Repetition in Architecture

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perform new tricks and a vocabulary of modernism that could grow in directions it had never gone before. For example, the pilotis that support the levels, gave birth to an open plan and a free façade. Even this as an original exploration gives the field of architecture new methods and concepts that can be applied elsewhere. Ribbon windows that run alongside the ‘hull’, the ramps giving a moment of outlet or exit from level to level (Kroll 2010). These were new ideas and concepts because they redefined the architecture of what a house could be. It didn’t fall on the previous crutches and definitions of what architecture had been or take from a palate of just precedents. Not simply an amalgamation of ideas deemed ‘good’ or what had previously been successful and popular, it strove for originality and for possibility. These five points of architecture set forth an entirely new exploration of ideas within modernism, allowing the evolution of a movement to grow in multiple directions as opposed to staying within a confined set of parameters that governs this notion of ‘good architecture’.

Clearly, there is trade-off between architecture that pertains to a tried and tested pallet of precedent exploration and architecture that strives for innovation. We see two worlds. One world where evolution and exploration in design is limited as the goal is to simply be ‘good’. Not only is this a world limited to a certain established criterion, it’s a world where the speed and breadth of exploration is too constrained. In our second world we see architecture that although plays on the precedents of architects that have come before, performs with the intent of originality and innovation. It places more value on this exploration of new ideas, and posits a world where the evolution of architecture moves at a pace and breadth never possible in a world where just being good is the status quo.

Bibliography

"Repetition In Architecture", 1914, The Architectural Review (Archive : 1896-2005), vol. 36, no. 217.

Johnson, P. 1955. The Seven Crutches of Modern Architecture. Perspecta, 3, 40-45. doi:10.2307/1566834

Kroll, Andrew. 2010. AD Classics: Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier. ArchDaily 27 October:

http://www.archdaily.com/84524/ad-classics-villa-savoye-le-corbusier

Benton, T. 1987. Le Corbusier Architect of the Century. London: Arts Council of Great Britain

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