On the Architectural Design Parti
Julio Bermudez, PhD
Preliminary Note: This short text presents meditations on the nature and function of the “parti” in architectural design. I wrote it after having to respond to students’ frequent requests for an explanation of what-it-is throughout my many years of teaching design studios. I hope that my effort casts light on the matter without killing the magic and even esoteric quality of what the ‘parti’ stands for.
What is an Architectural Design Parti? Better yet, what is the architectural design parti of your proposal? If you can’t answer this question, then you can’t really go anywhere. Well, you can go many ways, but you are truly lost. Going home, finding your whereabouts, your direction – that’s what it means to become aware of your parti.
So, what is a parti? Simply put, it’s the most basic organizational principle that expresses your architectural design. It is the scheme, main concept, or idea that explains better than anything else the character and appearance of your design. It’s the position your design takes in front of the world of infinite architectural possibilities. Very much like what a political party does in the midst of the many political ideologies, it could embrace or address the state of affairs of a country, people, crisis, economy… After all, parti comes from the French word similar to the Spanish word, “partido”. In Spanish arriving at a parti requires “toma de partido”, literally to “take a position”. So selecting a parti demands your declaration of affiliation, the commitment to a major idea of architecture that resolves a given set of architectural challenges…
So the parti is not neutral. It demands professing… professing a belief.
The parti is the widest yet most profound description possible of your act of making. In a way it comes foremost and first, before any language is applied. Hence you can have the same parti being applied by Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid or Michael Graves… Of course, certain types of languages or positioning may preclude the selection of certain partis, very much like certain cultures may not accept or choose certain kinds of political or economic ideologies.
So, what is it? You see, if you answer this question then you resolve all the questions, hence its importance and its difficulty. For a parti permeates every single aspect of architecture… its formal manifestation, its tectonics and details, its engagement of program and site, its experience… Despite seeming to be ‘intellectual’, the parti is far from being intellectual – the parti is the true nature of the design, its soul if you wish. It manifests its very essence and therefore cannot be just intellectual. Naturally it takes a sharp and agile mind to clarify the essence of a work of architecture. But such undertaking is more an act of observation than of thinking. In fact, intellectualization often obscures or confuses what is in front of you. In a way, the essence, nature, or basic condition of the architectural being cannot be ‘figured out’ but rather needs to be ‘seen’ or ‘felt’.
Of course, you start your effort by seeking a parti and once found, you steer the design process toward creating a building that materializes such character. Let’s say you pick a ‘juxtaposition’ parti. This choice may be random, pre-assigned, chosen for good reasons (analysis, site, precedent, etc.). However, once you select this or that parti, then you are definitely moving toward this and not that direction. You have now an operative system for critiquing, developing, realizing your architecture.
In short, the parti is the overall and comprehensive schema, idea, or concept giving order, meaning, and rationale to a building. It provides a horizontal thrust that connects program, site, experience, form, space, and tectonics together in such a way that, if very well done, it also points to a vertical dimension: philosophy and spirituality. The parti may start from a particular architectural concept interpreting a specific dimension of architecture (context, precedent, composition, materiality, program, etc.). However, in order to become a parti, it needs to become holistic and cross-dimensional, bringing all aspects of a design within its domain.
Architects on the Architectural Design Parti:
“The most important matter in designing a building is to establish a design philosophy.
Each building needs and should have its own appropriate principle that directs the
design… Little by little the philosophy of the building starts to take shape in my mind
and suddenly I have the feeling that it is ready…”
(Legorreta in AD 110-Aspects of Minimal Architecture, 1994, p.16)
“Order is Design is form-making in order
Form emerges out of a system of construction
Growth is a construction
In order is creative force
In design is the means —where with what when with how much
The nature of space reflects what it wants to be
Thru the nature —why Thru the order —what Thru design — how”
(Louis Kahn, Order and Form, in Perspecta, Vol. 3, 1955, pp. 46-63)
“Without an IDEA, Architecture would be pointless, only empty form… An idea is capable of: serving (function), responding to a place (context), resolving itself geometrically (composition), materializing itself physically (construction)… Architecture is always a built IDEA. The history of Architecture is the History of built IDEAS. Forms change, they crumble, but the IDEAS remain, they are eternal.”
(Alberto Campo Baeza, p.22 in AD 110-Aspects of Minimal Architecture, 1994)
“… making architecture is about making choices, which once made, exclude other
choices. The choices one makes establishes a kind of testament…”
(John Pawson, p.42 in AD 110-Aspects of Minimal Architecture, 1994)
© copyright 2006 and 2013 Julio Bermudez
Web: http://faculty.cua.edu/bermudez/ or http://cua.academia.edu/JulioBermudez
On Parti: An Evaluation of the Failed Notion of Design Beginnings
WILLIAM T. WILLOUGHBY Louisiana Tech University
Introduction
As an educator, I try to guide students through a coherent method of design-I discuss how to design. In most cases I feel the how of design is more important than the what. Whenever I discuss parti, students are always left confused. Parti is a perennial stumbling block when I discuss a method for design. In my own design work and in the way I teach design studio – the resolution of a parti begins design. Call me retrograde, but words such as essential, intentional, and conceptual resonate with methodical importance in my design practices. But why is this rather commonplace approach so misunderstood by students?
