Have you ever heard «architectural language«Or that architecture is like books? It is real. A facade of a building can be read as well as books because Architecture has its own language. You just have to know what elements we must focus on to be able to interpret them.
It is much easier than we think or what they have told us. You just have to focus on three important elements: The style according to the period, the typology of the building and the structural materials. With these three elements we can read the story that each building wants to tell us and to complement, we can ask ourselves, why was it? What? What function does it have? Was it relevant? What movement does it belong to?
Just as a book you can read a building.Marc-Loivier Jodoin / Unspash
The three steps to understand architectural language
The style according to the period It is, perhaps, what we question the most when we see a building. We listen to the styles everywhere and even are familiar to us. Notre Dame is Gothic style, the United States Capitol is neoclassical, Luis Barragán's house is modern style and we could mention many others who have changed and evolving over time. But how do we know what defines each style and how did they differentiate?
That is where we start reading a building. We can not know of historical dates, but if we can crumble a facade we will know it. Let's start by asking us how their columns are, if you have arches, if any dome is glimpsed, the shapes of its doors and its windows and how it is decorated. With these components we can be able to know what style is and then start classifying. You have to notice if you have arches, if they are half a point or ogival; appreciate if the windows are large or small; If the decoration is very loaded or very simple; If your lines are very organic or very straight. Imagine that each of these elements are paragraphs and that when we get together we have the first chapters of the story we are reading.
Now, The typology of the building It is, perhaps, the easiest concept to identify in the architectural language. It consists of knowing what and what it is for. For example, a church is easily identified, the same a house, a palace or a pavilion. If at first glance we doubt, we can ask what it is and, probably, in seconds we will get the answer. This typology is fundamental To know the vocation and reason of being of any work. It is logical that a house was not built to do business or that a theater was not created to inhabit and sleep in it. These chapters tell us very concretely why there is that specific construction.