The focus of the thesis is the ever-increasingly discussed topic of crisis in architecture and an accompanying paradigmatic shift. Basically this is not a unique condition/subject but a recurring. It therefore follows the question: what can be learned from the lessons that changed architecture in history? In my initial investigation into moments of crisis it crystallized the disciplinary context of typology, which seems to enables this research to change over time. A concept that is continually redefined at a paradigmatic turning point, resulting from a previous “stocktaking” of the architectural knowledge and a different, innovative understanding thereof.

It therefore follows the argument that the type as a formal organizational structure is historically determined and that this discourse allows to expose the changes in architectural thinking and conceptualization of design. In this sense my present thesis takes up the fundamental problem of time (historicity) in conjunction with the seemingly, as objective and universal claimed formal principles. An approach even addressed by the formalists, but hitherto only incompletely clarified. On this issue of the relationship between the creation and conceptualization of architectural form and historic conditions is where the thesis focuses on. The intention is to explain and recognize the motives that changed the perception (senses) creating new intellectual connections which then establish new orders of knowledge. In the discipline of architecture however, thinking (conceptualization) and seeing (imagination) are always entangled with the materialization and therefore with the changing economic and technological conditions. A fact barely acknowledged by previous reasoning , which seems to be confirmed by the investigation of economic crisis compared with crisis in architecture and from which the motives of an evolving paradigm can be deduced. This is no less relevant for the discipline of architecture. Herewith architecture and economy techno-economic innovations are proclaimed as a new unity to re-conceptualize the relationship between thinking and seeing.

The thesis takes the topical situation as a reason to reconstruct the paradigm shifts of the past to develop an understanding of how, when, and why changes in the conceptualization of architecture took place. Research in the limited view of the status quo and referring solely to the current problems is obsolete unless an understanding has been developed of what constitutes progress.

The aim is to expose the changes in the way of thinking and seeing and in the accompanying redefinition of the typological concept per se. An alleged objectivity and universality of formal organizations structures are called into question in favor of emphasizing their vicissitude. The thesis demonstrate the significance of the concept of type at times of paradigmatic shifts. Furthermore to overcome the commonly held views dominated by certain positions, but in particular to explore their inherent possibilities.

In architecture it seems that there is consensus of the prospective paradigm due to the digital revolution. Thus some may argue that the decisive change had embarked already in the 1990s. But has the digital revolution of the past 20 years in fact produced a condition, which marks a paradigm shift? In addition the dissertation will address and discuss these issues and will illustrate that these digital achievements operate in the postmodern episteme but have not yet materialized in architecture.