expanding to every continent on Earth. In fact, the replica in Melbourne is one of many Osbornes. In Australia, you’ll find that Queensland’s Government House in Brisbane is also an Osborne clone. There is another in Auckland, New Zealand, called the Pah Homestead – a house for the Belfast-born Kiwi capitalist James Williamson, named ‘Pah’ because it was symbolically built on top of a pa , a Māori hill fort, as a statement of victory over the native population. And there is another in the far northern dominions, in Montréal, Canada: built for the Scottish-born shipping magnate Hugh Allan, Ravenscrag House may be made from stone rather than stucco, but is an obvious tribute to the original. Capitalists in the British Empire were wont to follow royal fashions, whatever their origins.

The many Osbornes built during the second half of the 19th century were followed in the first three decades of the 20th by many, many copies of other imperial buildings. This grand architecture of the British Empire, seen in Osbourne House, Balmoral House, Buckingham Palace and other places, was retrospectively called ‘Edwardian baroque’ after Edward VII, who took the throne following Victoria’s death. Edwardian baroque emerged as a style by fusing the classicism of 19th-century speculative builders such as Cubitt and the late Renaissance architecture of Christopher Wren into a reproducible international model. Just as Cubitt’s Osborne was copied, Wren’s buildings, such as St Paul’s Cathedral or Greenwich Hospital, were also reproduced across the world. You can find the same domes and pilasters recurring in the former Supreme Court of Hong Kong, the Government Buildings in Dublin, the main post office buildings in Vancouver and Auckland, the government buildings of Pretoria, railway stations in Australia and Canada, and the awe-inspiring former Viceroy’s House in New Delhi (now named Rashtrapati Bhavan), one of history’s most imposing images of raw colonial power, with its 340-room main building erected in stone on a 320-acre estate.

These buildings were roughly contemporary with the earliest monuments of what is called modernism. They were planned, built and completed around the same time as the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, the Derzhprom building in Kharkiv and Shell-Haus in Berlin, to name just some buildings nearly a century old that still look like they could have been built yesterday. While the Edwardian baroque buildings are not modern ist , they are modern – often built of concrete, centrally heated, technologically advanced, and placed at the far corners of a global empire connected by telegraph, ocean liner and radio.

O n one side, tradition; on the other, modernism. But both are mass-produced, industrial and international. Both can be deeply insensitive to space and place. What if there’s an alternative to these false choices?

An alternative is needed to answer the serious problems that architecture faces today. Many of these problems have been raised by staunch critics of modernism, like King Charles III: why are so many buildings wilfully ugly? How can we make public spaces more humane? How can we plan for cities without cars? How can we design new suburbs that are dense and walkable, rather than spaced out? But, in falling back on the classical repertoire, the answers to these questions are unconvincing. King Charles III’s Poundbury has recently started, after some difficult early years, to be a commercial success, but largely at the cost of turning its largest public space – a square named after Charles’s grandmother, with a statue of her at the centre – into a parking lot.

Walking around Poundbury, you can see that many of the buildings use modern construction techniques and materials, and have the same problems with leakage, staining and dilapidation seen in any new suburban housing estate. The changing of the form has not led to any serious changing of the content. If Poundbury wants to be seen as an answer to the problems plaguing architecture, it will have to do better than taking a building constructed out of factory-made breezeblocks and coating it with something resembling the ashlar facade of a Georgian house. Up close, Poundbury’s placelessness is pronounced: the houses don’t even resemble the vernacular architecture of Dorset where it is located. Buildings here tend to be somewhat shaggy constructions of grey stone, not the neat classical terraces of Poundbury. What King Charles III’s project does resemble, however, is similar traditionalist housing estates of the 21st century, including the mock-British suburb of Thames Town on the outskirts of Shanghai and the Disney-sponsored new town of Celebration in Florida (with which it shares some of the same architects and planners). In reality, like much other classicist architecture today, Poundbury is international, industrial and mass-produced. In short, modern.

