The Architectural Imagination [Part-1]

Soul never thinks without a Phantasm

Architecture is not just a need for shelter or building but is one of the most complexly negotiated cultural practices. It is very important to understand the radical meaning of these terms before proceeding to make some concrete statements.

Some concept like imagination is important if we want to test architecture as a mode of knowledge

Imagination bridges the gap between perception/institution and understanding and is the mental capacity to create images/scenes.

Rudolf Whittkower

(click here to refer architectural principles in the age of humanism- by Whittkower)

Palladian Villa Types

We get the raw sensory data like the site, material, etc. from our architectural surveys and imagination schematizes it which might have universal validity to create an understanding of Architecture.

Understanding is passive, Imagination is active

Quatremere De Quincy

Building types is a part of Typology in Architecture which literally just means logic of types.

Building Typology focuses on functional aspects like Residential, Educational, Industrials etc. This approach is limiting as conversions within these types are possible.

Quatremere de Quincy's definition of the architectural type- "The word 'type' does not represent so much the image of something that must be copied or imitated perfectly, as the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the model... the model, understood from the point of view of the practical execution of art, is an object that must be repeated such as it is; type, on the contrary, is an object on the basis of which everyone can conceive of works that may not resemble each other at all."