Architecture, like any discipline, develops its theory through words; yet, it is equally capable of thinking in images. When Renaissance humanists began to set forth their knowledge of the art of building in treatises, they tended to combine words and illustrations. In fact, some of the most celebrated treatises resemble visual atlases more than written volumes. But how can an image develop a theory? The theoretical fertility of the image emerges, almost by surprise, if we replace the modern conception of "theory" with the genuine meaning of the Greek term theoria: the act of "contemplation" and "speculation," of developing a "vision."
Atlas of Architectural Theory(ies) is a visual exhibition on different ways of seeing the art of building: diverse ways of conceiving what architecture is, how it is made, and how it should be understood. Each generation of architects has needed to rewrite history from its own present and, consequently, to develop its own theory—which, like a ghost, presents itself as an urgency time and again. Architectural theory, as Hanno-Walter Kruft demonstrated, is formed as a multiplicity of theories that are, in turn, connected by a multitude of historical relationships.
