Theory II [ LTARC1302 ]

The valuation is based on the ability of the student to use his knowledge acquired during the lecture to answer a synthetic question and to proceed to an analysis of documents (written work + oral synthesis). Valuation out of session.

Each lecture is focused on a work  of an architect, a school or an architectural and artistic movement. It is introduced by a presentation of the cultural context, then developed by the analysis of a serie of significant projects realised or not realised. It is to show, through the crossed analysis of theoretical texts and projects, in which way the thought is to the work in the conception and how the architectural concepts take shape in the conceived or built space.

The activity is given in presence (no e-learning).

The lecture aims to initiate the students to the analysis of modern architectural language taking into account the interaction of its theoretical, formal and spatial components. The frame of the analysis is situated in a historical view. It brings out the specific contribution of a few big figures of modern architecture in the renewal of architectural theories at the turning point of the XIXth and XXth centuries. The lecture proceeds  by crossings (theories / projects) bringing out intellectual sources, references, conceptual and historical relationships.

The lecture takes twelve sessions. It starts with a presentation of the rationalist thought in the XIXth century (around Viollet-Le-Duc) and develops into two big parts.

1. Precursors of modernity, contexts, theories and languages (Horta, Gaudi, Semper, Wagner, Loos, Perret)
2. Modernity(ies) and theories of avant-gardes : Le Corbusier et l'Eprit Nouveau ; Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus; Frank LLoyd Wright ; Alvar Aalto ; DeStijl and the Neoplasticism ;the Russian avant-garde : Suprematism and Constructivism.

General bibliography

• Kenneth Frampton, L'architecture moderne. Une histoire critique, Ph. Sers, 1985
• W.J. Curtis, L'architecture moderne depuis 1900, Phaidon, 2004
• Jacques Lucan, Composition, non-composition. Architecture et théories, XIXe ' XXe siècles, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2009
• Giovanni Fanelli et Roberto Gargiani, Histoire de l'architecture moderne. Structure et revêtement, Presses polytechniques et universitaires romandes, 2008

Lectures support : chosen texts

• Viollet-Le-Duc, Entretiens sur l'architecture, éd. Mardaga, 1986 ; Gottfried Semper, Du Style et de l'architecture. Ecrits, 1834-1869, éd. Parenthèses, 2007 ; Adolf Loos, Paroles dans le vide, éd. Champ Libre, 1979 ; Otto Wagner, Architecture moderne et autres écrits, éd. Mardaga, 1995 ; Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture , éd. Flammarion, 2008 ; Almanach d'architecture moderne , éd. Connivences, 1994 ; Une maison, un palais, éd. Connivences, 1989 ; Précisions, éd. Altamira, 1994 ; Mies van der Rohe, Réflexions sur l'art de bâtir ; textes réunis par Fritz Neumeyer, éd. Le Moniteur, 1996 , Frank Lloyd Wright, Autobiographie, éd. de la Passion, 1998 ; L'avenir de l'architecture, éd. du Linteau, 2003 ;Testament, éd. Parenthèses, 2003. ; Théo van Doesburg, Principes fondamentaux de l'art Néo-plastique, éd. ENSBA, 2007