A Theory of Architecture [Paperback]

Nikos A. Salingaros (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 3937954074 | ISBN-13: 978-3937954073 | Publication Date: May 31, 2007

More than a decade in the making, this is a textbook of architecture rich with design techniques and useful for every architect whether a first-year students or experienced practicing architects. The book teaches the reader how to design by adapting to human needs and sensibilities, yet independently of any particular style. It explains much of what people instinctively know about architecture, and puts that knowledge for the first time in a concise, understandable form. There has not been such a book treating the very essence of architecture. Preface by HRH the Prince of Wales.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A New Vitruvius for 21st-Century Architecture and Urbanism? This is a marvelous piece and it should be a required reading in theory courses introduced in both undergraduate and graduate programs of architecture worldwide." 

~ Ashraf Salama, IJAR

"Salingaros focuses on the question of why, even in societies that often embrace the silly and the stupid, the public still mostly prefers traditional architechture."
~ David Brussat, Providence Journal

"Architecture ... is governed by universal and intuitively understood principles ... exemplified by all successful styles and in all civilizations that have left a record of themselves in their buildings. The solution is [to return] to first principles and build within their constraints."
~ Roger Scruton, The New Criterion

"Understanding aesthetic forms in the built environment using mathematics, thermodynamics, Darwinism, complexity theory and cognitive sciences. Remarkable observations suggest that concepts of complexity and scale can someday provide a full-bodied explanation for both the practice and the appreciation of architecture."
~ Kim Sorvig, INTBAU

"This recently-published text has already been adopted for courses in architecture schools. A fundamental text, among the most significant of the past several years."
~ Vilma Torselli, Artonweb

From the Inside Flap

"With the new-found capacity of information handling systems, science is revealing truths about our world that were heretofore incalculable. From within this new body of knowledge we can better explain how the world around us works. In this book Dr. Salingaros answers a series of age-old questions about how we operate within the built environment, revealing the underlying structure of what is good architecture. His book gives insight and direction that can lead us to build a better place. For those among us, i.e. students, professors and practicing architects, who are seeking a more real manner in which to conceive of and construct architecture, I would recommend not one but two or even three thorough readings, without ideological prejudice, of A Theory of Architecture." -- Kenneth G. Masden II

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: ISI Distributed Titles (May 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3937954074
• ISBN-13: 978-3937954073
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #714,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Nikos A. Salingaros MA PhD is one of the pioneers who are defining the new architecture. This is an innovative and interactive way of conceiving, constructing, and repairing the city. The author of six monographs on architectural and urban design translated into six languages, he is on the forefront of deriving evidence-based rules for the built environment using scientific methods and logic. These rules replace outdated working assumptions that have created dysfunctional urban regions following World-War II. His work links human-scale urbanism is to developing architectural movements such as P2P Urbanism, the Network City, Biophilic Design, Self-built Housing, Generative Codes, and Sustainable Architecture. A collaborative scientific approach supersedes the century-long practice where an "expert" urbanist determines the form of the build environment based upon improvable and "secret" rules, which are often nothing more than images and ideologies.

Dr. Salingaros collaborated with the visionary architect and software pioneer Christopher Alexander, helping to edit the four-volume "The Nature of Order" during its twenty-five-year gestation. In recognition of his efforts to understand architecture using scientific thinking, Salingaros was awarded the first grant ever for research on architecture by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1997. He is a member of the INTBAU College of Traditional Practitioners and is on the INTBAU Committee of Honor. He was one of the "50 Visionaries who are Changing Your World" selected by the UTNE Reader in 2008. In Planetizen's 2009 survey, he was ranked 11th among "The Top Urban Thinkers of All Time". Salingaros is the author of over 120 scientific papers. Both an artist and scientist, he is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and is also on the architecture faculty of Università di Roma Tre, Italy and the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Campus Queretaro, Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a *must* read for any student of architecture, July 2, 2007

By 

Frederick Grier "f.grier" (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Theory of Architecture (Paperback)

What an amazing book! I highly recommend it to any architect, designer or student thereof. It is a powerful, direct look at the principles behind psychologically pleasing design - grounded in math and science. Salingaros presents easy to digest information; rules that help an architect create his/her own "language" to humanize design, and interesting concepts that everyone can enjoy.