This essay takes shape in three parts. In the first part I de scribe my personal approach to beginning architectural design. Next, I inquire into the original definition of parti; and then I pursue how each subsequent generation redefines the nature of design beginnings. Finally, with what is learned in the first two sections, I make cursory “stabs” at diagnosing why my discussions about parti seem to fail with most students.
Part One: My Approach
Before I pursue the question: is the notion of parti still important? … Let me demonstrate how I use parti in design. I hope nothing presented here is controversial; in fact, I hope it sounds most ordinary. Of course, I don’t always employ the same method every time I design; I am a designer you know, and what I present here is the approach I tend usually toward.
When I design, I begin by reviewing the design program.
Sometimes, if the program is complex, I’ll do an initial design in order to “get the elements of the program in my mind.” This initial design – where I “work out” the program bolsters my confidence such that I know I can at least solve functional problems inherent to the program. This “throw away” exercise al lows me to “fit the building in my head.” With a sense for the size and proportion of the pieces of the program I begin again. I ponder the program a second time – this time searching my thoughts and my feelings for something transcendent from which to realize the building. Much like Louis I. Kahn, a great influence on my approach to design, I ponder the unmeasurable qualities of the building program. I’ll ask myself, what is the nature of this building? What should it express? And, as usual to my method, I draw a plan first – I attempt to capture the proper arrangement of rooms in plan such that the form in plan ex presses the intent of the building. In sketching the plan, I try to capture a “realization about inseparable characteristics” innate in form to the building.’ Typically, the plan is sketched in a small, simple drawing; this is my beginning. Plans lead, in sequence, to sketches in section.
Over the years, the word esquisse has entered my vocabulary. It was introduced to be by colleagues who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (where the ghost of Kahn still lurks!). The esquisse is the sketched manifestation of the parti, a little sketch: typically a plan and section of a building. This little drawing is a simple strategy that predicts the outcome of final building design. The design typically develops like improvisation, oscillating between the freshness of the initial drawing and the compounding circumstances of the developing design. Louis Kahn called this the difference between form and design- form is what, design is how -form is unmeasurable, derived from realizations about things transcendent. While design is measurable, leading form to a measurable, attainable result.2 As I develop a building design, I refer back and forth between the esquisse and the developing drawings. As the design drawings develop, I continue to sketch particular pieces of the building, developing the nuances of the design – providing additional qualities that compliment the overall intent of the building. According to Kahn, when design is complete, and the building is finally built, the beginnings of its original conception must be felt. This is the expression of architecture.
To further one more simple point, It’s my argument that the beginning of design is intentional. As designers, we have some thing in mind, before and during the time when pencil meets paper and drawings are made. Intention is all we have as de signers to offer coherence to the multitude of decisions that need to be made in the design of a building. A parti works outward from a specific intent, not inward from general qualities; this statement is an instrumental distinction. In this case. a parti is an initial, intentional, and predictive decision that all subsequent decisions can be measured against – and through arduous refinement into built form, becomes a personal offering to architecture.
Part Two: The Changing Notion of Parti
As you have no doubt surmised, I’m not “pushing the envelope” with any experimental inquiry into design. I’m not closing my eyes and scribbling a bunch of seismic lines while I ponder the arbitrary and then uncover my eyes and compose a building from this accidental scribble.3 Instead, I employ the intuitive sense we all posses. The secret empathy for things that emit their essence by way of evident qualities that, to those who are sensitive, feel appropriate to the situation. I mean our intuitive ability to create places and things appropriate to the occasion, to rely on our developed practical and emotional sense for place-making (Aldo van Eyck called it a “part of our primordial equipment”: to fashion spaces both “adequately and beautifully 4).
The term parti is still in use today- at least at all three of the universities I’ve been privileged to teach at. I wonder how has its meaning changed since parti was first uttered in the context of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts? I still possess handouts from my education at Kent State University. Here’s how parti was originally introduced to me in a fourth year studio: “the minimum essential idea,” that’s it, nothing more. At Kent State University, the parti was introduced as a terminal tool for analysis. As a precursor to design in fourth year, students were asked to “pick apart” a building of a particular use-type.5 The analysis followed along with the format established by the book Precedents in Architecture. Here’s what it states about parti: “… the parti diagram which culminates and summarizes the analysis for the building. The parti is seen as the dominant idea of a building, which embodies the salient characteristics of that building. It encapsulates the essential minimum of the design, without which the scheme would not exist, but from which the architecture can be generated.”6
To summarize the overall approach from my early education, parti had three mutually related meanings. It was a summary tool for analysis, constituting the salient points of analysis; it was a means to initially visualize, in a graphic format, a synthesis of a verbal statement of intent, program requirements, and site; and initially it was a revised graphic simplification of a developed design solution.
