Taking Rafael Moneo’s introduction to Theoretical Anxiety and Design Strategies In the Work of Eight Contemporary Architects as a starting point, this editorial reflects on the appraisal of architectural theories. To support that reflection, the article uses Moneo’s distinction between reflection and critical discourse on the one hand, and on the other the desire to elaborate systematic theories of architecture. Together, the reasons that motivated the editorial process and key takeaways from the different articles published in this issue of Footprint, suggest that there is indeed use and value in appraising theories of architecture, especially in relation to each other. By comparing theories and their performance, important distinctions can be made. Among them, the article mentions the differences that exist between critical thinking and criticalism, or between theory and what Frederick Crews refers to as ‘theoricism.’ ... Read more

Basisbegrippen architectuur, landschapsarchitectuur, stedenbouw biedt een introductie op zestien fundamentele begrippen voor de (toekomstige) ruimtelijk ontwerper. Basisbegrippen zijn de sleutel tot het verwoorden en verbeelden van ideeën en denkbeelden binnen de bouwkunde. Een goede beheersing van de veelgebruikte begrippen binnen de vakgebieden architectuur, landschapsarchitectuur en stedenbouw maakt het mogelijk om in een ontwerpproces te communiceren met vakgenoten, opdrachtgevers, (toekomstige) gebruikers en het grote publiek.

Basisbegrippen architectuur, landschapsarchitectuur, stedenbouw is samengesteld door het team ‘Grondslagen’ verbonden aan de faculteit Bouwkunde van de TU Delft. Het handboek bevat bijdragen van Klaske Havik, Willemijn Wilms Floet, Saskia de Wit, Gregory Bracken, Chris Woltjes, Robin Ringel. ... Read more

In Raumplan versus Plan Libre, Risselada et al. bring forth one of architecture’s perennial dilemmas. In Leupen’s terms, we are confronted with the radical difference that exists between archtiectural design as a compositional or distributive act. Le Corbusier’s free or hypostyle plan finds its complement in the compartmentalization of space achieved through walls, practiced by Loos.

The movement from the ‘heart of the city’ – the central theme of the 8th CIAM – to the Habitat discussed in the two subsequent congresses has led different architects to experiment with the possibilities of both approaches. In the Dutch context, two community-scale civic centers built by Frank Van Klingeren are especially relevant: De Meerpal (Dronten, 1976) and ‘t Karregat (Eindhoven, 1973). Although both buildings have been widely discussed as “open” organizations, linked to the architect’s activism, by contrast, little has been said about the transformation processes both buildings have gone through.

Both civic centers designed by Van Klingeren are undoubtedly a development of the hypostyle model; which is worth evaluating against recent developments in this same context, including the remodeling of both buildings, where the spatial organization clearly tends towards compartmentalization. ... Read more

The study of built objects has always played a key role in the education of the architect. At the earliest stages of training most of us sat in front of buildings and drew them, trying to capture their overall features and minute details. What appears simple is, in fact, an extremely meaningful exercise. It presumes that drawing an existing object allows us to understand what decisions were made in its conception, granted that evidence of those decisions is actually there, congealed as empirical evidence and available for further use. As students advance in their studies, this close attention to objects and the decisions that define them gives way to more complex reflections. Final year students seldom sit in front of buildings and draw them. Their fascination with societal issues and formal innovation seems to leave little room to ponder on the apparently simple ways in which materials come together. Likewise, interest in the built as a source of knowledge appears to wane among faculty who inclined towards fashionable forms of scholarship outsource technological research and education to engineers and other pragmatists. While architectural education’s turn towards the humanities offers new and exciting possibilities, the relegation of the built to a mere problem-solving role is not without its consequences. Among them, perhaps the most unfortunate outcome of assuming construction as applied, externally produced knowledge, is that it robs us of rare and precious insight that is ingrained in the built. Looking for that insight, we will describe how a design studio can use construction as a means for students to produce and develop their own architectural knowledge. Our description will be favored by an outline of the supporting theory, the epistemology we used to operate it, and the methodology employed to teach the course. Throughout a ten-week period, we accompanied a group of sixteen master’s students in their process of exploration, evaluation and discovery of four details from existing buildings. Our goal, and the challenge we presented to the group, was to obtain from these details a theory and a new design. ... Read more

The essay departs from the question: How can stories be used for the development of cities? In response, a theoretical framework is delineated that recognizes the built environment as a model that is both telic (a vision of a possible future) and technical (the means required to attain that future). By adopting this framework, the essay approaches the city at the scale of everyday, ordinary planning, rather than at the scale of ‘cosmic crisis’. In line with that approach, the essay shows how stories can be useful to develop cities given their ability to encourage and foster sympatry, understood as the quality of environments where different (even adversarial) species coexist. Different individuals simultaneously use and offer different resources to the environment they share, and some of these resources fall within the category of ‘understanding’. This final category is captured in a series of micro-narratives about the city, which are then evaluated in relation to three distinct technologies that can be seen as common to buildings and stories, namely: sense, sequence and proportion. ... Read more

The act of decolonizing can have quite different meanings, depending on the definition of the term colony used. In architecture, so-called decolonial studies suggest an opening towards new forms of knowledge. On the other hand, those who practice said studies often fall into different forms of determinism, which end up hindering that potential. Having identified notable contradictions in their formulation, in this article we suggest empirical, epistemological and methodological alternatives to decolonial studies, coming from two recent approaches, to architecture that could solve several problematic aspects observed in the decolonizing project. ... Read more

