Three urban artifacts: a study of architectural language through the typology of the city

Abstract

"The word Type represents not so much the image of a thing to be copied or perfectly imitated as the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the Model... The Model, understood in terms of the practical execution of art, is an object that must be repeated such as it is; Type on the contrary, is an object (an idea) according to which one can conceive works that do not resemble one another at all. Everything is precise and given in the Model; everything is more or less vague in the Type."

(Quatremere de Quincy, 1832) "The rustic hut ... is the model on which all the magnificent achievements of Architecture have been imagined. It is by moving closer, in the execution of work, to the simplicity of this first model that we avoid the essential defects and attain the true perfections ...It is the essential parts which contain all the beauties ... "

(M.-A. Laugier, 1755)