Parti: the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Design
Beginnings
I’ll begin this discussion of architectural education in France before the split between the Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. For the most part, I would like to describe only the esquisse portion of the esquisse/rendu design method taught as the “Beaux-Arts system.”‘
The roots of the educational system seem to be from Louis XIV’s Academic Royale d’Architecture of 1671. Originally at the Royal Academy, lecture courses were open to anyone to at tend, and later gradually became a true “school” with registered students, coursework, and specific qualifications leading to matriculation. Although, the first full-time school dedicated to the study of architecture appears to have been a private school headed by Jacques-Francois Blonde!in May 1743. Notable students from his school, Ledoux and Boullee, became members and educators at the Royal Academy. Blonde!, later, in 1762, was called to the Royal Academy to “direct and revitalize its teaching.”8 The Royal Academies where dissolved in 1793 by the revolutionary government. J-F Blonde!, an excellent educator, wrote his Cours d’Architecture (1771) which lays out an exact system on how students should begin design.
First, detailed programs for buildings were dictated to students by the professors; subsequently, the students began by composing an esquisse, which became the basis for a finished drawing. To quote Blonde!, “By program I mean the enunciation of a fairly detailed project, which the professor gives his students that they may understand his intentions, and the sequence they should follow in composing an esquisse under his supervision. The students then do a finished drawing without being allowed to depart from their first thoughts.”9 The esquisse was completed during a twelve-hour period- the students were encouraged not to hurry. Blonde!suggested that they “pass a third of the time thinking over the problem in complete silence, and then to spend the same length of time trying several ways to fulfill the conditions of the program. The remaining four hours was, in his opinion, adequate time to translate their thoughts and make a precise esquisse to the required scale.” 10
Blondel’s basic method was refined during Nineteenth Century and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Not long after its establishment in 1795, it became clear that the Ecole Polytechnique couldn’t satisfy the requirements of architectural education. The classes of the dissolved Royal Academy were reconstituted as an Ecole speciale D’Architecture. Later, in 1797, this became the state-run Ecole des Beaux-Arts, fully constituted around 1816.
Similar to Blonde!, the method of design began with the ad ministering of the program by the patron; the name for the studio masters used by the aspirants or students.11 The program was issued in the morning of a twelve-hour exercise (called the esquisse). The students were to review the building program in a private alcove (en loge) at the Ecole. The students developed a plan, a section, and an elevation, which constituted a record of their concept for the building that they would later refine over an approximately six-week period, the carefully drawn project rendu. The students left their esquisse at the Ecole and each kept a personal copy for reference back at their studio (atelier). The development of the esquisse was unassisted. Whereas, the student, with whatever means of assistance they chose, completed the project rendu.The esquisse was kept on record to guard against the later int1uence or intervention of others-the esquisse assured the originality of the basic design concept.
The esquisse drawing was a tiny plan or plans at the center surrounded orthographically by sections and elevations. It was the early summation of the initial rough sketches where ideas were initially tried out.12 The esquisse was a kind of rough draft of a complete building- not a simplification as one might think it to be. The simplification or parti existed more as an idea than a thing. The esquisse reflected certain decisions made as a result of selecting a parti. Thus the parti was the basic strategy taken, an exercise of judgment about how to direct the out come of the final design. The term parti had its firm and familiar roots at the Ecole by the late Nineteenth Century. From the French parti alone means: course of action, strategy, choice, decision; or as a shortened version of the phrase: prendre parti: to make up one’s mind; to take on a course of actionY The parti was the strategy for arranging elements of the program. The twelve-hour spread of time necessitated the completion of four tasks. First, read and assess the building program; second, study alternative strategies to the program – in other words, deter mine the general range of the possible directions the design might take; third, select a strategy, make up ones mind; and four, draw the esquisse.
The esquisse served as an early document of the original conception of a building – in a certain way, it isolated the moment of conception. Louis Kahn speaks of this with an air of distance:
“For beginning design problems Beaux-Arts training typically presented the student with a written program without comment from the instructor. [The student] would study the problem, be given a period of a few hours in a cubical (en loge) during which !the student] would make a quick sketch of [their] solution without consultation. This sketch was filed as a basis for the elaboration of the problem which followed. Final drawings could not violate the essence of the initial esquisse … This particular aspect of Beaux-Arts training was probably the most controversial because there was no exchange between the advocates of the program and those who interpreted it, the architects. So the sketch depended on our intuitive powers. But the intuitive power is probably our most accurate sense. The sketch depended on our intuitive sense of appropriate ness. I don’t teach anything else … Today most schools are more Beaux-Arts than Beaux-Arts was, because the students look at examples … I don’t think that appropriateness comes form examples of what has been done. They are a test of what is done, but not the beginning, the source. The esquisse gave this sense of source, because we knew little about how things were done. We couldn’t go to the books and really research the problem before the esquisse was made. So I think the esquisse was valuable in giving a sense of what, out of the blue, a library should be, as though we had never seen a library.”14
The Beaux-Arts approach emphasized the importance of the creative moment: that decisive moment in the isolated mind where the architectural work originates. Looking at the history of French philosophy. We see a powerful regard for the workings of the mind: Rationalism. Rene Descartes “proved,” as he sat by the flickering fire in his private study and figuring a piece of wax between his fingers, that the reality of the world was different that its appearance; because appearances can deceive and are ultimately uncertain. Certainty, which is the goal of knowledge, can only exist in the mind. Mistrust of the senses, leads to doubts, which leads to certainty of the self’s ability to doubt (skepticism). Looking for certainty, Descartes’ meditative journey led him to propose that “I am, I exist” which cannot be doubted.t’ Because in order to remove all doubt, or be certain, the doubter must cease to be.
