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APOLOGIA OF ORDER IN ARCHITECTURE

Anna Mielnik

Abstract

The article is part of research on rationalist tendencies in contemporary architecture. The subject of the following considerations is the concept of order in relation to the architectural form. Raising the subject is to systematize knowledge and draw attention to the issue of order as a general principle and a tool for shaping architecture. Some creators willingly submit to the rigor of laws and rules, perceiving order as a kind of liberation, while others reject order as being excessively restrictive. The text is to defend the values carried by the concept of order in architecture, without limiting it merely to the mechanical formal concept. The notion of order is particularly strongly connected with the rationalist approach in designing. The criteria of the cognitive value of rationalism are constancy, invariability, limitation of rules, clear rules, articulation, cohesion, consistency, perspicuity and transparency. These are features that in architecture can be reduced precisely to the concept of – order. The concept of order is also related to the search for beauty, perfection, universality and durability. The order requires rules – it is achieved by means of reductions, geometrizations, seriality, categorizations (types and typologies). The author analyses philosophical theories in the field of aesthetics, psychology of perception and architecture, and seeks traces of “order” in contemporary architecture. She focuses on the works that can constitute an example of the architecture subjected to a superior ordering principle – symmetry, repetitions, modularity regarding solids, elevations, and plans. The compositions and structures of these works are based on elementary geometric forms and determined by proportions and numerical relations. Although limited by strict rules, their architecture adopts very different faces. The examples show that even though nowadays the architecture of great expression occupies a special place within the space of modern cities, rationalist ideas – the search for a universal order – are still permanent, contradicting the all-ruling chaos and excess. The work is to broaden the debate on rationalist thought in architecture as the opposite of the intuitive approach.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018H/51/S17.003

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