TOPOLOGY & TYPOLOGY Towards the Contemporarism
What is contemporary architecture? The word “contemporary” means something that is existing at present time. In architecture, Modernism is a very specific vocabulary that can define a specific language for a building. Modernism is not limited to architecture that was built in the modern period, but rather implies an architecture that follows a certain vocabulary of the modernist language in any period of time. Then, how can we define contemporary architecture? If we define it in a chronological way, any project that is built in the present will be considered contemporary architecture, and at the same time, it will not be a contemporary project once time passes. There is no longer a taxonomy in architecture, because anything that is built in the present just becomes contemporary architecture. However, just as we define modernism, perhaps there is a way of defining contemporarism based on a certain vocabulary, and eventually, only a certain type of project will fit into the category of contemporarism. Types of Architecture Discussions of typology in architectural field began in the mid-eighteenth century when Marc-Antonie (Abbe) Laugier wrote about fundamentals of architecture with the illustration of a primitive hut in his essay Essai sure l’architecture (Essay on Architecture), and continues on through Quatremere de Quincy who used the term “type” in Encyclopedie
Methodique taking Laugier’s argument as background. Anthony Vidler defines this discourse of typology that emerged through Enlightenment movement as the first typology, and it also includes J. N. L Durand’s discourse that was developed in the similar period. Durand’s work gave a possibilities of various types of architecture through combinations of those types, which became more autonomous architecture than an architecture that rooted to tradition. Since his functional way of classification, the way how he constructed typology influenced significantly to the modern architecture that was developed toward rationalism and functionalism. Perhaps, the most significant step in the discourse of Typology was made in the Modern era by Le Corbusier, which Vidler defines as the second typology. Unlike theoretical arguments in previous period, architects in the Modern period had to deal with a sudden need of large amounts of construction. Hence, it was natural to have more typological discussions that responded to this condition of massive amounts of construction happening at once. Typology was no longer an analysis of existing traditional buildings nor buildings rooted from history, but rather a new way of understanding architecture more systematically so that it can accommodate the need of mass construction. With the Dom-ino system, Le Corbusier simply explained how a Modern architecture can be systematized and built massively and functionally. Although receiving many criticism, what he argued was that this functional system should be addressed as a type so that there is more freedom in plan and facade. In the late 1960s, the third typology, as Vidler described, was discussed and developed in the field mainly among Neo-Rationalist architects. As with most of the post-modern period discourses, the third typology also criticized the study of typology in modern era that attempted to separate itself from history. The third typology focused on the relationship between urban form and architecture. As Neo-Rationalists, for instance Also Rossi, tried to attach architectural vocabularies to history, unlike Modernists’ internationalism, understanding an existing urban form was very important for them, and the attachment to history was no longer through ornaPRAUD