Although abstract, Descartes’ rationalism is essential to understand why the esquisse was proctored en loge and without sources for reference. The discovery of a solution, not from ex ample but from intuition was the true generative spirit of architecture. Architecture was a physical extension of the designer’s mind. From both the legacies of French philosophy and French government we see the tendency to elevate the importance of the individual mind, and make the pure idea absolute. Curiously, the word parti replaced the earlier word conception.
We see a move from intuition in the mind (conception) to a choice of the mind (prendre parti).16 Quatremere de Quincy used the term premiere idea, a creation first and foremost of the mind. Parti though, is the first act of design, a choice- still mental and general in application. The drawing of the esquisse revealed the parti.When parti thoroughly entered the vocabulary of the Ecole, Georges Gromort in the 1940’s wrote on the subject:
“In the genesis of the plan, the choice of the parti is of great importance – especially at the outset – than what I shall call the composition pure. The latter is mostly a matter of the adjustment of elements, while the parti plays the role of inspiration in musical composition and applies principally to the lay out and relative importance given to elements.”17
So, the parti is the mental importance placed upon the parts, it is the initial arrangement of the parts into a whole. Deciding on an arrangement is a different act than composition, which deals with aesthetic relationships – uniting the whole once the arrangement is determined.
Abstraction: Modernism and the Replacement of Parti with Analysis
What happened to the Beaux-Arts system during early Modem ism? In general, the Bauhaus Vorkurs replaced the former method of architectural instruction. Architecture, once an affair of the elite mind coupled with graphic virtuosity, was supplanted by building as essentially a collective effort resulting from manual trades and practical value.18 The word “Architecture” was avoided, and replaced with the modem equivalent, “New Build ing.”19 Aesthetics and ornamentation were replaced with “clear construction”: industrial methods of production, standardization, honest materials, construction, and structure. Proportion was replaced by standardization-decisions of measure were now based on a scientific understanding of the body (ergonomics, kinesthetics, and anthropometries). The studio (atelier) was re placed by the workshop. Expression was replaced by function. Architectural designs no longer relied on concepts aroused in the single mind, but relied on collaboration and the technical needs of society. As stated by Hannes Meyer, “Everything in this world is a product of the formula (function times economy); all art is composition and therefore un-functional, all life is function and therefore unartistic.”20 Art was rationally distinguished from life. Sentimental-objects were replaced with need-based objects.21 The term “program,” which sounds like the order of scenes in a romantic opera was replaced with the more technical sounding word “problem,” which sounds like a laboratory or a factory. Programs of the past, like libraries, museums, op era houses, government building, academies, religious buildings, were replaced with the problems of the future: power plants, factories, mass-housing, office buildings. Architecture became a problem to be solved by overcoming constraint and the dialectical resolution of social concerns. Parti by intuition, as a form of design beginning was replaced by solution from analysis. The problem of the house – now a machine for living – was to be resolved in its functional improvement, its innovations for convenience, its potential for repetition and factory production. Alexander Klein introduced methods of functional analysis, previously ignored by architects.
‘”The functional house for frictionless living’ was designed from researches carried out for a German Housing agency in 1928 by Alexander Klein, who compared his plans to the odious if typical 19th Century layout. Flow line diagrams revealed the superiority of Klein’s improved plans.”22
Thus, a building can malfunction; and once revealed by re search and analysis, it can be improved. The esquisse is replaced with the analitic diagram, revealing functional problems and through rational dialectics, suggesting functional improvements. Abstraction and analysis replaced conceptualization as the beginnings of architectural design. For Modernism, parti was no longer a concern – problems require solutions derived by scientific fact, analysis, industrial production, and standardization of materials.
Analogy: Post-modernism and the Fragmentary Reintroduction of Parti
No wonder we’re so confused. Modernism replaced the parti, a strategy conceived by intuition, with the solution derived from factual analysis. In Post-modem times, since Modernism made replacement possible, allowable -a linguistic model replaced the scientific methods of Modernism. The building was no longer derived from a program, or even a problem; it became based on a narrative.
The Modernist penchant for the problems of mass housing, factories and, office workplaces has been replaced by the private residence, the corporate headquarters, the resort hotel, and the retail/entertainment complex. A narrative requires a figural response- a literal sign applied to a functional box. 23 The sign offers allusions to literal sources that comprise a cultural myth (or cultural anxieties!). Buildings can be conceived much like automobiles: we expect them to work with efficiency and convenience – but, we also want their external appearance to have personality: sporty, sleek, basic, cute, or tough. And the ironic truth behind an analogy between automobiles and buildings re veals the fact: that Post-modernism is unabashedly a movement intimately linked to consumerism. The building is wrapped in advertisement (it calls attention to itself). Post-modernism’s fore most interest is the surface – it is a problem of surface. We have the fictional box surrounding the functional box.
Post-modem design begins with an analogous reference. Post modernism operates by transposition, an object that refers to something outside of itself. Reference, analogy, critique and precedent form the collective basis of Post-modernism. Even Modernism is fair game for quotation. A “strategy” need no longer be coherent or hierarchical. We expect to be and choose to be confronted with an agglomeration of fragmentary references. A building may have multiple strategies, opposing strategies, and certain digressions. We are left with a beginning where coherence isn’t the aim – a beginning for design where uncertainty is “built-in.”