I picked it up about a few months ago, and it has dramatically changed the way I see "good architecture". Following the patterns of Christopher Alexander and others, Salingaros offers us an accessible and applicable examination of how architects construct basic psychological needs into the built environment. He has created easy to understand guides to build a socially responsible, aesthetic and long-lasting architecture.

A Theory of Architecture is a different view of sustainable design that will lead a new breed of architects into a dynamic renewal of human-centric architecture. Undoubtedly the most powerful book I've read since McDonough's Cradle to Cradle. Salingaros is a visionary, and I can't wait to read more of his work!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars COMING HOME, August 30, 2007

By 

J. P. Dawson "Jaap Dawson" (Delft, Nederland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Theory of Architecture (Paperback)

A Theory of Architecture is not a cook book. It does not tell architects how to compose a building in several easy steps. Rather, it gives architects permission to do what we would automatically do if we had not been taught the style rules and the world view of the `Modern Movement' and its successors. A Theory of Architecture reveals the scientific food value of most tried and true building recipes while demonstrating that contemporary junk food is exactly that.

Why should the architect, who is more often a creator and a builder than a reader, plough through pages of analogies that link our perception of spaces and surfaces with the laws of nature in mathematics and physics? Simply because the laws come alive for us in the author's straightforward and active prose. They remind us that when we design a building, we do far more than please a client or satisfy demands of use and economy. They remind us that we shape order in our world. We can base that order on an ideological whim. Or we can base it on patterns and forms found in nature and in the majority of architecture throughout history.

A Theory of Architecture is a book we can read again and again. Then we can put it down and forget about it. The lessons we glean from it will have taken form in the designs we make. We discover that our buildings have levels of scale, meaningful ornament, proportions which the human eye notices inherently. We notice that both patterns and forms comprise the language which our spaces and their boundaries speak. We realize we have learned to design in consonance with our own nature. What a breakthrough! What a book!

Dr. Ir. Jaap Dawson,
Architect and Assistant Professor of Architectural Design,
Technische Universiteit Delft

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking but overstated!, February 22, 2010

By 

Pierre Gauthier (Montréal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Theory of Architecture (Paperback)

This very innovative book presents a scientific approach to what can be architecturally successful. With three basic laws, it convincingly attempts at rationalizing what is experienced unthinkingly or, some may say, artistically. Mathematics are particularly invoked but so are thermodynamics, biology and psychology.

More detailed examples of the theory's application would however be welcome. As it is, the author repeatedly states that, say, medieval cathedrals respect the three laws but does not demonstrate it in detail or even illustrate it. The flip side _ that modernist slab buildings don't abide by the theory _ is intuitively more straightforward but not anymore specifically exemplified.

The book is in fact a collection of articles that were previously published independently. It is thus divided in several sections and subsections. This does make it more easily readable than otherwise but, although there has clearly been some editing, leads to multiple references from one chapter to another and, inevitably, to several repetitions. In addition, the overall style is wordy so that very strong points are drowned in a sea of words. Though a few enlightening hand-drawn sketches _ à la Léon Krier _ are included, absolutely no photograph is present. The book's general layout is far from appealing, closer to an old-fashioned scientific journal than to a 21st century work dealing with architecture. This applies as well to the black and white cover page. Overall, this poor publishing effort probably explains why this work, available since 2006, has not had the impact its content deserves.

Also, the author makes very frequent use of the pronoun «I», what seems totally out of place in what is deemed to be a scientific rendering. His credibility is also affected by his tendency to be overly adamant, linking for instance the Bauhaus with the Holocaust or likening Modernism to the HIV virus.

Despite its significant shortcomings, this pioneering and highly original work should have a major impact on our built environment and is thus very strongly recommended to anyone involved in architecture or city planning.