Housing cooperatives are more attuned to local climate, place and materials than ultramodern starchitecture

This brings us back to where we started: the affinities between a certain kind of modern architecture and a certain kind of classicism, both of which are equally committed to the same polluting, carbon-intensive construction technologies and global capital flows. Today, in the context of the climate crisis, concerns with style hide more urgent concerns about construction and materials. It is not just tedious but actively dangerous to carry on building in the old way, whether that’s concrete frames dressed in titanium or coated in neo-Georgian stock brick. So, is there an alternative?

If there is, it could likely emerge from some versions of traditionalism. Take, for instance, the work of the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, who designed several large-scale building projects in North Africa using mud-brick during the 1970s and ’80s. Fathy came to reject modernism, but after shifting towards local tradition his work was always concerned with the most sustainable use of materials, the capabilities of local labourers, and the need to control climate without air-conditioning or similar technologies. But an alternative could just as easily come from some versions of modernism.

When the historian Frampton called for a ‘Critical Regionalism’, a modern architecture sensitive to place and materials, he found an example in the work of Álvaro Siza in Portugal. Siza is a modernist. His buildings are not copied from the past, and his use of interior space and architectural form is inventive. But these buildings are also absolutely of their place. They use simple local materials, and are sympathetic to the scale and sensibilities of the cities and villages in which they are constructed.

If you look hard enough in contemporary architecture, you can find modernist approaches like Siza’s that are ready to grapple with the climate crisis and the problems of construction. Often these answers are found in luxury projects, particularly in the many private eco-houses that have filled the pages of architecture magazines for the past couple of decades. However, a few recent housing cooperatives suggest how these answers could be scaled up.

Cooperatives such as LILAC (Low Impact Living Affordable Community) in Leeds in northern England, or La Borda in Barcelona – two projects that offer lower-impact forms of communal living than conventional housing estates – are unashamedly modern in their expression. They don’t look like traditional old buildings because they’re not: form follows function here. The Poundbury repertoire of pediments, columns and decoration is wholly absent. Both LILAC and La Borda are mass-produced, in a way, with easily standardised timber frames used to make the shells of the buildings. This standardisation may appear to be a repeat of the global placelessness of the International Style, but many of these housing cooperatives are much more attuned to local climate, place and materials than any computer-generated example of ultramodern starchitecture (or facade-heavy versions of classicism, for that matter). The designers and cooperators of these alternatives have eschewed the building industry’s off-the-peg components, rejecting concrete frames, asphalt public spaces, excessive water features and metal furniture that’s rough-sleeper-proof. Instead, they have favoured simple buildings with spaces that are denser, greener and more intimate than most forms of modern architecture, whether we’re talking about 1960s Brutalism or the iconic buildings of the 2000s.

Places like LILAC or La Borda offer us an escape from a present that obviously can’t continue, and a way beyond a past that has been reduced to little more than a series of images without context. But these places have one major flaw: neither can be entirely understood as a singular image, at a glance. Architecture doesn’t float in the ether of our screens. It happens in place, and is always caught in complex meshes of competing economic and political interests. If we hope to understand real alternatives to modernism or classicism, those places and interests must be understood, too. Otherwise, all we’re doing is shouting at each other about JPEGs while living in houses we can’t afford.

Politics and government

India and indigeneity

In a country of such extraordinary diversity, the UN definition of ‘indigenous’ does little more than fuel ethnic violence

Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati

History of ideas

Reimagining balance

In the Middle Ages, a new sense of balance fundamentally altered our understanding of nature and society

What would Thucydides say?

In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian

Mark Fisher

The environment

Emergency action

Could civil disobedience be morally obligatory in a society on a collision course with climate catastrophe?

Rupert Read

Return of the descendants

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Jessica Buchleitner

Economic history

Credit card nation

Americans have always borrowed, but how exactly did their lives become so entangled with the power of plastic cards?

Sean H Vanatta

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Essay: architecture and culture

Andrew Benjamin argues that Australian architecture must open itself to the wider world of public policy. We can do this, he believes, by acknowledging that architecture is always traversed by the complexities of culture.

