A Brief Detour Into Teleology

Abstract

This is a short chapter that explores the teleology of architecture raising a number of questions that seem to have slipped under the radar. It presents an Evolution of Architecture model. While this model is unable to offer a solution to the obvious divergence of the literature and practice. It does increase our understanding of the current state of contemporary architecture by providing a possible explanation for the literature's wildly diverse observations. There is always value in in understanding how things came to be, even if we do not agree with them. The chapter traces architecture's teleology from what is accepted as architecture's theoretical literary roots. It continues by explaining how, despite the literature's practical failure, an evolutionary theme has contributed in a positive, counter fragmentary way, to the discipline's epistemology without actually managing to address the fundamental challenges.