Classical elements revived: "between culture and form"

Abstract

An explanation of the report title is perhaps the best way to introduce the reader to this field of architectural study. The title, "Classical Elements Revived; Between Culture and Form", has been derived from two sources of influence and controversy within architectural theory and production. The notions of autonomy and representation in architecture have a contentious history, especially so in the second half of the 20th Century and the advent of Post Modernism. During the late 1970's and in the 1980's debate amongst architects on such notions grew because of a renewed interest in classical architecture. In 1984, K Michael Hays published an article in Perspecta 21 called "Critical Architecture". Its subtitle was "Between Culture and Form", and in it Hays examines the proposition that there is a critical realm in architecture between the operations of culture and the purity of form.