100 Ideas that Changed Architecture

“Art is a discovery and development of elementary principles of nature into beautiful forms suitable for human use,” - Frank Lloyd Wright

The convergence of practicality and beauty is perhaps the central defining characteristic of architecture itself, and of every meaningful development that has pushed the discipline forward over the millennia. In 100 Ideas that Changed Architecture, Cardiff University architecture professor Richard Weston and British publisher Laurence King — trace the most influential cornerstones of architectural ideology and practice.

Weston writes in the Introduction:

"Surprisingly few of the ideas are philosophical or theoretical in character; indeed, some readers may wonder whether some of them — like Fireplace with which the book begins, and Wall and Brick which quickly follow — are ideas at all….

‘Ideas’ that really change the practical art of architecture are not just the relatively few grand philosophical bodies of thought that shape civilizations, but frequently altogether more humble ideas like a brick or reinforcing concrete with rods of steel. Everything that humans make begins, ultimately, with an idea: not, perhaps, those we think of as patentable — the kind cartoonists like to represent as a bulb flashing in a scientist’s head — but as a guiding concept that, for example, tells a stonemason how to shape and place stone on stone to create an arch which, as if by magic, makes it possible to defy gravity and make an opening in a wall. Many such ideas must have occurred independently to different people in different places and the moment when the metaphorical bulb first flashed will never be known — but this does not diminish their importance."

 Idea # 4: COLUMN AND BEAM

Steel frames, consisting of vast networks of columns and beams, have been the preferred structure for tall buildings in the U.S. since the late nineteenth century.

 Idea # 5: DOOR

'Places made for an occasion,' from Gaudi’s Casa Milà in Barcelona and Michel de Klerk’s housing in Amsterdam to medieval doors in San Gimignano, the design of openings and doors offers rich, expressive possibilities.

Idea # 11: VAULT

Right: Lincoln Cathedral is celebrated for its experimental vaults, such as that seen here in St. Hugh’s Choir –known as the “Crazy Vault” on account of its eccentric, asymmetrical version of the classic six-part tierceron vault developed in France.

Idea # 15: ATRIUM

Right: Glass-covered atria—seen here on the grand scale at Rafael Viñoly’s Tokyo International Forum—offer numerous environmental and energy-saving advantages and have become common in offices, hotels, and many other buildings since the 1980s.

Idea # 19: PROPORTION

Top left: Le Corbusier’s lifelong fascination with proportion as a key to architectural beauty culminated in the development of a proportioning system based on the so-called Golden Raio, published in his book Le Modulor in 1948.

Idea # 22: IDEAL

In plan and section, Classical designs such as Sir Christopher Wren’s for St. Paul’s Cathedral, were controlled by 'ideal' geometric forms such as circles and squares that were thought to bring visual harmony to the composition.

Idea # 25: SYMMETRY

Left: As well as sharing the use of axial symmetry in their spatial organization, the decoration of Islamic buildings abounds in complex forms of symmetry rarely encountered in Western architecture.

 Idea # 28: ARCHITECT

Left: More than any of his contemporaries, Le Corbusier—seen here with his ever-present black-rimmed glasses—helped to define the modern image of the architect as an inspired artist-designer.

 Idea # 30: PERSPECTIVE PROJECTION

Right: This beautiful watercolor rendering of the project for Otto Wagner’s own house in Vienna was published in 1890 in the first of a four-part edition of his work. As can be seen from the construction lines on the plan, the center of projection for the perspective lies just off the street.

 Idea # 35: CORRIDOR

Ubiquitous in complex institutional buildings such as many offices, schools, and hospitals, the corridor is a surprisingly recent invention, dating back only to the eighteenth century.

 Idea # 49: THE ELEVATOR

Top right: The 1930s offered no more compelling illustration of the intensity of development made possible by the elevator than the New York skyline; the 102-story Empire State Building, seen in the distance, remained the world’s tallest until the 1970s.

 Idea # 63: ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE

Right: The Spanish architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava frequently claims inspiration from nature, as seen here in the Quadracci Pavilion, a major addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum completed in 2001. The fully glazed reception hall is surmounted by an adjustable, winglike sunscreen (above) while the galleria (right) is said to have been inspired by a wave, and to resemble the bleached bones of a shark.

 Idea # 70: AXONOMETRIC PROJECTION

Right: Theo van Doesburg, the founder of the Dutch De Stijl movement, employed abstract colored planes and axonometric projection to evoke his vision of an ideal spiritual world, floating free of gravity.

 Idea # 78: MORPHOLOGY

Right: During the 1950s the Finnish architect Reima Pietilä (1923-93) undertook an imaginative series of morphological studies of natural phenomena: supremely elegant, the resulting drawings and models exerted a decisive influence on his later architectural work.

Idea # 97: BIGNESS

In 1994, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, founder and principal of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), wrote that 'In a landscape of disarray, disassembly, dissociation, disclamation, the attraction of Bigness is its potential to reconstruct the Whole, resurrect the Real, reinvent the collective, reclaim maximum possibility.'