ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the idea of “type” in architecture. Type refers to morphological similarities shared among buildings, languages, or living organisms. Although type-driven design methodologies often begin with a precedent, its historical and cultural references may disappear into the pure abstraction of form. St Peter’s Basilica embodies in its building history both the centralized and longitudinal ecclesiastical types. Andrea Palladio’s I quattro libri dell’architettura disseminated numerous architectural types around the world. Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy codified “Type” in the Encyclopédie Méthodique, vol. 3, pt. II (Paris, 1825), while the frontispiece of edition of Marc Antoine Laugier’s Essay on Architecture identifies a rustic cabin as architecture’s generative type.