This is an article from the Architecture Australia archives and may use outdated formatting

Online Media Centre, by Lyons. Image: Trevor Mein, courtesy Kayne Construction.

The NMA, by ARM in association with Robert Peck von Hartel Trethowan. Images: Eric Sierins.

Federation Square by Lab architecture studio in association with Bates Smart. Image: cbdphoto.com.

OPENING. Perhaps the most well known line from Adolf Loos’s famous essay “Ornament and Crime” is the claim that, “As ornament is no longer organically related to our culture, it is also no longer the expression of our culture”. This move, which separates ornament and culture, links Modernist architecture to the culture of modernity. Reading this now two things emerge. The first is a statement of intent – Modernist architecture clearly defines itself in relation to culture. The second is a question – how today can the relation between architecture and culture to be understood? Despite the clarity of the Loos’s definition, this contemporary question has a persistent quality that is usually noticed in its occlusion. In other words, the extent to which the link is denied – and architecture is seen as no more than building and thus thought in terms of a differentiation of the economic from the cultural – suggests that the possibility of architecture’s relation to culture is a question whose acuity cannot be readily escaped. What then is architecture’s relation to culture?

In purely strategic terms, the question is relevant, since policy – usually in terms of government policy and even architectural criticism – often uses straightforwardly economic criteria to make decisions or draw conclusions. Approaching architecture as an industry, while apposite in certain instances, fails to allow for the role of the architectural in forming part of a nation’s, or a community’s, culture. Yet, it is clear that the presence of architecture in the daily lives of citizens underscores its ineliminable cultural presence.

The task in this essay is to address this presence and to draw conclusions that might have relevance for policy directed decisions, as well as evaluative ones. This essay was prompted by the refusal of public money to the Australian pavilion at the recent Venice Biennale, but more importantly, by the need to engage with the issues that such a refusal raises. For the most part, these issues do not pertain to the relative strength or weakness of Australian architecture, but rather to the way in which it defines itself. Architecture in this country does not define itself in any singular way, however, there is a prevailing perception.

To counter that perception is to reopen the need to link architecture to the wider world of policy – policy other than simple planning regulations – and this involves reopening the question of architecture’s relation to culture.

This essay uses “culture” in two senses. One relates to activities that are often understood as specific to architecture. The other is inextricably connected to the realm of human existence and demarcates the ways in which human life differentiates itself from nature. Taken in isolation each is potentially problematic – holding to the exclusivity of the culture of architecture denies its presence as part of human society, while thinking of architecture as nothing other than cultural precludes any consideration of, for example, the way different materials realize different effects within architectural practice. What matters is the way concerns of one understanding can – perhaps should – intrude into the other.

Recognizing that these two different senses of culture are interrelated can provide a way through this complex set of considerations. Insisting this interrelation introduces another defining element into the equation. Indeed, it marks the point of relation: the public.

Architecture is essentially public. This is hardly a surprising claim, but, as with many truths, the acceptance of what it asserts is conterminous with the refusal of its consequences.

A choice emerges. Architecture can define its sphere of operation as the construction of objects that are understood as only ever private, and which thus only open up the already circumscribed worlds of individual activity – for example, the house. Or architecture can insist on its inherently public nature. Emphasizing the public does not mean that the construction of the house is, in some sense, a denial of “architecture”. Rather, the argument is that architecture’s continual opening onto the world – an opening which can have an important role in the construction of that world – is one of the main ways to generate a nexus between the culture of architecture and the inherently public nature of human sociality.

The distinction between these two positions – opening in or opening out – is not a distinction between architecture as an academic activity on the one hand and as a worldly activity on the other. Instead, different conceptions of practice are at work here – in both instances there can be a championing of materials over programme; in both, a concern with the environmental consequences of building can be paramount; equally, issues pertaining to sustainability can drive each of them. Yet the distinction is crucial. It involves the extent to which there is an affirmation – with all the difficulties and complexities that this term brings – of the inherently public nature of architecture.

