This report examines critical regionalism, blending modernist and historical design. It highlights Alvar Aalto’s Town Hall and Jørn Utzon’s Bagsværd Church as examples of balancing local tradition with modern functionality.

This paper investigates the concept of architectural autonomy through a comparative analysis of Peter Eisenman and Le Corbusier, emphasizing their engagement with abstraction and its broader implications. While both architects derive inspiration from abstract art, their methodologies starkly contrast. Le Corbusier’s work, exemplified by Villa Stein and his painting Still Life, integrates layered spatial compositions that balance abstraction with functionality and user-centered design, even amid client critiques. In contrast, Eisenman’s “Post-Functionalism” rejects conventional constraints, epitomized by his “Cardboard Architecture,” where formal experimentation prioritizes conceptual rigor over livability, entirely disregarding user needs. By examining their works, the study reveals how Eisenman’s radical abstraction transforms architecture into sculptural artifacts, challenging ethical norms through their environmental impact and detachment from human use. The paper ultimately interrogates the tension between architecture as an autonomous, art-driven discipline and its responsibility to societal and ecological contexts.

This paper examines the architectural legacy of the Balyan family, Ottoman-Armenian imperial architects whose works profoundly shaped 19th-century Ottoman architecture amid the empire’s westernizing reforms. Operating during the Tanzimat era—a period marked by socio-political transformation and reliance on foreign expertise—the Balyans synthesized eclectic styles, blending Ottoman, Islamic, and European influences. Their iconic projects, including Dolmabahçe Palace, Çırağan Palace, and Ortaköy Mosque, reflect a Parisian-inspired neo-Renaissance and revivalist aesthetic, cultivated through education in France and collaborations with European architects. The study traces the family’s ascent from Krikor Balyan, who secured tax privileges and imperial favor under Selim III, to later generations like Nigoğos and Agop, whose formal training abroad infused technological innovation and anti-Orientalist motifs into state projects. While Karapet Balyan emphasized Armenian communal identity through church reconstructions, Serkis Balyan navigated bureaucratic and technical coordination, exemplifying the family’s dual role as cultural intermediaries and state agents. Despite their contributions to imperial image-making, the Balyans’ legacy remains entwined with critiques of Ottoman decline, foreign debt, and the ethical complexities of serving an autocratic regime. By contextualizing their works within broader artistic, social, and geopolitical shifts, this paper underscores the Balyan family’s pivotal role in redefining Ottoman architectural identity, bridging tradition and modernity during an era of existential transformation.

This paper critically examines the ideological foundations and consequences of the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), focusing on its role in standardizing modern architectural language during the mid-20th century. Emerging from post-war socio-economic demands, CIAM championed utilitarian principles—linear roofs, white plaster, steel, glass, and strip windows—to address cost efficiency, industrialization, and housing shortages. However, this rigid codification, exemplified by projects like the Weissenhof Siedlung and critiques of the International Style exhibition, prioritized abstraction and idealism over cultural heritage, regional identity, and human experience. The study argues that CIAM’s dogmatic rejection of historical context led to homogenized urban landscapes, stripping architecture of its emotional resonance and vernacular diversity. While acknowledging the necessity of new solutions in a war-torn, rapidly urbanizing world, the paper critiques modernity’s failure to integrate cumulative architectural knowledge, reducing buildings to purely functional artifacts. The subsequent emergence of Team X and movements like New Brutalism and Structuralism is framed as a reaction to these limitations, advocating for context-sensitive, community-oriented design. By contrasting CIAM’s universalist agenda with Team X’s pluralistic ethos, the analysis underscores the tension between idealism and pragmatism in architectural theory. Ultimately, the paper posits that architecture must balance innovation with cultural continuity, rejecting rigid doctrines to foster spaces that resonate emotionally and contextually.

This paper explores the emergence and theoretical underpinnings of Deconstructivism in architecture through the lens of its fifth lecture in the ARCH465 course, positioning it as a methodological approach rather than a cohesive style. Rooted in movements such as Russian Constructivism, Abstract Expressionism, and critical exhibitions like MoMA’s 1988 Deconstructivist Architecture, the movement is defined by its internal destabilization of form—eschewing external fragmentation for inherent structural disturbance. Key architects, including Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, and Bernard Tschumi, exemplify this through projects like Eisenman’s House series and Tschumi’s Parc de la Villette, where modernist grids and functional purity dissolve into fragmented, non-hierarchical systems. The analysis contrasts Deconstructivism with Modernism’s utopian formalism (e.g., Mies van der Rohe) and Post-Modernism’s playful historicism (e.g., Frank Gehry), revealing its distinct rejection of rigid typologies while paradoxically engaging with architectural heritage. Russian Constructivism’s geometric experimentation, particularly Malevich’s Suprematism, surfaces in Hadid’s Vitra Fire Station, illustrating a lineage of formal rupture. The paper critiques Deconstructivism’s ideological tensions: its rejection of modernist dogma coexists with a reliance on historical avant-garde principles, and its theoretical abstraction often clashes with pragmatic urban realities. By framing Deconstructivism as a synthesis of cumulative architectural dialogues—rather than a stylistic break—the study underscores its role in expanding architecture’s conceptual boundaries, challenging idealism while navigating the discipline’s evolving socio-cultural responsibilities.

This paper examines digital architecture’s methodological shift in contemporary practice, framing it as a computational paradigm rather than a stylistic movement. Rooted in historical precedents—Baroque curvilinearity and German Expressionism’s unrealized formal ambitions—it explores how digital tools transcend modernist functionalism through Greg Lynn’s principles of smoothness, intricacy, curvilinearity, and folding. The analysis focuses on two dimensions: fluid, context-driven form-finding (exemplified by UN Studio’s parametric Arnhem Central Masterplan) and computational optimization via software like DIALux (lighting/energy analysis) and SAP2000 (structural simulations). By merging visionary design—enabled by Grasshopper and Rhino—with technical precision, digital architecture redefines practice, empowering architects to realize once-unbuildable structures while addressing pragmatic challenges of fabrication and environmental performance. The paper argues that this synthesis of creativity and computation marks a paradigm shift, expanding architecture’s conceptual and practical boundaries.