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Arbitrism = my own coinage for a strand of contemporary architecture characterised by arbitrary contortion of surface shape (invariably generated via 3-D modelling software), self-conscious irregularity, and a general bent towards improbable or impractical handling of space and form. Frank Gehry, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid are notable proponents.
My term joins together what has been been described, more trendily, as deconstructivism and in some cases as parametricism (the latter has, as at April 2014, a pathetically uncritical Wikipedia entry).
To the extent that the terms aren’t used interchangeably (not always clear) parametricism tends to be applied to arbitrism that is both a) dramatically curvilinear and b) supposed to be understood not as a deformation of something familiar but as an ‘original’ form (see eg this Zaha Hadid work in Azerbaijan), whereas deconstructivism seems to be a residual category, applying to either jagged-looking works (say, Daniel Liebeskind's Imperial War Museum North) or designs based around deformation of conventional-looking facade (eg, Frank Gehry's Dancing House).
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Brutalism = the dominant mid-C20th brand of modernism, characterised by large, brooding heavy-looking buildings, particularly those with a raw concrete finish.
Architecture that dares you to call it ugly, ready to call you a reactionary if you do, but basically is.
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Eclecticism = in its broadest sense, a term that could apply to the style of any building that deploys a mix of conventional elements taken from other, canonical architectural styles - but is also often applied, more narrowly, to that mid-C19th type of architecture that enthusiastically mashed-up classical, medieval and vernacular elements - and did so in a breezy, unfussy manner that doesn't really compute with the popular image of Victorians as staid, fastidious folk.
Frowned upon by po-faced modernists and po-faced contemporary historicists (see New-Urbanism) alike. They're both wrong.
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Gothic = a primarily ecclesiastical style, defined by its 'pointiness', its complex yet intelligible straight-edge-and-compass geometry quite possibly influenced by Islamic design, and its emphasis on verticality and light. It was developed in the medieval period (specifically in the C12th), fell out of favour in the classical enthusiasm of the Renaissance, but had something of a revival (the 'Gothic Revival', indeed) in the C19th.
On one view, "gothic" architecture is defined by pointed arches and sloping roofs, per John Ruskin: “... all good Gothic is nothing more than the development, in various ways, and on every conceivable scale, of the group formed by the pointed arch for the bearing line below, and the gable for the protecting line above” (Stones of Venice, 1877). That is a penetrating, typically-Ruskinian definition, but not one that’s necessarily universally accepted.
Sometimes the word “gothic” is applied much more widely to any architecture that, as a matter of feel and impression, has the exuberant, tall, sense of medieval cathedrals: so, for example, you might hear a Victorian cast iron-and-glass train termini described as a 'great gothic structures', even though on close inspection it is unlikely to actually contain any of the specific conventional geometric elements associated with medieval architecture.
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Hi-Tech = late C20th style defined by buildings that dramatise or take a boyish delight in their own engineering - also known as structural expressionism. Girders, bolts and struts on display, ducting on the outside, visible lift and escalator machinery, functional elements painted bright colours to draw attention to them, tensioned fabric roofs, and a general penchant for the technologically novel and/or intriguing. Came into its own in the late 70s and 80s with the work of British architects Richard Rogers (Centre Pompidou, Lloyds Building), Nicholas Grimshaw, Norman Foster and Michael Hopkins.
The only truly likeable face of modernism, in my view, being the one modern style that generally succeeds in sustaining visual interest (distained by the prissy International Style) and intelligibility (totally abandoned by Arbitrism).
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(The) International Style = That smooth, pure form of early modernism (1920s-40s) together with later architecture adhering to the same design principles. These principles are, as identified by the coiners of the term, Hitchcock and Johnson, in their 1932 book, The International Style: an emphasise on continuity of surface (achieved through curtain wall construction and featureless expanses of plate glass, panelling or reinforced concrete); a consequent impression of volume (as opposed to mass) bounded by immaterial surface planes; a corresponding aversion to anything suggestive of mass or bulk; a high degree of regularity (so usually rectinear, usually repetitive, but axial symmetry was not a requirement); and an aversion to 'applied' decorative detail. In other words, architecture that is, sometimes, at best, coldly beautiful, but never particularly humane.
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New urbanism = A town planning movement that originated in the US in the ‘80s as a reaction against mid-C20th, car-driven development, promoting instead (at least in some instances) pedestrian-friendliness, higher residential densities than in typical suburban sprawl, and an opposition to functional zoning (ie the policy of separating housing, industry and retail, requiring everyone to drive everywhere).
The above were sensible aims, but the public face of the movement became unfortunately dominated by some cranky, dogmatic and reactionary characters, chief amongst them Christopher Alexander, Leon Krier and Krier’s patron, The Prince of Wales. The latter two together masterminded Poundbury, a vast housing estate built on the Prince’s lands in Dorset built entirely in po-faced, unimaginative and soulless renderings of classical and vernacular archetypes. Anything that looks remotely modern has been banished, which gets creepy after a while.
Aside from this oppressiveness of this historicist approach, Krier and Alexander both have an irritating tendency to lace their rhetoric with paranoia, endlessly complaining that an alleged modernist ‘establishment’ has conspired to ignore them and playing the underdog card by demanding that “dissenting voices” be heard, whilst, hypocritically, presenting totalising programmes to plaster entire communities with their own favoured style of development.
At any rate, the upshot is that new urbanism is today, at least in Britain, associated with the sort of place where there is a 16-page set of rules banning you from changing the colour of your front door or putting up an aluminium conservatory. The term has come to signify little more than a sort of prissy, reactionary approach to planning and design: a yearning to turn the clock back, and nothing else And given that the movement’s original motivation was opposition to car-driven suburban sprawl, it is telling that a study has shown that residents of Poundbury use their car more than people in surrounding area.
(The longshore semantic drift involved here goes to show that a description of an idea that’s both short and accurate is not always possible, if that doesn’t appear to be too much of an excuse for the length of this entry...)
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Post-modernism = architecture that comprises of ironic, smirky or simply half-hearted references to the vocabulary of traditional styles within an essentially modernist programme of minimising surface articulation and overall bigness of scale. Popular for a short while in the 1980s before more-or-less dying away, thankfully .
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A blog about buildings and places - with an eye for the unusual, the overlooked, and the unintentionally aesthetic.
Glossary - Big words
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