OPENING IN. Architecture can be described as opening in when it defines itself as an activity of construction for individuals to suit individual needs. In working from the outside in, space is created that reproduces the desires of clients – the world takes on the veneer of the private. This is a conception of the private in which the individual – either singularly or as a unit – has primacy. Moreover this generates a conception of the public as a collection of individuals all of whom aspire to create their own “private” world, which is the locus where their own unique desires are satisfied.

Architecture begins to define itself in these terms when this conception of practice – and world creation – becomes the basis for future discussions and evaluations. Once the object is understood as having been created for the individual – including a conception of the public as the totality of individuals – it follows that architecture is the expression of personalities, and that the built object expresses the personality of the client. (Or at least that this would be the desired intent on both sides.) Equally, because construction, understood in this light, is always defined by a conception of individual taste, there cannot be a link to any conception of culture beyond the generalization of the individual. It is not difficult to imagine that once this is accepted as the definition of architecture – and it is a self-definition that works at a range of different scales – architecture will be inevitably understood as a series of produced (built, constructed, et cetera) objects that are created by individuals to serve individual ends. Since the public is always counterposed to the individual – and this is true even when the public is understood as the abstract presence of the totality of individuals – architecture will be defined in terms of singular relations. The relation is will always be between architect and client, and architecture will remain enclosed within that relation.

Once there is a turn towards the interior there is no need to think in terms of the registration of the exterior. Those elements – at a minimum, the exterior to which architecture opens out – pertain to culture understood as part of the public domain. The limit of this definition is not to do with a specific programme, although the apparent preoccupation of Australian architecture with domestic housing only exacerbates the situation. The insistence on the interior and the associated definition of architecture in terms of individual concerns – and reciprocally as only of concern for individuals – make it a simple matter to locate architecture as no more than an economic activity. In this framework the house would have a bespoke suit as its correlate. The refusal of the public is, of course, a position taken in relation to the inherently public nature of architecture. This not only establishes the limit of architecture’s self-definition in terms of opening in ; it also indicates that the culture of architecture is, from the start, traversed by the complex matter of culture.

The already present place of culture needs to be noted. Here, it concerns the capacity for an object to stage a relation. This may seem an overly complex point, but it is not.

Staging a relation is not just the presence of programme, nor is it just the use of one combination of materials rather than another. Staging is the way that the interarticulation of a programme and materials works to present a specific conception of the programme in question. The differences, for example, between two museums are to be found in terms of what they stage. That is, the way the understanding of the programme, the geometry proper to its realization, and the materials once combined yield the object. However, it is an object as a site of activity. The activity is the way the building stages its presence. Two things need to be noted here. The first is that staging is integral to the way an object works as architecture. The second is that programme, geometry, and the use of materials have both a historical and cultural dimension. This means that staging necessarily inscribes the architectural object with broader cultural considerations. Opening in , therefore, becomes an attempt to avoid defining architecture in terms of this inscription of wider public concerns.

The counter position – opening out – becomes the way of acknowledging the presence of staging and of allowing this acknowledgment to play a pivotal role in establishing a definition of architecture.

OPENING OUT . The move to the outside – allowing the external to be registered internally and the internal to have an external registration – allows us to insist on the public nature of architecture precisely because here the two senses of culture interact. This is not a question of the house versus the public building. Rather, this particular definition provides the basis for more generalized understanding of architecture.

It is important to note, however, that the culture that is registered is neither unified nor benign. Indeed, the interplay of dominance and opposition is fundamental to its schismatic and agonistic nature. This opens an area of discussion that cannot be pursued in this context. However, it indicates, nonetheless, that the registration of external elements will not be the registration of a unified culture precisely because the culture in question is not grounded in any sense of unity – other than that of simple dominance or the identification with the totality of a culture with its most conservative instance, for example the identification of a culture with the national.

This emphasis on the explicit acknowledgement of architecture’s public nature, and on architecture as “staging”, does not mean that henceforth architecture has to be either utilitarian – that is merely functional or instrumental or driven by some large social goal.

Moreover, such an acknowledgment might be present in quite different ways. The complex surfaces of the Online Multimedia Centre, at the St Albans campus of Victoria University by Lyons, for example, opens up a potential urban field. This does not occur by locating the architecture on the surface, but by allowing the surface to help create a visual urbanism.