Part Three: Conclusion, A Self-Evaluation of an Approach to Education
So, where are we now in this essay of design beginnings? Post modernism leaves us methodically convoluted and contaminated by fragments. We see this even in our students’ clothing. Nothing is new in their fashion except the peculiarity of the fragments they select. And their worlds are simulated: from TV, to blockbuster movies, to Sega Genesis, to the Internet. Music is no longer played- it’s downloaded; phones are no longer tethered in-place by short cords- they’re mobile. Our typical student is a refugee from consumer culture.
Contrary to inundation in advertised hype, I sit my students down in class and tell them architecture is about stasis, basis, and essence. I say architecture is about fitting physical things together in ways that make sense, that are consistent with a basic idea that should not change but remain where it was. These students expect a rapidly moving target (a “target” made of fashion and trend) – they don’t know what to make of it when some thing stands still (a target made of substance and essence).
Call me retardataire, yet I contend that architectural education should be a form of re-education. Do our typical students come equipped with the ability to penetrate through surface appearance and discern what’s critical, essential- its parti? It remains clear to me that our students arc well trained in the art of consumerism. But consuming is a very different act than the act of making or designing. The decisions that go into making and design ing arc about conceptual coherence, and remaining appropriate.
If a concept and its attending parti, formed at the inception of a design, are appropriate to the project at hand, then they will remain evident in the finished building. As Louis Kahn said, “When the work is completed the beginning must be felt.”24 If a concept serves as the essence of a design, where all the parts serve that essence -then nothing in the composition should appear accidental. A design where the removal of any element would disturb its overall composition works when all parts serve a coherent and appropriate intent.25
But designing is the thinking and making of something- when it spirals out of control, it runs the risk of no longer being the thing you began with. Our students run this risk all the time – because what we do as architects and designers is ultimately counter-culture. When I began this essay, I hoped it would lead me to a new understanding, a reckoning with current cultural trends, and I would embrace the “will of the epoch.” But if the goal of architectural design is to remain timeless, then I remain burdened by the basics of my approach. A case remains for the continued use of parti as an essential component of design beginnings.
The challenge of making timeless things in an age of hyper timeliness is enough for our students; but the burden is also for us as educators, as scholars, and as designers. As educators we must be clear in our expectations about design beginnings. The typical student who enters architecture school is ill equipped with a sense of how to begin design. And it is up to us to be clear – to raise the proper distinctions and outline a coherent and basic method to design. And the parti is still important; it should still serve to summarize a building’s intent. As a design beginning, the parti is an intuitive gesture that incorporates the most fundamental characteristics of a particular architecture. The parti should begin with that intentional gesture-sketch, judged by in the mind of the designer as the direction that must be taken from thereon out.
NOTES
The item in quotations is paraphrased/rom Louis I. Kahn, please see the various sources on Kahn cited here.
When I first encountered this essay/interview with Louis I. Kahn, I was immediately charmed. I rely heavily on this essay for its prac tical and theoretical applications for my basic design method. Para phrased from Jan C. Rowan’s essay/interview “Wanting to Be … The Philadelphia School” Progressive Architecture, April 1961 (New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1961)
A reference to Coop Himmelblau (Blue-sky Cooperative) and their method of explosive-like sketches drawn with eyes closed where they attempt to capture the unsuppressed subconscious on paper and in architecture.
from A!do Van Eyck. “Wasted Gain:· Sixty- third Commencement
Address of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. 1979; from Architecture in an Age of Skepticism.compiled by Denys Lasdun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)
Analysis had been introduced during the spring semester of our first year at Kent State University. Analysis then meant to isolate the compositional elements that comprised the formal structure of an assigned building.
Roger Clark and Michael Pause Precedents in Architecture (New
York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. 19R5) p.3
an excellent essay by Peter Collins, “The Eighteenth Century Origins of Our System of Full-time Architectural Schooling,” from JAE (Journal ojArchitectural Education), guest editors, Lawrence Ander son and Peter Collins. VolumeXXXIII, Number2, November 1979 (Washington DC, ACSA, 1979), p 2-3
point taken from, The Architect at Mid-Century: Evolution and Achievement, ed. Turpin C. Bannister (New York: Reinhold Publishing, 1954), p. 83
Peter Collins, ‘The Eighteenth Century Origins of Our System of Full-time Architectural Schooling.” Collins quotes Blonde’s Cours d Architecture, p.4
10 Peter Collins, “The Eighteenth Century Origins of Our System of
Full-time Architectural Schooling;’ p. 4
11 Richard Chafee, “The Teaching of Architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts” from The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977) p.95
12 for an interesting explanation of the importance of the esquisse and its use as an initial study technique, please see Mark A. Hewitt, “The Imaginary Mountain the Significance of Contour in Alvar Aalto’s Sketches,” Perspercta 25: The Yale Architectural Journal (New York: Rizzolli International, 1989) p. 162-177
13 taken by faith from David van Zanten’s essay “Le System des Beaux Arts,” A.D. Profiles 17 (Architectural Design 11112): The Beaux-Arts, guest ed. Robin Middelton (London: Architectural Design, 1978)
14 from William H. Jordy’s criticism in The Architectural Review, June
1974, Volume CLV. number 92R (London: The Architectural Press,
1974), p. 332; Kahn’s intimacy with the Beaux-Arts System came from his education at the University of Pennsylvania. Kahn was a student of Paul Cret (1923-24). a French emigre, educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, first at Lyon and then Paris. Louis Kahn later worked for Paul Cret (beginning inl929), whom Kahn obviously admired.
