CRITICISM

The word criticism is derived from Greek word ‘kritikos’ (decisive) &‘krinein’ ( to
judge or discern).
Together it means the art of judgment- to make positive or negative judgments or
decisions based on particular criteria.
In every day usage it the word has become synonymous with negativity, with pulling
things apart, fault finding.
Criticism is the essential process by which architectural design is taught & assessed.
PURPOSE:
A primary purpose of criticism is to develop the subject of architecture in
architectural education by reinforcing the analysis by synthesis methodology, because that is
what leads to conscious, appropriate choices & therefore good architectural solutions.

TASKS OF CRITICISM:
 Buildings must function properly, stand securely, provide comfort, be cost effective.
 Buildings must relate to their surroundings, aspire to become works of art.
 Reflect the aesthetic condition of the culture to which they belong.
 Express the compositional impulses of the Architect.

CRITICS:
 Building occupants
 Building owners
 Contractors
 Financiers
 Neighbours
 General public
 Professional peers
 Design connoisseurs
 Recognized Critics & Historians

Criticism has the potential to be a powerful pedagogical tool in architecture education.

(pedagogy= study of the methods of teaching)
Criticism is a behavior in which individuals express their own perceptions of a
physical place, an object, or ideas in the hope of communicating their ideas to others.
However, criticism is sometimes perceived to have a negative connotation because of its
sense of passing a judgment upon a physical place or object.

ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM:
The architectural theorist Wayne Attoe categories & analyses various types of
architectural criticism in his book Architecture & Critical Imagination (1978).
The focus of his interest is Architectural criticism of buildings &
environments.
Retired Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee, has written a book about architectural criticism intended both
for students and his professional colleagues.

He identifies that criticism falls under three basic types of criticism:

 Descriptive criticism,
 Interpretative criticism and
 Normative criticism.
NORMATIVE CRITICISM:
 Based on a standard on which the critic bases his criticism. (Greeks Proportion)
 The critic will compare the given design with the standard.
 It is for the critic to decide what standard to choose and it could be objective or
subjective.
INTERPRETIVE CRITICISM:
 Does not make use of any standard at all.
 It depends entirely on the interpretation of the critic and therefore is highly personal
and prejudiced.
 The critic would like to persuade reader to look at the design in the same way the
critic is looking it.
DESCRIPTIVE CRITICISM:
 As the name suggests, it is more concerned with description of factual things related
to the design and the various people involved with the design as also the events which
influenced the design.

NORMATIVE CRITICISM:
Normative criticism is based on a fixed standard, fixed method, a system of rules or
doctrines that are part of the contemporary paradigm. For example-
 Ancient Greek ideals of proportion
 The doctrine of modernism ‘form follows function’, Ornament is crime’, less is more’
etc
 Traditional concepts that particular building types are appropriate for certain activities
because of their specific appearance like housing or school building.
1. DOCTRINAL CRITICISM:
Doctrinal criticism has as its basis on a doctrine, such as; form follows function, and
tends towards “the belief that there is a single approach for accomplishing our purposes and a
single standard for measuring our achievements”.
2. SYSTEMATIC CRITICISM:
Systematic criticism is an “alternative to the single doctrine…it is an interwoven
assemblage of principles or factors, a system for judging.
Ex: Vitruvius’s commodities, firmness & delight.
3. TYPAL CRITICISM:
It is based upon structural, functional and form types.
4. MEASURED CRITICISM:
Measured criticism assigns numerical standards to provide the norms against which
something is judged. For example, criticism of a public square may take into consideration
the proportion of the size of the square in comparison to the height of the buildings
surrounding it

INTERPRETIVE CRITICISM:
Interpretive criticism can be defensive, associative or impressionistic, is highly
personal & is an attempt to get other people to accept a vision that the critic or presenter has
already decided on.
1. ADVOCACY CRITICISM:
Advocatory criticism is employed by a critic who is an advocate of a building or place and is,
“concerned primarily with engendering appreciation, not with passing judgment”
2. IMPRESSIONISTIC CRITICISM:
Uses the work of art or building as a foundation on which the critic then constructs his own work of
art”. It expresses feelings by using suggestive images & photos as in, for ex. A city in sun or in fog
depending on the message you want to communicate.
3. EVOCATIVE CRITICISM (Associative):
Evocative criticism “uses whatever mean are needed to arouse similar feelings in the reader/viewer.
The evocative critique is not right or wrong, but a surrogate experience”