What emerges, as a potential as well as what that is actually realized, are urban surfaces.

The interest in the surface as evinced by Lyons – and here there is an important affinity with some recent work by Herzog and de Meuron, in particular their library for the Eberswalde Polytechnic – should be understood as locating the object’s architecture as much in a sustained engagement with programmatic concerns, as it is in the construction of urban surfaces. The importance of the latter is that they take the creation of surfaces beyond any concern with the decorative.

While a great deal has been written about ARM’s National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra, its singular importance lies in the specific way it stages a conception of the public and thus of community. While it enhances the site, to argue that a building complements Walter Burley Griffin’s masterplan runs the risk of condemning it in advance.

At the NMA identity becomes a site of endless negotiation and the symbols carry that positioning. Both work together to define the site. Rather than concentrate on the symbols per se, what is fundamental is that they introduce a conception of time that is not determined by immediacy. The symbols stage a more complex and always-to-be-determined conception of identity. There is still a connection between symbols and what is symbolised. However, what needs to be noted is that it is hard to establish the link as definitive. Indeed, that is the point. The public nature of the architecture, and its democratic impulse, are found in the symbolism because the work attests to the complex and cosmopolitan nature of the public.

Lab architecture studio’s Federation Square is a fundamentally different project. But it demands, among other things, a reconsideration of how, within the urban context, figure/ground relations have to be recast in terms of figure/figure relations. The inscription of an implicit urbanism into The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, the construction of the squares themselves as explicitly urban, the complex relation that both have to the urbanism created by the intersections of the grid and the lanes and fed by public transport hubs, means that each element becomes an important figure constructing the urban terrain. While this does not occur literally, Federation Square develops – both externally and internally (within the NGV itself) – the urbanism of its setting, while demanding a rethinking if how interventions of this scale within a pre-existing fabric are to be understood.

The significance of these projects cannot be understood in terms of the image they project. In other words, it is not as though subsequent work – be it a large scale project or a domestic house – has to have a Lyons’ surface, or to deploy complex symbolism, or to mime fractal geometries. The fact that they are significant does not mean that they set the measure for what architecture has to look like. It is not a question of appearance. Rather, what has to occur is a process of abstraction where what characterizes them – and it will always be the interplay of the strictly architectural and the cultural, one figuring in the other – is allowed to set the framework in which architecture’s definition of itself can continue to develop.

Affirming the presence of the cultural – by noting the ineliminability of the public, while allowing both to have a complex and contested status – allows architecture to be opened up beyond any reduction. Be that a reduction to the simply economic or to the merely cultural, it goes without saying that such a position is necessarily contestable. Moreover, this inherent contestability may result in the refusal of the interplay of cultures and therefore in the championing of the interdependence of the private and the economic. The victory of one over the other reveals an essential truth. Namely, that the presence of the conflict – the inescapable hold of contestability – is the first step in any argument for the inherently cultural nature of the architectural.

Published online: 1 May 2003 Words: Andrew Benjamin

Architecture Australia, May 2003

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Moorish Architecture in the Moorish Culture

This essay about Moorish architecture highlights its role as a significant cultural and artistic phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th to the 15th centuries. It discusses the architectural beauty and functional designs introduced by the Moors, drawing from diverse origins such as Berber, Arab, and Andalusian influences. Key examples like the Alhambra and the Great Mosque of Cordoba illustrate the integration of aesthetic beauty with spiritual and societal values. The essay underscores Moorish architecture’s enduring appeal and its ability to unify across cultural divides.

How it works

In the vast panorama of architectural history, Moorish architecture stands out as a resplendent highlight, exemplifying the rich fusion of different cultures and philosophies that prospered under Moorish rule in the Iberian Peninsula from the 8th to the 15th centuries. Stemming from diverse origins such as Berber, Arab, and Andalusian, the Moors left a significant imprint on the region with their groundbreaking architectural styles and remarkable buildings.