15 paraphrased, without Scruton’s usual corrosive interjections, from Roger Scruton’s Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey (New York: Penguin Books, 1994) p. 34; of course, multiple translations of Meditations by Rene Descartes were compared and consulted too.
16 inferred from Charles VanZanten, Architectural Composition at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier,” from The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1977) p.115
17 from Charles Van Zanten. Architectural Composition at the Ecole
des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Gamier,” from The Architecture of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (Cam bridge: MIT Press, 1977) p.ll3-115
18 see Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (Cam
bridge: MIT Press, 1965) p.l9-39
19 see Christian Norberg-Schulz, “Meaning in Architecture,” from Meaning in Architecture, ed. C. Jencks and G. Baird (New York: George Brazillier, 1970). The first few paragraphs of this essay outline the many forms of replacement instigated by the early modernists on the words and methods of the past.
20 encountered in Christian Norberg-Schulz’s essay “Meaning in Architecture.” (from H. Meyer. “Bauen:· Bauhaus, vol. 2, No. 4,1928)
21 an argument outlined by Le Corbusier in the section ‘Type-needs.
Typefurnitiure” from The Decorative Art ofToday (Cambridge: MIT Press. 1987) 69-79
22 Alexander Klein collaborated with Walter Gropius on the Wohnseidlung in Bad Durenburg, Germany 1928-1930. Citation from Robin Evans, “Figures, Doors, and Passages” from Architectural Design/4178 (London: Architectural Design, 1978)
23 Michael Graves, “Case for a Figurative Architecture,” from Michael Graves: Buildings and Projects 1966-1981 (New York: Rizzoli, 1982) p. I I -13. In Graves’ essay, literature becomes a model for architecture. And if architecture is a language (to paraphrase Graves) then it could be said to exist in two forms: a standard form and a poetic form. The standard form is the basic formal language of building: its pragmatic, constructional, and technical requirements. The poetic form is cultural, figurative, and associative. Thus architecture occurs when the standard and the poetic overlap, so to speak.
24 cited from a photocopy of what appears to be the hack cover of a little pamphlet on Louis I. Kahn. acquired from a former professor. Dr. Osyp Martyniuk; title, publisher, and date unknown.
25 compare with Alberti’s notion of Beauty and Ornament. “Beauty is that reasoned harmony of all the parts within a body, so that nothing may be added, taken away, or altered, but for the worse.” From, Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cam bridge: MIT Press.I989) p./56
Parti: New Paint for an Old Lady
William Benedict
I originally presented this paper at the 8th Annual Beginning Student Conference in March of 1991 at The College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. The paper was published in the proceedings of the conference. Conference co-chairs were Mary Hardin and Tim McGinty.
Introduction
A “Parti” according to Webster is “the basic general scheme of an architectural design.” (Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 1981) There is little debate over the importance of a scheme or concept in architectural design and functionally any term could be used. However, parti with its unique architectural association presents the opportunity to have a term for a concept with a specific architectural meaning. The goal of this paper is to describe parti’s historic meaning, note some of its contemporary meanings and synonyms, and then propose a definition.
Parti’s French Roots
The word parti was part of the French language long before its use in the Beaux-Arts. It is derived from the Latin word partitus, a form of the root word partio which means (Glare 1982) to share, distribute, divide up, or apportion. Contemporary French definitions of parti include (Collins 1987); to take a stand; a course of action; to make a decision; a good match; to get the most out of a situation; and a political party.
Parti’s first use in the Beaux-Arts context (Gallimard, 1986) of art and design occurred in Stendhal’s History of Italian Painting published in 1817. In it, Stendhal referred to the artist’s parti or choice as to the style in which the musculature of the human body was to be expressed. The earliest reference in an architectural context was by the theorist Quatremere de Quincy in 1825 who “defined parti as ‘choice’ in his dictionary, Architecture.” (Bacon 1986,42)
“Composition” and parti (Van Zanten 1977) were associated terms that evolved and became prominent in the vocabulary of the professors of the Ecole in the second half of the nineteenth century. “Composition,” addressed a building as a three-dimensional entity and concerned the presentation or detailing of the architectural ideas. Parti addressed the generation of the ideas themselves and was the basic scheme and fundamental solution of the building’s functional program. These ideas were choices “from prendre parti, to make a choice, take a stand.” (Van Zanten 1977,115)
The issue of choice seems particularly relevant because of the expansion of choices that occurred during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. These included the emergence of many new building types, the availability of many styles with Eclecticism ultimately sanctioning their mixture, Durand’s proposal that buildings be systematically assembled from “combinations of basic irreducible elements” (Vidler 1977, 107), and the availability of concrete, iron and steel that broke the tie between structure, material and form and its system of articulated load and support. To define a parti was to take a stand amidst the choices—a situation that has not become any easier with the passage of time.
