In What Style Should We Build?
By: Bharani Sri Gujuluva
Tags: Architectural History, Architectural Theory, Architectural Writing, Architecture

Style: A Definition

Style is a concept that can contain multiple meanings and make sense all at the same time. It is so because it is an intangible component, that we cannot materialize. There are enough instances in history to show the incompetence of the human race with such concepts. To being with, the word was used in speech and writing before it was understood as an attribute of anything to do with the design world.

There are several definitions of style given by the Oxford dictionary, out of which two can be considered to relate to style in architecture:

“a particular procedure by which something is done; a manner or way,”

And,

“a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed.”

Why Architectural Style?

Today, the very word “style” with regards to architecture has a lot of potentials to instigate contradictory arguments, stemming from diverse viewpoints, be it in studios or debate halls to academic papers and even books. It is used to refer to a set of regulations considered the norm at a given time period in history, this is called anthology and it is sometimes used to define an architect’s personal taste, which gave rise to the starchitect phenomenon that we witness today. These are two diametrically opposite definitions.

Throughout history, the meaning and implications of architectural style have varied. In this article, I try my level best to analyze and conclude from the resources at my disposal.

That is why this article is titled “In What Style Should We Build?”, similar to that of Henrich Hubusch’s monograph, written and released (in 1828) at a time when the architectural academic world was struggling to understand the concept of style and what should be their next step looking forward.

Looking back today, that monograph from 1828 stands as the inquiry with the most depth when it comes to the subject of style. But this is just from our point of view and understanding of style today, so how was the concept understood earlier?

Architectural Style: Birth and Evolution

From 1750 until the start of the twentieth century the question was not about what style was, but about which style to apply to which type of building. This included the art historical or diagnostic approach where each style has certain elements and if a building ticks off all these checkboxes then it is considered as belonging to that style. This had a lot to do with the aesthetics and perfection of the exterior. Before the 1750s, the style wasn’t realized as a phenomenon by the practitioners. It was then that the anthology had become much more concrete to have arguments of this kind.

After this, the debate only hit a high point in German architectural thinking during the mid-18th century to the early 19th century. The main texts came from Hubusch, and his oppositions of Goethe, Schlegel, Winckelmann, and more. He went against all the existing notions of style and declared that the perfect style is sensitive to the time period it is born in. Address the problems the period faces, become its identity. And he ended up stating one of the offspring of Rennaissance as the style they should build in the. This is where the functionalist way of designing buildings was born from the idea that buildings have a certain purpose to fulfill.

The Modern Period and Beyond

Then during the modern period, the condemning of use of style in any way in the academic world became popular due to which the understanding that we as inheritors of the modern period have today is linear and does not equip us to respond appropriately to society. It has put the concept in a box and has told us it can only bring harm and no good. This led to an extreme of ultra-modern take on buildings and became a whole movement with minimalism spearheading it, this in itself became a style, the thing that tried to stray as far as possible from the word itself.

But all hope was not lost when in the 1950s, a theorist and academician called Nikolaus Pevsner invoked the spirit of Hubusch in himself and tried to define ‘architectural style’. He starts by rewording Hubusch, stating that style is the expressive language of the period it has originated in, lasting for a decade, a generation, or even a century. But he then says this definition has a loophole. If a style has to represent the spirit of an age, then it should hold to distinct characteristics that are endemic to that age, which is near impossible in our age as there are ideas both typical and contradictory to it. There exist architects of original thinking who are actively contributing to the style of a period, and there are also architects upon whom an already accepted sense of style is being imposed. Pevsner says that both these concepts are acceptable, but neither, on its own, conveys the whole truth. He says:

The artist is not entirely at the mercy of his period, nor is the period at his, but it assists his cause immeasurably if he should happen to strike a chord of common feeling which he catalyses into an aesthetic revelation.

All of these happenings led to a fiery but short-lived movement called Post Modernism. The movement addressed the complete ignorance of history and decoration in Modernism and its contemporaries. The most significant characteristic of Modernism was that it was formulated based on one concept-the function or utilitarian aspect of buildings. The same is evident in Parametricism, born in the 90s and supposedly reaching perfection today, as claimed by theorists. Its theory is based on the advancement and capacity of computers. Its evolution shares much of the DNA of Modernism, almost as if they are siblings, and hence doesn’t hold much promise for the future of the building.

Further Beyond

During the period in which humans have existed on the face of this planet, our civilizations and our minds have grown. Architecture has reached complexity too. So has the concept of style. It is only logical for the practitioners of today to be mindful of these facts and act accordingly. As Pevsner said, it would help the architects if they were to seek help from the current contribution of genius to the field since it takes all of us to create a style for our period.

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