Moorish architecture is a seamless integration of beauty and function, where each arch and curvature tells stories of artistic innovation and passion.

The intricate designs adorning the walls of mosques and palaces reflect the Moors’ sophisticated grasp of geometry and their profound reverence for the universal order. These arabesque designs, mesmerizing in their precise repetition, invite deep reflection and contemplation.

A prime example of Moorish architectural grandeur is the Alhambra, a regal palace complex nestled against the hills of Granada. Amidst its fragrant gardens and beside its soothing fountains, one can meander through its labyrinthine passages and courtyards, encountering endless wonders. The Alhambra is more than just a dwelling; it epitomizes the Moorish vision of a terrestrial paradise, where aesthetic beauty and spiritual serenity are intertwined.

Yet, the scope of Moorish architecture extends well beyond the Alhambra. Its presence is evident in the soaring arches of the Great Mosque of Cordoba, where the interplay of light and shadow creates a sublime ambiance. It is also seen in the detailed stucco work of the Alcazar of Seville, where each element honors natural shapes and mathematical exactitude. Furthermore, its influence echoes in the peaceful courtyards of the Alcazar of Toledo, where echoes of history persist.

Moorish architecture represents more than a style; it embodies the cultural values and beliefs of its creators. Mosques and madrasas functioned as community hubs for prayer, education, and social interaction, strengthening communal bonds across various social and ethnic groups. Palaces and fortresses symbolized power and splendor, marking the legacy of the rulers’ aspirations and accomplishments.

The enduring charm and universal appeal of Moorish architecture are its core essence. Whether wandering through the Alhambra or admiring the Great Mosque of Cordoba, we are drawn back in time, captivated by the lasting impact of the Moors. In a world often divided by political and ideological differences, Moorish architecture stands as a reminder of our collective heritage, showing that art transcends all barriers and continues to unite and inspire across ages.

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America’s appetite for McMansions is devouring modern architecture

Chris Pratt demolishing a mid-century treasure is part of a larger, disturbing trend

The Zimmerman House was built for the California dream. Like other mid-century modernist homes built in Los Angeles, this 1950 Craig Ellwood project was low slung and open, with floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors. Light flowed in from the outdoors and out from a central brick fireplace. Breezy and informal, the Zimmerman House was an essential example of Southern California cool.

Few people realized the Zimmerman House was in any danger before it was unceremoniously demolished by actor Chris Pratt and author Katherine Schwarzenegger, who bought the home and its nearly one-acre plot last year for $12.5 million. The couple, who reportedly plan to erect a supersized 15,000-square-foot farmhouse, now find themselves being dragged by the entire internet, blasted by countless critics for buying a Rothko for the frame.

Preservationists were shocked but not surprised. Historic houses across the United States are targeted for teardowns every week, often under cover of night with little to no warning. Increasingly, preservationists say, these demo

s are not driven by changing tastes but rather by growing appetites: Americans’ ravenous desire for larger and larger homes.

“This situation isn’t isolated. We do lose houses like this more than we care to say,” says Adrian Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit focused on architectural preservation across Los Angeles County. “We’re seeing more of these teardowns, because people see these as valuable plots of dirt.”

Ellwood had no formal training, instead getting his education in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by enlisting during World War II, but he went on to leave his fingerprints all over L.A. Craig Ellwood wasn’t his real name: ​​Jon Burke and some of his Army buddies named their studio after a liquor store sign outside their door, and Burke later manifested his eponymous architecture firm by changing his own name.

Fine had heard rumors that the new owners might want to tear the house down after an estate auction at the site early last year. So he went into emergency mode. One option was to start the process to designate the Zimmerman House as a Historic-Cultural Monument through the city’s landmarking program, a painstaking approach that can be adversarial, especially when the buyers have not made it public that they are dead set on building a barndominium.

“The new owners came in and got their demolition permit without anyone noticing,” Fine says. (A representative for Pratt did not respond to email requests to comment for this story.)