Parti’s Place and Meaning in the Ecole
An emphasis on abstract ideas and clarity of presentation was a hallmark of the academic tradition in France. The academic architects (Egbert 1980) saw themselves as artists, and therefore, viewed drawing as the essential act of expressing or making visible their thoughts or mental conceptions. The parti was one element in this visualization process that began at the Ecole with the problem statement or program. Based on the student’s analysis of the program and general knowledge of the building type, partis were conceived and typically noted through diagrammatic plans. The chosen parti was then presented in the form of a sketch or esquisse.
Ernest Flagg said, [that the] “word parti . . . means the logical solution of the problem, and as every true architect must have two natures, the practical and the artistic, the parti must be the logical solution of the problem from his dual standpoint as constructor and artist.”
Ernest Flagg (Bacon 1986,43)
In his definition, Flagg brings together “the rational and the intuitive, the pragmatic and the ideal.” (Bacon 1986, 43) Arriving at a parti “was an act of reason, but the ability to ‘grasp’ it was an act of intuition.” (Bacon 1986,43) In bringing these together, Flagg was joining the rational use of compositional principles with the intuitive choice of a direction.
Paul Cert said, [that] “selecting a parti for a problem is to take an attitude toward a solution in the hope that a building developed on the lines indicated by it will give the best solution of the problem.” (Harbeson 1926,75)
He believed that, “the parti was a kind of conceptual outline for the building that first established the ideal hierarchy of interior spaces and then their disposition. It was not, as it might appear, merely a two-dimensional plan. The parti established the point, or dominant element of the building and the marche, or route, through the building to the point. Thus, the parti guided the entire composition from the plan to section and finally to elevation.”
(McMichael 1983,44)
The parti was able to communicate a richness of meaning because of the context in which it operated. The Ecole’s system of composition which included the use of unity, symmetry and balance, clear hierarchies, axis, and reference to precedents underlay the parti’s form. This system of rules and conventions meant that a very few lines could carry a great deal of information. Given this context, the meaning of a parti was clear and rich.
In summary, the parti established the abstract layout of the plan as separate from the specific form of the design. It directed the layout and relative importance given to the elements in response to the functional requirements of the problem. However, the parti was not a single-minded response to function. It also addressed the artistic, emotional and experiential qualities of the building as a three-dimensional whole. The parti held within it a vision of the experience of being in and moving through the building. It was the taking of a position—the making of a choice—as to what the building should be.
Concepts
Many terms in addition to parti are used to identify design ideas. Of these “concept” is the most commonly used. Concepts (McGinty 1979) suggest specific ways that requirements and beliefs can be brought together — they integrate elements into a whole.
Paul Laseau (1989) states that the “basic concept” or parti at its best, provides:
“1. The first synthesis of the designer’s response to determinants of form (program, objectives, context, site, economy, etc.)
2. A boundary around the set of decisions that will be the focus of the designer’s responsibility.
3. A map for future design activities in the form of a hierarchy of values and responding forms.
4. An image that arouses expectations and provides motivation for all persons involved in the design process.”
(Laseau 1989,155)
Although concepts occur at all scales and in all phases of the design process, the basic concept, big idea, superorganizing idea—the parti—refers to the most important and inclusive. This is reflected in the definition of parti presented by Clark and Pause in Precedents in Architecture (1985) who define it as, “the dominant idea of a building which embodies the salient characteristics of that building. It encapsulates the essential minimum of the design, without which the scheme would not exist, but from which the architecture can be generated.” (Clark & Pause 1985,3)
Concepts, however, do not just appear out of the problem but are perceived as a result (White 1975) of the individual designer’s world view, general philosophy, design philosophy and view of the problem. Concepts are a statement of what we value. As such, they take a stand and impose a hierarchy. Those issues that we see first in a problem are those we value most and solve first. Furthermore, “the concepts generated early in the planning process tend to solidify our perception of the problem and thus influence and even govern the concepts that follow.” (White 1975, 19)
Contemporary examples and definitions of parti (Friedman 1989, Clark & Pause 1985) tend to present it as a diagram without an accompanying interpretation or explanation. They appear as distilled logical diagrams whose meaning is ambiguous because unlike the parti within the Beaux-Arts there is no commonly held compositional system with its rules and conventions. If a parti is to be understood today there must be some explanation or interpretation that accompanies the diagram.
Parti: A Definition
A Parti is an inclusive geometry, and its interpretation that identifies and articulates the essential elements, relationships and intended meanings of a design. If design is the process that transforms ideas into things then the parti provides the link. It is the fundamental move in the transformation of words into form. Human beings have the ability to formulate concepts and transform them into symbolic representations through “two principal media: verbal language and visual images What links these two forms of expression is the concept” (Lynch & Marc he 1990, 128)—the parti. If a parti is
to stand alone as the abstract representation of the essential architectural concept it must do so by employing both drawing and its interpretation—both visual and verbal representations.
To further develop what I am proposing, the implications of key ideas from the definition will be explored.
