Prototype Concept in Architecture and Comparative Analysis of Analogical Designs and Imitated Buildings

Ayyildiz Sonay
unpublished
Archetype, prototype, stereotype are the concepts associated with the type concept, yet they have their own meanings. Especially, defining the border of type between archetype and prototype, and defining the difference between archetype and prototype matters in terms of architectural discussions. If the need arises to make an architectural-oriented reduction to prevent the incomprehensibility, we can define the archetype as "first concrete ancestral example", prototype as "first model prepared
more » ... or industrialized production" and stereotype as "the face of two of a kind produced work taken as a model". It is true that prototype will gain favour in many areas when it is considered as mass production oriented. However; in architecture, building one building's lookalike is not only anomalous to architecture ethic but also it is uncreative. In addition to this, many architects designs their works by being inspired by some objects (living or non-living) that are available in nature or by being affected previous movements and architectural approaches. "Analogies" have an important place in parallel with "Mimicking" which is an important step in design process of architectures. When it comes to Architecture, It is not easy to talk about a fully authentic and an original work, and what is discussed here is the border issue. Every design of architecture gives specific references to its predecessors and includes citations. On the other hand, Architecture exits with a fixed physical context, different from the other design works and gains meaning. This feature makes the lookalike repeat of the architectural work impossible. Same building will gain a meaning in a different context again and will be different from its predecessors or prototype. In this study, while taking attention to the difference between analogy and imitation, Analogical architecture examples and imitated buildings built in different places around the World will be comparatively analyzed.
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