Models of Diagnosis and Concept in the Pioneering Architects in Recent Architecture

Abstract

Architectural sphere evolved into a different direction within the last three decades due to both the development of digital tools and the economic boom, accompanied by the discourses suggesting that radical changes were underway in design and production. In the context thereof, the present study aimed to understand, what today's leading architects considered design input, what factors led them to form, and the conceptual nature of the association they established between form and content. The available texts inked by the renowned architects on their public buildings built between 1990-2020 were accessed via their own web sites and publications. Those briefs were reviewed using textual analysis based on issue and concept notions, remaining loyal to the intra-text context. The conceptual information was then transformed into conceptual categories. The architects were selected among the renowned architects, where the Google Hits method was used to determine the status of being renowned. Accordingly, a total 1146 architectural briefs by 66 renowned architects on their public buildings were analyzed with an aim to transparently see, what was defined as a problem by the designer and by which concepts the designer sought solutions to identified problems. The approaches of recent architects suggested that the architectural discipline maintained its ancient design paradigms, including the quest for function, surroundings, and form, but the way those parameters were addressed and questioned was changed. Furthermore, the spatial configuration-oriented, ecology-oriented, and city-oriented concepts came to the fore, while metaphor and analogy were frequently used. The present study was limited to the own briefs of the renowned architects on public buildings designed between 1990-2020. Unlike the previous studies in the relevant literature, which focused on recent architectural approaches, the present study addressed the subject based on the architects' own texts. Thus, the architect's expression but not the author's interpretation comes to the fore, contributing in the objectivity of the study.