A textbook on architectural modeling from the Ural State Academy of Architecture and Art , in our opinion, correctly describes the current situation in architecture: «Somehow, the opinion has prevailed that the impending decline of architecture is manifested only in the «lacking skill» of architects. Increasing this skill in all possible ways is seen as a counteraction to this process. It may go as far as recognition and idealization of the results of the work of a limited group of specialists.
Considering the example of the most important historical changes in architecture, one can see that they were associated not with the loss of craftsmanship, but with the «devaluation of stylistic forms.» In this way, the Renaissance revalued the Gothic, the 19th century – the classics, the beginning of our [20 – Yu. P.] century – eclecticism, and then Art Nouveau. Rather, the loss of craftsmanship itself was a consequence of the devaluation of the architectural form. It turns out that the «sacred goal», for which mastery strives, has disappeared.
The devaluation is most clearly expressed in the «feeling of sham randomness of architectural forms.” Sham randomness can in no way convince of its comprehensive justification and realism. Architectural form, therefore, is not just geometry, mass, space, substance, but «an alloy of material with symbolic content, outlined by morphological contours of the form.» The form «sweeps along the movements of both our body and our spirit.» The truthfulness and organicity of the form are rooted in our consciousness. Spirit and material must be fused together by the meaning. For example, in some objects, the architectural form and material literally coincide, but all this engineering precision does not express any meaning and does not entail any emotions.
When we see in a form only a historical style, only a technical or functional calculation, only the conventionality of language or the irony of the author, we will sooner or later decipher its meaning. However, this meaning is addressed to something different than this form as such. Instead of «referring the viewer to inexhaustible semantic contexts, the form loses its vitality, remaining a conventional sign.» <…>
«The fate of the entire architectural culture depends on whether we manage to find a way of thinking that complements scientific analysis and counterposes the diversity of subjective artistic creation to synthesis.» [70].
An expressive architectural form, in its inherent meanings, outgrows itself, becoming an intentional existential symbol. Peter Zumthor put it this way: «I did my first two buildings.… It was terrible. I could hear the architectural discussion of the time in my buildings. This was the last time that this should happen to me…. So what is this being myself? It is interesting that in these buildings, which gave me this headache, heart ache, there were things I liked, such as things that did not come from a magazine or from a discussion that I can talk about with somebody. Rather, this is me!» [Quoted after: 58].
The history goes on, and people continue to create. They continue to create architecture as well. New styles replace old ones. Each major style is characterized by a special type of composition. Let’s look at the main ones.