This presentation is about the first-generation urban designer Colin Rowe.ppt

This presentation is about the first-generation urban designer Colin Rowe

1. COLIN ROWE
Architect and architectural historian.
Done by :Faten Altwal

2. ROWE, COLIN [FREDERICK]
Date born: March 27, 1920
Place Born: Rotherham, England
Date died: November 5, Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
British-born but American naturalized.
He is Architect and architectural historian, critic, theoretician, and
teacher.
As known he had a major intellectual influence on world architecture and
urbanism in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond,
particularly in the fields of city planning, regeneration, and urban design.

3. HIS MA THESIS
(WARBURG
INSTITUTE( UNIVERSITY OF
LONDON)
He wrote his thesis under
Wittkower (chairman of the
Department of Art History and
Archaeology) on the theoretical
drawings of Inigo Jones
(significant British architect of the
modern period, and the first to bring
Italianate Renaissance architecture
 to England).
Its was theoretical treatise on
Architecture, analogous to
Palladio’s four Books .
Andrea Palladio The Four Books of
Architecture
The First Book is devoted to building
materials and techniques and the five
orders of architecture. The Second Book
deals with private houses and mansions,
almost all of Palladio's own design. The
Third Book is concerned with streets,
bridges, piazzas, and basilicas, most of
which are of ancient Roman origin. In the
Fourth Book, Palladio reproduces the
designs of a number of ancient Roman
temples. 

4. MODUS OPERANDI
Rowe's completely original modus operandi was based on making
comparisons between cultural events that conventional history kept
widely separated and categorized.
His completely unorthodox, simultaneous, non-linear, non-chronological
view of history then made it possible for him to develop theoretical
speculations such as his famous essay “The Mathematics of the Ideal
Villa” 

5. HIS FIRST ESSAY
First essay…
"The Mathematics of the Ideal
Villa" appeared in the Architectural
Review, 1947..
He wrote a number of essays, in
these essays Rowe makes the
history of ideas into a dramatic
theatre and he prods the
polemics, theories and orthodox
histories of modern architecture
onto its stage.
AND discusses mannerism and
modern architecture, architectural
vocabulary in the 19th century, the
architecture of Chicago,
neoclassicism and modern
architecture, and the architecture of
utopia.

6. In 'The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa' (1947), Rowe compares Palladio’s
Villa Foscari (norhen italy )with Le Corbusier’s Villa’s like villa
Stein(Garches), in order to reposition modern architecture within a
classical tradition.
finding similar principles in both
similar “rules

7. Colin Rowe interprets Le Corbusier's facades as "the primary
demonstrations of the mathematical discipline;" at Garches, for
example, Le Corbusier "carefully indicates his relationships by an
apparatus of regulating lines and figures and by placing on the
drawings of his elevations the ratio of the golden section, A:B=B:
(A+B).
Similarities:
1. The use of mathematics in the Villa Foscari and the experience of
geometry and proportion
2. The typology of the two villas and the experience of ‘villa life’
3. The displacement of classical concepts in the Villa Stein and the
experience of tradition.
4. The role of technology in the Villa Stein and the experience of
modernity.

8. As I Was Saying
Recollection and Miscellaneous Essays
Divided into three volumes, in more or less chronological order, As I Was
Saying includes articles, essays, eulogies, lectures, reviews, and memoranda.
As I Was Saying, Volume 1 As I Was Saying, Volume 2 As I Was Saying, Volume 3

9. Rowe published a number of widely influential papers that influenced
architecture by further developing the theory that there is a conceptual
relationship between modernity and tradition, specifically Classicism in its
various manifestations, and Modern Movement "white architecture" of the
1920s.
Many of his most important books and essays are in fact more concerned with
urban form than with architectural language.
His work, led to the contextualism school of thought which was critical of
modern urban design and architectural theory of design where in modern
building types are harmonized with urban forms usual to a traditional city.

10. Rowe's, known as the Whites because of their
preoccupation with formal purity and the
absence of color in their designs.
Schumacher’s 1967 Thesis: A plan for a new
development in South Amboy, NJ, developed
at the Cornell Urban Design Studio directed
by Colin Rowe. Courtesy Middleton, “The
Combining of the Traditional City and the
Modern City

11. He focused on developing an alternative method of urban design derived in
part from the earlier work of Camillo Sitte but largely original, and based on
the making of cities through a process of collaged, superimposed pieces; the
ideal model for this pragmatic, anti-doctrinaire approach was the ruined villa
of the Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli, outside Rome

12. This book is a critical
reappraisal of contemporary
theories of urban planning and
design and of the role of the
architect-planner in an urban
context.
‘Collage City’ presents a
critical analysis of the origins,
ideologies and shortcomings
of Modernist city planning
Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter: Collage City
& Combining Colin Rowe’s historical expertise
and Fred Koetter’s research on multi-scalar
urban elements.

13. The book is split into 5 chapters – Utopia: Decline and Fall?;; Crisis of
the Object: Predicament of Texture; Collision City and the Politics of
‘Bricolage’; and Collage city and the Reconquest of Time.
‘Utopia: Decline and
Fall?’, after a quick
mention of modernism
he introduces the
history of Utopian
visions with a brief
explanation of the
ascetic, Christian values
of the Classical Utopia.
(history and notable
examples of ideal city
designs)
“

14. ‘Crisis of the Object: Public space (and its appropriation) and the texture
of the urban fabric are the main themes explored through this
chapter…“Speculative pleasure” of the city walker creating his own
narrative to spaces that are inaccessible to him allows for a more
connected experience to be had, rather than allowing free reign to
meander across every open space in the city.
‘Collision City and the Politics of “Bricolage”’
where the authors turn their discussion
towards those who design and create
the spaces rather than the spaces
themselves.
‘Collage City and the Reconquest of Time’ 
proposal of Collage City – a city of fragments
from the past, present and future,
taking inspiration from working examples
in existing cities; some scientific,
others picturesque; some antique,
others contemporary.

15. The final paragraph : “Utopia
as metaphor and Collage City as
prescription…

16. Derek Tynan… city of Dublin
Late 70s to the final proposal by Derek Tynan for the city of Dublin, It is in
part a matter of chronology. The Printworks by Derek Tynan Architects(Thomas
Schumacher and Steven Peterson) is a mixed-use development comprising on-
street commercial development
Tynan's thesis draws both from Rowe's evolving prognoses and his own
immediate knowledge of one of Europe's smaller and less "modernized" capitals..

17. CONCLUSION
His modus operandi was based on making comparisons between cultural
events that conventional history kept widely separated and categorized.
He was influenced with the historic examples especially by the villas of
Palladio's and then his interest extend beyond the modern era.
Many of his most important books and essays are in fact more concerned
with urban form than with architectural language.
His essays discusses mannerism and modern architecture, architectural
vocabulary in the 19th century

18. REFERENCES
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/author/default.asp?aid=675.
Collage City Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter Book.
"The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa“ essay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Rowe