Abstract
In Chapter 12 I contrasted criteria for successful design in architecture with that in engineering. I argued there, among other things, that with the advent of “postmodern historicism” in architecture, beginning in the 1970s with the work of Venturi, there ceased to be operative criteria to evaluate architectural design and I made a first step towards outlining what such criteria might look like in the current age.
Originally appeared in Philosophy and Design, edited by Pieter E. Vermass, Peter Kroes, Andrew Light and Steven A. Moore. Springer Academic Publishers. 2008. Reprinted by permission of Springer Academic Publishers
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This analysis is firmly related to Goodman’s (1955) new problem of induction and his concept of projection.
- 2.
This idea that spaces have histories and that knowing that history is important in design derives in part from some earlier ideas. In (Pitt 2007) I introduced the notion of explanatory contexts. The mark of an explanatory context when dealing with historical material is that it tells a coherent story. In (Pitt 2001) I elaborated the notion of a coherent story into a philosophical problematic, where the point is made that to understand a philosophical problem in an historical context one must know its past history and, if possible, its resolution or its projected resolutions. Echoes of these ideas are to be found in the ideas of common sense design criteria.
- 3.
For an elaboration of this view see the decision-making model developed in (Pitt 2000).
References
Goodman, N. 1955. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
James, W. 1907 and 1981. Pragmatism. Indianapolis, IL: Hackett.
Pitt, J.C. 2000. Thinking About Technology. Seven Bridges Press, New York, http://www.phil.vt.edu/HTML/people/pittjoseph.htm.
Pitt, J.C. 2001. “The Dilemma of Case Studies”. Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social 9(4): 373–382.
Pitt, J.C. 2007. “Seeing Nature: Origins of Scientific Observation”. In Conceptions de la science: Hier, Aujourd’hui, Demain, Hommage à Marjorie Grene, sous la direction de Jean Gayon et Richard M. Burian, avec la collaboration de Marie-Claude Lorne. Ousia, Bruxelles, pp. 272–289.
Venturi, R. 1972. Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Carla Corbin and Thomas Staley for many helpful comments and corrections on earlier drafts and especially to Steven Moore and Thomas Staley for pushing me to the necessary conclusion. Of course, remaining errors remain my responsibility.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pitt, J.C. (2011). Design Criteria in Architecture. In: Doing Philosophy of Technology. Philosophy of Engineering and Technology, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0820-4_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0820-4_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0819-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0820-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)