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TYPOLOGICAL THINKING IN ARCHITECTURE

A. Mielnik

Abstract

This article is a part of broader research on the rationalist attitude in architectural theory and practice. The subject of the following considerations is the notion of typological thinking. Raising of this subject aims to systematize knowledge (both rich historical and contemporary theory) and to draw attention to the issue of type and typology as a potential tool for shaping architectural form. Categorization, classification, identification, definition, and constriction are constructs engrained in human nature, necessary in experience, understand, and clarify the world. Taxonomy, one of the systems of classification, is about the similarities and differences between various objects and phenomena. Clearly defined things, placed in taxonomic structure, therefore, gain identity. The tendency to create typologies is especially characteristic of times in which rationalism of human worldview dominated (the Enlightenment, Modernism). While chaos and disorientation are more and more a part of our contemporary architectural experience, there is a pluralism of designing tendencies. Spaces devoid of identity, without properties, anonymous, are expressions of the architectural world today, intensifying the sense of menВ’s uprooting and alienation. The architectural world lacks character, meaning or any recognizable points of reference that enable orientation or a sense of direction in space. The appropriate instruments for operating in such complex conditions may be, therefore, a rational method of organizing issues and data into an efficient system of normalized typological elements. The architectural type, a consequence of the close link between aim and form, allows the creator to reveal the identity of the object, the place, and the viewer to facilitate their reading and identification. The question of type in architecture, requiring one to look "under the surface" of form, becomes a tool that allows for the synthesis of content and matter, both in the scale of the building and the city. Type, in fact, gives us information encoded in the form. The premise behind this text is to demonstrate that typological reasoning still manifests itself with great perseverance and to show the constant need for experimentation and rebirth of typological debate in architecture.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2018/5.3/S21.092

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