You are given a significant Contemporary Building and are expected to demonstrate your grasp of the

course material by displaying knowledge and understanding of the emergence of a variety of

contemporary architectural settings articulated by the architect’s approaches to design in the form of a
written essay that must follow the good principles of architecture criticism.

1-Adequate Collection of Information (LO2 b) A2; LO3 a) A1):

For an architecture critic to be able to do a fair judgment, it needs to fully understand the building and
the architect that design it. This normally entails a full understanding of the building itself but also of the
architect’s entire work as well as, other architects and corresponding buildings that reflect similar ways
of thinking and conceiving architecture.

Collect information about the given building, the architect, and his/her other relevant works as well as,
other architects and corresponding buildings that reflect similar ways of thinking and conceiving
architecture. At this stage it is important to be objective, and intelligent in the search and selection of
sources. Bad research and shallow skimming through material may lead to a high amount of repetitive
and low-quality information.

2-Understanding the Architect Philosophy (LO2 b) A2; LO3 a) A1)

To make a constructive critic to another architect’s work, an architecture critic needs to understand the
architect’s point of view. For that to happen, one needs to dig in in the architect’s history, upbringings,
education, and professional evolution.
Based on the collected information, understand, and resume the architects’ educational and
professional background and reflect on his/her design philosophy. You must use previous work
(examples of other relevant buildings designed by the architect), literature and even known influences
of the architect for your reference.

3-General Knowledge of Architecture (LO1 d) A7; LO3 a) A1)

Any architecture critic depends highly on the general knowledge of architecture. This allows the critic to
‘locate’ the building and architect within the architecture history timeline and establish cross
comparisons with its peers.

Architecture production is the materialization of ideas, principles, and theories and without being able
to somehow identify what these ideas are and grouped them with similar peers, we cannot categorize
architecture production and establish fruitful conclusions.

Identify and resume the main contemporary architectural styles that guided the architects work. Justify
your choice by describing the movement/style and the architects/buildings that better represent it.
Contextualize the theory/style within the wider scope of contemporary architecture production with
examples of architects and buildings following other philosophical approaches.

4-Communication (LO2 b) A3; LO3 a) A1)

A good critic is one that is fair, logic, objective, persuasive and delivers messages appropriately.

To do so, your essay much reflect a critical interpretation (not simply a resume) of the material collected
previously as well as the ability to interrelate information.

Construct a critic of the given building following the seven principles for architecture criticism by
demonstrating:

1. a deep understanding of the given building as the natural outcome of,- the architect philosophy.

- the architecture style and theory the architect follows. through examples of previous work and other
architects with similar work to confirm your argument.
2. the ability to contextualize the building in current architecture production and evaluate is validity
as representative of a specific style and theory in contemporary architecture as,

- part of a wider group of buildings and architects that follow the same architecture principles.

- coexisting and interrelated to a wider group of buildings and architects that follow other styles and
theories.