Inclusiveness
The more inclusive and mature the parti, the greater its gathering power—the larger the number of ideas it is able to accommodate. A parti is more inclusive if it simultaneously addresses more issues and interrelationships, meets more requirements, includes more elements and affects more decisions.
Geometry
The visual representation of a parti is its geometry or formal structure. The nature and beauty of language is that each word or sentence can carry many meanings. Physical things however, afford a more limited range of meanings. The geometry is a commitment to a more specific direction. It is a circle versus a square, close versus far, straight versus crooked, identical versus different, one versus nine, light versus heavy, simple versus complex.
Historically, the parti was associated with a plan view representation of the idea. However, the parti should use any means that allows it to communicate its three dimensional essence. It may be a drawing, model or computer image; orthographic, axonometric or perspective; figural, diagrammatic, or gestural; in any combination or form.
A parti’s geometry should be an efficient, clear and complete visual representation that communicates the rational and experiential or expressive intention of the design.
Interpretation
Juan Bonta proposes an interpretational model of architecture in which the meaning of architecture is “removed—and sometimes even dissociated—from what architecture actually is. The real functions of a building… [can] be quite different from those expressed in its design and perceived by different people.” (Bonta 1979, 14) “When a designer discusses his work, he is behaving as an interpreter, not as a designer.” (Bonta 1979, 226) She is expressing what she believes to be the meaning communicated by the design.
The parti includes an interpretation of the geometry—a verbal representation of the concept. The interpretation makes manifest the designer’s intended meanings, beliefs and priorities and describes the parti’s implications for the elements of the problem. Once stated, it launches a dialogue over meaning. Within the studio the dialogue brings out the fit between the student’s and other’s interpretation and the consistency between the verbal and visual representations
Elements
The inclusiveness of a parti is related to the number of problem elements or determinants it is able to address. Each design problem brings together a set of factors or determinants. These may be grouped for example under the categories of:
Technology (structures, environmental controls, and construction)
Context (the natural and man-made environment)
Function (physical, psychological and social needs)
Aesthetics (the perception of things as beautiful or pleasurable).
A parti must identify and address a problem’s essential elements and establish the relationships between them.
Relationships
The nature of relationships is of central concern in transforming ideas into things (the relating of physical qualities and structures to conceptual qualities and structures). In the process of design we search for and create thee fundamental types of relationships:
Pattern (repeated or predictable relationships)
Hierarchy (relationships of relative importance)
Contrast (relationships of variation, pattern disruption, or the unpredictable)
Balance (relationships of symmetry and asymmetry).
The parti must describe these relationships. It must establish what is to be expected, what is most important and what is a surprise. It gathers and locates essential problem elements and establishes their patterns and hierarchies against which contrasts can be seen. It affords the perception of (Friedman 1989) the ordering principles, logic, or rules that guide the development of the design.
Intended Meanings
Meaning is read from and attributed to a thing through its affordances and the personal, social and cultural filters or schemata each person has constructed through the process of learning. Each thing affords or supports a certain range of meanings at any given point in time for each observer. A designer’s decisions relating physical qualities to ideas are made with the intention of communicating certain meanings. These intended meanings are based on the designer’s interpretation of the form and his understanding of the users.
Meaning, according to Hershberger (1974), is both presentational and referential. Presentational meaning is based on the form of the thing itself. “We separate the object from its context (field), perceive its shape, texture, color, and so on, realize its status relative to us and other objects, and categorize it according to known objects and events.” (Hershberger 1974, 149) Referential meaning results from connections between things and our memories and includes both association (meaning based on intellectual memories thst find their reference in human culture) and empathy (meaning based on bodily memory). Presentational and referential meanings are the basis for constructing feelings, emotions, values, attitudes and ultimately behavior.
In other words, meaning is both rational and intuitive, mind and body, abstract and experiential. If the parti is to be the fundamental concept, it must have the capability of addressing and communicating this full range of meanings.
Conclusion
What has been proposed is a parti employing two forms of communication—a geometry or visual and an interpretation or verbal communication. Furthermore, these address the essential elements, relationships and intended meanings of the design. In my thinking and teaching, two issues have become pivotal. First, partis should include both visual and verbal representations; and second, partis should contain both rational and experiential information.
The verbal/visual combination is particularly important for students who usually have a word orientation. The parti provides a link or bridge between the verbal and graphic systems and each can be used to understand and critique the other. The dialogue that grows from this juxtaposition can develop an awareness of the relationship between ideas and form and build an understanding of the meanings afforded by form and its representation
The expression of both thought and feeling—the rational and intuitive—in the parti is equally important but more difficult. It is important because previous education has usually emphasized the logical. It is difficult because students have had little experience in translating emotional or bodily centered experience into form and because the logical and experiential are usually addressed through separate means. If the parti is the essential architectural concept then it should address architecture as a whole—it should communicate its rational and expressive content.
I began with the goal of learning what a parti was. The result has been a renewed interest in the nature and use of concepts in design and design education. I have presented a definition for parti that acknowledges both its historic and contemporary meanings. In one sense, any term could be assigned this definition. Parti’s value lies in its unique architectural association. However, regardless of whether you are comfortable with repainting an old lady, the definition and representation of the essential architectural concept is a powerful tool in design and design education.
http://williambenedict.com/design-education/parti.html
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