UE 71 : ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT

E712 : E712 : Architectural project

ECTS	Cours	TD	Pondération
11crédits	0heures	112heures	90%
Dominique Jézéquellou Frédéric Sotinel Paul-Eric Schirr-Bonnans Sébastien Penfornis + 5 Julia Tournaire Véronique Zamant Julie Flohr Frédérique Audigier David Malaud

E711 : E711 : Theory of architecture

Objectifs

Theory of Architecture: Composition, Non-Composition / Drawings & Designs, Didactic Approach & Examples
The course aims to address the issue of composition in architecture as objectively as possible.
We will first examine this issue through the writings of Leon Battista Alberti — who, in his 1452 treatise, emphasizes the importance of drawing, conceived as a mental operation halfway between drawing design — works by Jacques Frédet Jacques Lucan on composition non-composition, writings by Bernard Huet, an expert on Alberti, which focus on the design process as a transition conceptual ideation design to its realization through drawing.

- How do we move a project idea to its formalization realization?
- Through composition, deconstruction, non-composition?
- Using what tools?
- Following which method(s) process(es)?

For Master’s students, who have acquired a foundation in architecture during their undergraduate studies, the goal is to delve into a nuanced understanding, the “very essence” of a building, a city, a public space, a garden, in to grasp, in a fundamental way, their composition — apparent lack thereof — through drawing, looking beyond appearances, the image of the building, city, public space, garden, its construction methods, its surfaces.

This approach to buildings through drawing should enable students to understand who designed them, when they were built, what architectural choices the architect/urban planner/landscape architect made, what the consequences of those choices are, as well as the effects he she intended to achieve.

Whether not it is considered a composition — whether not this is explicitly stated — it invariably involves spatial, structural, distributional, lighting elements, as well as pathways, all of which are essential deliberately chosen by the architect within a given time, space, history of ideas.

To think critically about the present address the challenges of our time, Master’s students must be able to situate themselves within these historical contexts, spaces, intellectual traditions.

Contenu

Topics:
- Composition of buildings / cities / gardens
- Generative regulatory grids, harmonic principles, metrology
- The historical context of architectural categories
- Building typologies
- Constitutional archetypes in architecture
- Spatial boundaries: continuities / discontinuities
- Sequences of approaches, pathways, staging
- Regularity / irregularity / aggregation / organicity
- ...

Method of Analysis:
In his treatise titled *De re aedificatoria*, published in Florence in 1452 translated into French as *L'art d'édifier*, Alberti places particular emphasis on the importance of drawing, conceived as a mental process halfway between drawing design: “As for design, its entire purpose method consist in finding a precise satisfactory means of combining connecting lines angles through which the appearance of the building will be perfectly conveyed captured. The function of drawing is therefore to assign to buildings an appropriate position, an exact number, a suitable module, a harmonious arrangement, so that the entire form of the building rests entirely within the drawing itself.”
The method of compositional analysis presented in the course is directly derived Alberti’s treatise. It was painstakingly developed by Jacques Frédet, an architect instructor at the École de Paris Belleville, presented as part of his course titled “Theory of Composition.”
The method is very simple: it involves analyzing the composition of a building through drawing, by putting oneself in the shoes of the architect who designed the work.
We redraw the project using a hierarchical series of sketches, moving the general to the specific, following a specific .

For each line, we systematically ask ourselves three questions:
- the position topology of the space in question
- its geometric configuration
- finally, its size proportions
in accordance with Alberti’s recommendations cited above.
By answering these questions identifying the lines, we can discern the architect’s compositional choices.

Examples studied (provisional list):
- Egyptian temple
- Villa d'Este Gardens, Tivoli
- Baroque mansion, Avignon, Jean-Baptiste Franque
- Neoclassical theater urban planning in Nîmes, MA Meunier Charles-Etienne Durand
- Cities their redevelopment / reconstruction (Paris, Brest, Rennes?)
- Villa Meyer, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret
- Barcelona Pavilion, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

Mode d'évaluation

Available on the Drive associated with the course.

Mode d'évaluation

Submission of a printed digital portfolio:
Production of an A3 landscape-format portfolio summarizing the analysis of a building’s composition, chosen by a pair of students.
Evaluation of the student's ability to synthesize, through both graphics writing, the analysis of the composition ( non-composition) of a building of their choice, representative of an architectural movement.

Travaux requis

Prepare an A3 landscape-oriented portfolio summarizing the compositional analysis of a building selected by the student pair.

- Conduct an analysis of the composition of a selected building / urban area / garden
- Justify this choice
- Contextualize the architect within the historical period in question, within the architectural output of their contemporaries, within their own body of work, in a text of no more than 2 pages.
- Analyze the following elements:
1) Built masses open spaces
2) Characterization of boundaries degrees of visual permeability
3) Essential distribution pattern
4) Structural framework structural intervals
5) Repetitive spaces exceptional spaces
6) Spatial hierarchies
7) Axialities sequential pathways
8) Symmetries/asymmetries balances
9) Scale proportions
10) Qualities of light
11) Composition
12) Spatial themes
- Explain why this work is, is not, representative of the period in question.

ECTS	Cours	TD	Pondération
2crédits	24heures	0heures	10%
Vincent Jouve