Architectural criticism is a discipline that has been around for centuries, but its importance has never been greater. Architecture is often thought of as the products of the discipline, which are structures, but it is also a casting of the very fabric of our lives. The spaces we inhabit, our homes, workplaces, and public areas, affect our health, feelings, and how we interact with one another. While architects are the designers of our environment, architectural critics provide a close reading that helps us grasp the social, emotional, and practical significance of these spaces. The main aim of architectural criticism is to provide an informed, independent, objective, and critical narrative on structures and environmental issues for a wider reading public. However, architectural criticism is more extensive than the simple appraisal of buildings, it is an exploration of the artistic, social, literal, and aesthetic boundaries of spaces and structures.
The Essence of Architectural Criticism
Architectural criticism is not limited to surface-level impressions. It is a more structured investigation to try to understand the retired narratives of the architecture. Through the assessment of form, function, environment, and symbolism, critics reveal the purposes and effects of the design, making the built world more accessible to the public. The concept of knowledge is central to architectural criticism and as a discipline, it is based on methods, knowledge acquired from history and proposals as well as social principles and sources.
See architectural criticism as not so much a stationary judgment and more as a living, breathing conversation. It’s never static, like the architecture itself, expressing the latest design thoughts and how we live our lives. It examines the past of a building, its setting, and how it impacts the people who use it. Ultimately, it is about perceiving what a building means, once you have seen beyond the face.
Mapping Architectural Meaning: A Guide to Critical Approaches
Architectural criticism, as a distinct field, is fairly incipient, particularly before the 21st century. Accordingly, it draws heavily upon established methodologies from cultural and philosophical review.
- Interpretive Criticism: Interpretive criticism emphasizes the environment, explaining a structure’s design, literal references, and emblematic meanings. It uncovers the story behind the structure by examining its construction and suggestive connotations, making it a vital approach to architectural analysis.
- Criticism by Regulations: To ensure credible evaluation, the architectural criticism must adhere to defined norms. These norms, covering a broad spectrum of architectural aspects, enable critics to analyze a structure’s quality grounded on its essential characteristics, rather than private preferences. Without these norms, evaluations lack validity and transparency, hindering public understanding of architectural critique.
- Classic Criticism: This criticism has taken an analytical nature, in the sense that architecture is analyzed into multiple aspects, to examine every side of an analytical practical study and then include all the factors together, aiming to get the full concept of the architecture of a certain period. Analytical theory depends on the assembly of small parts mechanically to get the overall picture. Objectives of the classic criticism are:
- Evaluation of the work on a general formal basis.
- Classification of the work in its proper historical location
- Comparing the work or the monument with masterpieces, which represent the supreme aesthetic according to classical concepts, gives its real aesthetic value.
- Analysis of the architecture according to its basic elements and factors.
- Judgment.
- Contextual Criticism: This approach to architectural criticism expands the scope of analysis to include the wider context in which a building exists. It investigates the circumstances of its development, its effects on society, and the complex interplay between the structure and its environment.
- Impressionistic Criticism: Impressionistic criticism, as practiced by mid-nineteenth-century contextual theorists, was characterized by a strong ambition to align architectural analysis with the scientific rigor and factual accuracy of the physical sciences.
- Intentional Criticism: This form of criticism centers on the architect’s intended psychological and aesthetic aims. It invites viewers to approach the work with empathy, avoiding interpretations that are foreign to the architect’s vision. When the architect’s psychological intent is realized in the building, it serves as a crucial tool for the critic, helping to explain design choices and unveil the aesthetic intent.
- Modern Architectural Criticism: This contemporary approach to criticism moves beyond piecemeal analysis, striving for a holistic vision of architecture. It establishes theoretical foundations that connect various architectural elements, allowing for the diagnosis of architecture’s dimensions, aspects, and fundamental essence.
Elements of Evaluation: Defining Architectural Merit
The criteria for architectural criticism, and how they should be present in built environments, will be outlined.
- Humanitarian Criteria:
- Social Criterion: Represents the social and artistic position girding the architectural work, and social adequacy and commerce with this work.
- Economic Criterion: Includes costs and feasibility studies, or benefit and profitability of the Architectural work.
- Political Criterion Includes support and convenience of political exposure for the intellectual trends and the architectural work.
- Urban and Architectural Criteria:
- Formative criterion: Relates to aesthetics, proportions, shape, and character of the architectural work, including symbols and constructive vocabulary.
- Schematic criterion: The appropriateness of architectural work and its commerce with the general planning of road networks and the general character of the city’s Urban planning.
- Environmental Criterion: The comity of architectural work with the surrounding natural or man-made environment.
- Structural Criterion: Evaluation of the selection of construction styles and ways used, and the appropriateness of them to the construction site.
In conclusion, architectural criticism is necessary and serves as a vital bridge between the buildings people live in, and the meanings they carry. They highlight the form, function, context, and intent of the work through the use of various critical approaches, from the interpretive analysis that brings out the hidden stories to the regulatory assessment that guarantees that the work meets set requirements. However, modern criticism is more holistic in its approach to architecture, considering it as a unified system that acts as a mirror and a tool for shaping people’s lives. In applying humanitarian, urban, and architectural criteria, critics do not only assess the aesthetic and functional merit of the built environment but also the social, economic, political, and environmental impact that it brings. Finally, the global purpose of architectural criticism is to bring informed, independent, objective, and critical commentaries on buildings and environmental issues to a wider reading public. Architectural criticism is sometimes seen as a necessary evil, and it often acts as an important intermediary between the architect, the consumer, and the public, even though it offers a real service.
References:
Dr. Salma Dwidar. “The Influence of Contemporary Architectural Criticism Theories on the Local Built Environment an Approach Reconciliation between the Architectural , Urban and Environmental Trends.” Academia.edu, 2018, www.academia.edu/68942072/The_Influence_of_Contemporary_Architectural_Criticism_Theories_on_the_Local_Built_Environment_An_approach_Reconciliation_between_the_Architectural_Urban_and_Environmental_Trends. Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.
Dwidar, Salma. “The Influence of Contemporary Architectural Criticism Theories on the Local Built Environment and Approach Reconciliation between the Architectural, Urban and Environmental Trends.” International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, vol. 13, no. 7, 2018, pp. 4708–4718, www.ripublication.com/ijaer18/ijaerv13n7_15.pdf. Accessed 7 Mar. 2025.
Fidanci, Elif Ayse. “The Importance of Architectural Criticism.” Illustrarch, 24 Apr. 2023, illustrarch.com/articles/15792-the-importance-of-architectural-criticism.html.
