The Architectural Project considers the practice of architectural
design as it has developed during the last two centuries. In this
challenging interpretation of design education and its effect on
design process and products, Argentinean scholar Alfonso
Corona-Martínez emphasizes the distinction between an
architectural project, created in the architect's mind and
materialized as a set of drawings on paper, and the realized
three-dimensional building.
	
    Corona-Martínez demonstrates how representation plays a
substantial role in determining both the notion and the character of
architecture, and he traces this relationship from the Renaissance
into the Modern era, giving detailed considerations of
Functionalism and Typology. His argument clarifies the continuity
in the practice of design method through the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, a continuity that has been obscured by the
emphasis on changing goals instead of design procedures.

    Architectural schooling, he suggests, has had a decisive role in
the transmission of these practices. He concludes that the methods
formalized in Beaux Arts teaching are not only still with us but are
in good part responsible for the stylistic instability that haunts
Modern architecture.

    The Architectural Project presents subtle considerations that
must be mastered if an architect is to properly use typology, the
means of representation, and the elements of composition in
architecture. Students, teachers, and practitioners alike will benefit
from the author's insights.

_________________________________________________________

ALFONSO CORONA-MARTÍNEZ teaches architectural design
and theory at Belgrano University in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The
original Spanish-language edition of this study was first published
in Argentina in 1990; this translation provides a completely revised
version of the text.


Number Six: Studies in Architecture and Culture


What people are saying about this book

“It is rare to encounter a book that takes such an original and 
productive stance in relation to the established literature of 
design theory. Its method and content add much that is new to 
its field and connect the question of how we design to the wider
cultural and historical accounts of architecture.”—The Architectural
Review