DESCRIPTIVE CRITICISM:
Depictive criticism may be figurative, biographical or contextual, has the character of
a report, with plain descriptions & no judgments.
1. DEPICTIVE CRITICISM (Figurative):
Depictive criticism does not judge, but merely depicts what exists; such as, how
people move through a space.
Figurative descriptions start with static aspects like form, material, finish or from
dynamic aspects: how a building is used, how it changes over time, & how it
influences its surroundings.
2. BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM:
Biographical criticism provides others with and understanding of the architect in order
to allow a better understanding of their intentions. It connects the stories of buildings
& environments to events in the designer’s life.
3. CONTEXTUAL CRITICISM:
Contextual criticism provides information about the social, political, and economic
context in which something was designed.
It attempts to widen the understanding of objects by relating them to social conditions,
the economic & political context & any possible pressure that has been put on the
designers during their work.

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ARCHITECTUAL THEORY
BY
JON LANG

Jon Lang, Professor of Architecture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,
Australia, as well as Director for Urban Design for the Environmental Research Group
Philadelphia.
Dr Lang has served as a consultant for UNESCO in Turkey and for the Ford
Foundation in India. He is the co-editor of the pioneering book “Designing for Human
Behavior: Architecture and the Behavioral Sciences”.
He is the author of “Creating Architectural Theory: The Role of Behavioral Sciences
in Environmental Design”.
Lang describes theory as " ... an ambiguous word. It means different things to
different people. To some people a theory is a system of ideas or statements - a mental
schema - that is believed to describe and explain a phenomenon or a group of phenomena.
Lang further explains that "theory" is used in at least three other ways.

Theory can refer to a model, a way of perceiving reality that imposes a structure on
that reality.
Theory can also refer to a prediction that a certain outcome will be achieved by a
certain action.
The other type of theory is a prescription for action which Lang calls normative
theory, which is built on positive theories.

POSITIVE THEORY:
Positive theory could encompass designer’s understanding of the natural and the built
environments and their roles in people's lives.
It is concerned with understanding the processes of design in which various design
issues will be investigated and based on the conditions of the users and their environmental
needs, some architectural design solutions are created.
Positive theory in the design fields, as for other applied decision-making fields,
consists of two components,
 substantive theory and
 Procedural theory.
Substantive theory is concerned with the nature of the environment at both a
molecular and molar level, its qualities and how it functions, and what it affords people for
activities, physiological support, and aesthetic experiences.
Substantive theory can thus be divided into two principal and interrelated
components,
 natural environmental theory and
 person-environment theory.
"Natural environmental theory deals with the nature of materials, the nature of geometry,
the nature of structures, and the nature of the interplay between natural forces (wind, rain,
sun, for example) and the artificial environment.
"Person-environment theory deal with the description and explanation of what the
three-dimensional layout of the environment affords different organisms for their habitats".
Procedural theory provides an opportunity for designers to take 'interaction' between
different design issues into consideration during the design process to develop a
comprehensive design solution.

NORMATIVE THEORY:
Design principles used are based on personal experiences of Architect. Not based on
systematic research and systematic body of shared knowledge.
 Form follows function – Louis Sullivan
 Less is more – Mies Van Der Rohe
 Less is bore – Robert Venturi
 House is a machine for living in – Le Corbusier
 Ornament is crime – Adolf loos
 Organic Architecture – F L Wright
The reason is simple: having guidelines and principles simplifies the process of
making decisions.
"Design principles", "standards", and "manifestos" are examples of normative theory
in architecture. They are based on an ideological position to investigate what good
architecture should be.
Lang states, "The design principles used throughout the design fields are based on
some positive statements about the nature of the built world and human experience.
These statements are based largely on the insights and personal experiences of the
individual professional rather than on a well formulated and systematic body of shared
knowledge based on the systematic research and/or the cumulative experience of
practitioners”.
Although using some 'norms' and 'standards' in design is necessary in some stages of
the design process, however, it is not enough.
An appropriate architectural theory in design should reflect the dynamic spirit of
design by engaging investigation and designing for specific conditions of man and his
environment.
This way, the Author believes, designers could explicitly express their thoughts in
design and the architectural solutions created by different designers would differ from one
another.
GARY MOORE has proposed that positive theories are testable according to the laws
of empirical reality while normative theories (for instance those related to design practice) are
testable only by measures of professional acceptance or longevity.

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