Around 1661, Johannes Vermeer painted what has become one of the most famous city views: the View of Delft. The city of Delft is depicted from across the water of the River Schie. We see the city as a collection of brick buildings with lower and higher towers, peaking into the sky, and being reflected in the water of the river. The light looks alive: despite the clouds it is bright, setting the buildings of Delft and the riverbank in the foreground in a palpable warmth. Delft, an intermediate European city in the province of South Holland, between The Hague and Rotterdam, has featured quite prominently in Dutch city narratives, partially thanks to Vermeer’s paintings, which showed fragments of both spatial and social characteristics of the city in the sev-enteenth century. In the same period, biologist Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek experimented with lenses and built a microscope, which led to the discovery of the micro-world of cells and bacteria. The city’s small streets, the canals, the church towers and the market squares still remind us of the times of Vermeer and Van Leeuwenhoek. But Delft today, as a centre of trade, knowl-edge and art, is a very vibrant city, with the University of Technology as one of its most celebrated contemporary inhabitants. The TU Delft is recog-nized around the world for educating progressive thinkers and innovators in varied engineering fields, while its Faculty of Architecture has raised, and keeps raising, inspired generations of architects and designers. As Delft is the city where this Writing Urban Place network originated, and where many members of the network have lived, studied or lectured, or are still doing all the above, we have asked our Delft-related colleagues for their views on Delft, painting for our readers, in words, their accounts of the sociospatial characteristics of this city, their relationship with the water, their favourite urban places, their personal Views of Delft. ... Read more

The qualities that characterise open works of art have become prevalent in mainstream architecture theory. Trying to elucidate why openness appears to mean so many different things and at the same time remains an ethereal concept, it seems worthwhile to reflect on potential justifications for its use. While the notion can be effectively and persuasively used to discuss the ethics that should govern our profession, beyond that axiological role its meagre explanatory power suggests that new directions in open architecture might require that we recognise its theoretical shortcomings and start looking for new and better ways to explain exactly what we’re talking about when we talk about the architecture of our time. ... Read more

Commentary on the role and possibilities of art in relation to current affairs. ... Read more

This fifth issue of the Writingplace Journal examines different narrative methods, understood as procedures, techniques or ways of relating or recounting events, and how they can be used to appraise and imagine the city. The editorial process of the issue has been developed within the context of the EU-funded COST Action ‘Writing Urban Places’, a multidisciplinary network of researchers who are interested in developing new narratives for the European city. By recognizing the value of urban narratives – stories rich in information regarding citizens’ sociospatial practices, perceptions, hopes and ambitions – the network seeks to foster and preserve the democratic, and therefore inclusive, nature of the modern European city. ... Read more

Book review of the second edition of Site Matters, edited by Andrea Kahn and Carol J. Burns ... Read more

Elaborating on a host of historical and theoretical references, in this conversation Alberto Pérez-Gómez suggests a course of action for the development of the architectural discipline; opposing the banality of scientism and rationalism, and recognizing instead the need for a degree of obscurity and ambiguity as essential to the full exercise of our humanity in relation to what we build and inhabit. Metaphors, myths, stories and poems, he notes, are not only useful instruments to represent architecture’s aesthetics and purpose, but elemental human practices that define who we are and how we know. Tense between different polarities, the conversation explores architecture as a way to find sense and meaning by relying on timeless wisdom in the face of the many distractions and distortions that characterize our time. ... Read more

While Aldo Rossi's contribution to recent architecture is often evaluated in ideological terms, this paper holds that in the specific context of Colombia this contribution has issued in a series of historiographical considerations, which are best assessed in methodological terms. After reviewing several different stages in the development of recent architectural historiography in Colombia, the paper focuses on a recent heuristic approach to architectural history, and Aldo Rossi's influence in its development. ... Read more

The editorial introduction to this issue of Footprint follows a double trajectory. On the one hand, it describes an ambition for architecture historiography. The social sciences have long recognised the need for more comprehensive and inclusive methods for writing history. Among them, comparative literature scholar Mary Louise Pratt’s ‘contact zone’ appears as a useful framework for writing new histories of architecture that recognise the many interrelations that characterise the discipline of architecture. On the other hand the introduction explains why, among many possible contact zones, focus has been set on the architecture competition. A short description of key aspects from the different contributions shows how, seen as a contact zone, the architecture competition emerges as fertile ground for the production of disciplinary knowledge, resulting from exchanges between different cultures. Acknowledging the diverse nature of these cultures, together with the recognition of institutions, legislation and other conceptual frameworks as key elements of architecture as contact zone offers fresh theoretical insight, but also poses unexpected communicative challenges. ... Read more

How do we envision possible futures for the built environment? What allows us to imagine spaces that do not yet exist? While superstitious approaches to these questions often explain spatial imagination as an ineffable or arcane process, this article advances a simple description of how built space can be understood, envisioned and ultimately produced. The analytical approach developed by the writer Andrés Caicedo to explain how professional film makers approach a movie, and the differences between their approach and that of the general public, are used to illustrate how architects can also confront built space professionally, with an operative intention. Both in the film arts and in architecture, it is argued here, the technical understanding of what exists, and how it has been produced, is indispensable to imagine what might or should be. By using methods obtained from literature and cinema to illustrate the relation between architecture’s telos, or its ability to advance visions of possible futures for the built environment, and its technique, or the instruments and methods required to achieve those visions, the article makes a strong case for the utility of interdisciplinary analyses for artistic practice. ... Read more