L.A. has more modernist homes than most cities. In many ways, it’s the birthplace of modernism in the United States, Fine says. Southern California is home to the Case Study Houses, a program run by Arts & Architecture magazine from 1945 to 1966 to commission modernist architects — among them California luminaries such as Ray and Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, and Ellwood — to build affordable homes for the atomic age. Los Angeles’s population soared during this same period, when designers began playing around with what residential living could look like.

But even forward-looking designers could not have predicted how needlessly large 21st-century homes would be. The median single-family home built in 1973 was 1,525 square feet, according to U.S. Census Bureau data; by 2022, that number soared to 2,383 square feet.

Los Angeles is hardly the only place where the wrecking ball looms. A groovy Phoenix dojo designed by Al Beadle may be destroyed. A summer cottage on Cape Cod by Marcel Breuer awaits its fate. And a developer in suburban Chicago is willing to let anyone take a house designed by John Schmidtke as long as they move it somewhere else . Which is not as odd as it sounds: Earlier this year, a couple spared a modern house in Raleigh, N.C., by George Matsumoto by picking it up and moving it seven miles .

Teardowns are accelerating, says Elizabeth Waytkus, executive director for the nonprofit preservationist group Docomomo US, in part because modernist homes are reaching the age at which systems begin to fail. Mid-century designers experimented with new building technologies, which may be difficult to replace or maintain 50 to 70 years later. It can be hard to find craftspeople who know how to do the jobs.

But there is a difference between an owner who buys a home with extra needs and someone who sees only the land beneath it. Two years ago, after a couple purchased Geller I — another Breuer project, this one designed in 1945 for Long Island in New York — Waytkus dialed up the buyers to introduce herself. She wanted to find out what they knew about the house and its legendary Brutalist architect.

“The owner said to me, we understand what we have, we don’t plan on demolishing it, we want our grandchildren to be able to use it in the summertime,” Waytkus says. “Two weeks later, it was gone.”

Historic homes anywhere can fall into disrepair or wind up remodeled beyond recognition. Demolitions specifically happen where land prices are high. Modernist homes are an endangered species in the Hamptons, for example. But in Fort Worth, where land prices are far lower, a modernist house by A. Quincy Jones struggled for years to find a buyer — despite being listed for under $1 million, with a 2.5-acre plot. Rescued from a demolition permit at the eleventh hour, the Fuller House was restored by new owners and reopened in 2021.

Ultimately, preservationists have just two tools to hold on to important buildings: persuasion and restrictions. When the carrot and stick both fail, it’s because the property rights of buyers trump those of fans. Preservationists say they don’t want to be in the business of forcing homeowners to be caretakers for expensive structures they don’t want, and they don’t see shame as helping matters.

“It doesn’t do the preservation community any good,” Waytkus says. “What is the meme going around, the least-likable Chris? I find all of that unfortunate. We’re missing the point.”

Given its modernist bona fides, L.A. is better prepared than many other cities to protect its cultural heritage. In 2009, the city launched SurveyLA to identify its cultural and historic resources, the largest citywide survey of its kind. California also offers a few extra carrots to try to preserve modern homes: The state’s Mills Act program offers property tax reductions for owners who restore and preserve qualified historic buildings.

Bringing down land prices and inflated home sizes are challenges outside the ambit of architectural preservation. Solving both problems means building more densely. Converting single-family homes to small apartment buildings would seem to run contrary to the preservationist’s mission; they’re rarely free-market types. But housing abundance and preservation don’t have to run at cross purposes: Of the roughly 880,000 parcels in Los Angeles, Fine says, only 7 percent are deemed historic properties.

“We can preserve our neighborhoods, adding supply, preserving naturally affordable and architectural heritage, while creating a lot more housing,” Fine says.

The sad story of the Zimmerman House pits elite aesthetics against conspicuous consumption. But it also reflects broader dynamics of scarce housing, rising prices and insatiable need to possess more and more. That makes this L.A. story a cautionary tale for all Americans.

A previous version of this article stated that an A. Quincy Jones modernist house in Fort Worth was in danger of demolition. The house was rescued from demolition by new owners, who reopened it in 2021. This article has been corrected.

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