Formas clássicas; o racionalismo clássico como filosofia de concepção

Abstract

The present dissertation aims to interpret a set of historic architectural works which are based upon the architectonic variant of classical principles of conception. For this reason, we have developed a theoretical reflection based on the history of architecture, which can, simultaneously, not only highlight the ideological continuity over the years embedded in the classical tradition, but also uphold a practical development of a school project. With that in mind, in this work, the shared idea of an architectonic language, sustained throughout the history of architecture, is considered essential for the construction of a structured architecture. In fact, we argue that the formal and spatial design of the project is founded on the classical principles and rules we consider viable for the realization and the identity of the project, refusing the eclectic perspective on the essence of originality as a unique method of conception. Thus, the dichotomy of past and the present values, based on the relationship between classical and modern architecture, reflects the attempt to produce a contemporary project of a historical nature. As a result, the methodology of the project allows for the creation of a coherent narrative, which contributes to the analysis of the concept of classical tradition, manifested in the neoclassical and modern periods in particular. Therefore, this work focuses on the interpretative reading of the idea of classical tradition. This conception is sustained by neoclassical and modern architectural works by a group of prestigious authors who actually underlie their implementation through a constructive and compositional grammar, originated in the architecture of the Classical Antiquity. In this respect, we highlight the formal design of the Greek Temple, the architectonic ideology of Leon Alberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, Andrea Palladio, Karl Schinkel and Louis Boullée, masters of the renaissance and classical revival period, and the work of Mies Van der Rohe, Adolf Loos and Rafael Moneo, masters of the modern era, conceptions which actually rely both on tradition and on classical heritage. From the understanding of their ideals, we have developed a contemporary project, substantiated and referenced by history and by classical tradition, to which a unitary and categorical disciplinary value is assigned, with the ambition of awakening the historical thinking of architecture. In fact, the works described as classic rational models will be significant in this ambition, to find references that are actually based on the classical principles of conception. Thus, the works which are interpreted represent true evidence of the unravelling of formal and spatial problems through the conceptual reinvention of some classical compositional elements, with the intention of establishing a common thread based on reason. In short, the architectonic language of the buildings we dissertate on provides legitimacy and reference to the conceptual principles of the project exercise. The referential method we propose emphasizes the formal realization, the spatial conception and the compositional ideology of the project through the original interpretation of the most renowned classic buildings, through the spatial organization according to classical composition systems and the modern reinterpretation of its principles and, finally, through the traditional and historical elements that characterize the project place. So, the defense of the classical tradition appears as an identity instructional element, able to support the conception and the realization of the project exercise.