Space complexity and architectural conception: Revisiting Alberti's treatise
-
Albert Levy
Abstract
The spatial complexity of architecture is postulated to be its main feature by some architects such as L. B. Alberti (1485). We will discuss and compare his definition of architectural space consisting of three registers (necessitas, commoditas, voluptas) with our five registers (urban space, use space, aesthetic space, bioclimatic space, plastic space). In the same way, we will also look into the analysis by F. Choay (La règle et le modèle, Seuil, 1980) of Alberti's treatise. This comparison aims at drawing out differences and commonalities between Alberti's approach of architectural space complexity — primarily how spatial synthesis becomes possible in the project — and ours. This synthesis, or register integration, which is absent in Alberti's work, cannot solely be explained with a simple text presentation, or with a register hierarchy as F. Choay thinks. We propose the concept of synthesis meta-operator to tackle the fusion of registers and pinpoint the role of reference in the project. We will examine how Alberti makes this synthesis in his architectural project as well as the meta-operators he uses. We will conclude by distinguishing generativity and genesis in the theoretical study of conception. One must revisit architectural treatises.
© 2009 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: Signification and space
- Towards an anthropological theory of space and place
- Spatial reification, or, collectively embodied amnesia, aphasia, and apraxia
- Spatial representation, activity, and meaning: Children's images of the contemporary city
- The performance of secrecy: Domesticity and privacy in public spaces
- The choretic work of history
- Art, land, and the gendering of Parnassus
- The semiotics of the Vitruvian city
- Space complexity and architectural conception: Revisiting Alberti's treatise
- Meaning of space and architecture of place
- Ship as a space locus, architecture as a space fabrica
- Introduction: Organizational semiotics and social simulation
- A conceptual linkage between cognitive architectures and social interaction
- The semiotic actor: From signs to socially constructed meaning
- Information systems actability: Tracing the theoretical roots
- Norms-based simulation for personalized service provision
- Universities as producers of evolutionarily stable signs of excellence for academic labor markets?
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: Signification and space
- Towards an anthropological theory of space and place
- Spatial reification, or, collectively embodied amnesia, aphasia, and apraxia
- Spatial representation, activity, and meaning: Children's images of the contemporary city
- The performance of secrecy: Domesticity and privacy in public spaces
- The choretic work of history
- Art, land, and the gendering of Parnassus
- The semiotics of the Vitruvian city
- Space complexity and architectural conception: Revisiting Alberti's treatise
- Meaning of space and architecture of place
- Ship as a space locus, architecture as a space fabrica
- Introduction: Organizational semiotics and social simulation
- A conceptual linkage between cognitive architectures and social interaction
- The semiotic actor: From signs to socially constructed meaning
- Information systems actability: Tracing the theoretical roots
- Norms-based simulation for personalized service provision
- Universities as producers of evolutionarily stable signs of excellence for academic labor markets?
