Typology

[Typology is an] approach that isolates the attributes of the architectural coherence, identifies them as characteristics, in order to then compare them with similarly abstracted attributes from other contexts and to define similar- ities or differences. Since Ouetretnere de Quincy at the latest, the history of architecture has described this kind of approach by the term typology, and understands it as the abstraction of formal attributes into a principle, called type,that describes the commonalities of a series of different, but historically concrete models. From the beginning, this systematic and abstracted view includes the possibilities of a guideline for action beyond literal imitation ("imitation par principe ") as well as a tool for comparative architectural cri- ticisrn.'

When consulting an encyclopedia". we learn that the term "type" derives from the Greek word "typos" meaning imprint and originally meant the imprint on a coin. Later, the term stood for archetype, antetype, pattern or figure; in fact it referred to both the real figure as well as that of archetypes or ideas existing in the spiritual world. In typological science, the term typo- logy can be understood as a term purely used to classify individuals within a group - as for example in zoology or botany - or on the contrary as a term for an ideal. Hereby, most often a distinction is made between the most frequent average type of one group of items or persons and the ideal type. Since the ancient world, philosophy has understood the idea of type in the sense of a generally characteristic archetypal figure underlying an individual element: Plato understood it as an idea, Aristotle as a shape, the Middle Ages as a being. Typology as the science of type therefore is a scientific description and a classification of a field of items into groups of unitary com- plexes of characteristics.