- Branko Mitrović
- Conference presentation at Il Cantiere Guariniano, Turin, 31 March 2026.
- Its long-time relevance makes Gulio Carlo Argan’s article “La tecnica di Guarini” an exceptional contribution among the papers presented at the 1968 conference Guarino Guarini e l’internazionalità del barocco. In this paper I analyse Argan’s interpretation of Guarini and the meaning of the phrase “architecture as a purely visual fact” that he uses to qualify Guarini’s conception of architecture.
- Branko Mitrović
- Originally published in Norwegian under the title “Klassisisme er mer enn fasadeutforming”, Arkitektur.no, 06 June 2025.
- There exists a tendency to see in classical architecture merely an approach to facade design. The article explains why this is wrong.
- Branko Mitrović
- This paper is a revised version of my presentation at the BUA conference, Oslo, 4 May 2025.
- The paper analyses the use of greenwashing as a strategy to suppress aesthetic concerns in contemporary Norwegian architecture.
- Branko Mitrović
- This is the English version of the article originally published in Norwegian under the title “Om klassisk arkitektutdanning”, Arkitektur.no, 28 August 2024.
- The paper discusses the benefits of the re-introduction of training in classical architecture in architectural education.
- Branko Mitrović
- This is the English version of the article published in Ulf Andenes and Erling Okkenhaug (eds), The Architecture Uprising in Scnadinavia and Beyond, Oslo: Allgrønn Okkenhaug 2025, 133-138. Originally published in Norwegian under the title “Skjønnhet er det eneste som kan redde oss”, Arkitektur.no, 12 February 2025.
- The paper analyses the profound crisis of architecture as a profession in the situation when architects have abandoned the claim that they can contribute to the aesthetic values of the built environment, have no competence to deal with structural and engineering issues, while developers decide about the functional and planning aspects of buildings. The article argues that the profession can survive only by putting aesthetic issues at the centre of its concerns.
- Branko Mitrović
- Paper presented at the 2013 conference of the Society for Intellectual History, Princeton, 5‐7 June 2013.
- The paper analyses, on the example of Palladio’s archaeological surveys, the conception of architectural history as a subfield of intellectual history.
- Branko Mitrović
- Keynote presentation at ISPA seminar, Delft, 1 April 2014. A version of this talk was subsequently published under the title "Architecture and Philosophy and Wages of Obfuscation", Khorein 1 (2023), 32-42.
- The paper analyses possible contributions of philosophy and philosophers to architecture and architects’ work. During the twen- tieth century, a number of dominant positions in philosophy, such as the view that all thinking is verbal or that conceptual thinking determines the contents of perception, significantly limited the ground for produc- tive intellectual interaction between architects and philosophers. With the demise of such positions in recent decades, one can hope that phi- losophy and philosophers could make genuine contributions to archi- tectural theory.
- Branko Mitrović
- Anta 6 (2024), 110-117
- The rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing as the core argumentational strategies in architectural theory is a remarkable and very little studied phenomenon of twentieth-century architecture. The phenomenon started in the 1970s and since it eventually came to dominate architectural writings in the decades that followed, one can talk about the Obfuscatory Turn in architectural thinking during the era. In my recent book Architectural Principles in the Age of Fraud (San Francisco: Oro Books, 2022) I have analysed the phenomenon and traced its history. In this paper I want to present a synthetic summary of the theses of that book and to invite a discussion about the origins of the Obfuscatory Turn. Various versions or elements of this paper have been presented as lectures the University of Notre Dame, Belgrade University, Turin Polytechnics, Technical University Berlin, and Manchester University, as well at Conferences of European Architectural History Network (Madrid, 2022), the TAG24 Conference (online, 2024) and Beauty and Ugliness Conference (Oslo, 2024).
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 82 (2023), 170–183.
- Guarino Guarini’s philosophical treatise Placita philosophica presents a comprehensive discussion of the concepts of space, place, ubication (location), and infinity, drawing upon the Aristotelian tradition and formulated within the arguments defined by a series of Counter-Reformation authors identified as the second (or baroque) Scholasticism. This study analyses the significance of these views for Guarini’s architectural theory.
- Branko Mitrović
- British Journal of Aesthetics, 61(2021), 269–272.
- The paper analyses the relationship between OOO (Object Orientated Ontology) and Aesthetic Formalism. Book review of Graham Harman’s book Art and Objects, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020.
- Branko Mitrović
- I Tatti Studies. Journal of the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies, 23 (2020), 375-396.
- The article analyses the philosophical background of Guarino Guarini’s architectural theory, and seeks to explain his views on architecture as presented in his Architettura civile in the context of his Aristotelian worldview presented in his philosophical treatise Placita philosophica.
- Branko MItrović
- This paper is the introductory essay to Kim Williams’ translation of Daniele Barbaro’s commentary of Vitruvius’ De architectura: Daniele Barbaro's Vitruvius of 1567, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2019, xi-xxxviii.
- The paper surveys Daniele Barbaro’s views on architectural theory, as presented in his commentary on Vitruvius.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of Art Historiography, 19 (2018), BM1.
- The article is a book presents a critical analysis of phenomenological methodology of architectural history through. Written as a book review of two books by Alberto Pérez-Gómez: Timely Meditations, Selected Essays on Architecture, 2 vols, Montreal: Right Angle International, 2016, and Attunement, architectural meaning after the crisis of modern science, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2016.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 73 (2015), 210-220.
- It is a fundamental assumption of modern architectural practice that all spatial relationships on a building are mathematically definable and can be systematically described by means of two-dimensional representations generated using procedures based on quantification. It is, for instance, this assumption that makes three-dimensional computer modeling possible. This paper analyzes the historical origins of this approach to visual communication about architectural works and its first explicit articulation in the work of Leon Battista Alberti.
- Branko Mitrović
- Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, 78 (2009), 57-76.
- There is the view that the intellectual lives of individuals are fully determined (not merely influenced) by their social context–and there is the contrary view that the intellectual positions dominant in a social context and merely the result of the intellectual lives of individuals and their interactions. The former, collectivist, view was particularly strongly entrenched in the German historiography of the Wilhelmine and Weimar era–exemplified by various speculations that certain views or beliefs were inconceivable for members of certain groups. In his early papers–such as “Perspective as a Symbolic Form”–Erwin Panofsky also subscribed to such collectivist methodology. However, by 1938, when he wrote “Art History as a Humanistic Discipline” he rejected, in theory at least, the main tenets of collectivism, while remaining still tied to collectivist formulations of art historical problems. The paper analyses the gradual changes of Panofsky’s position when it comes to the collectivist-versus-individualist methodology of historical research.
- Branko Mitrović and Paola Massalin
- Albertiana, 9 (2008), 165-249.
- The paper is a study of Leon Battista’s Alberti’s annotations on a manuscript copy of Campanus of Novara’s translation of Euclid’s Elements preserved in the library of St. Mark in Venice. The original paper published in Albertiana also includes a transcription of Alberti’s annotations made by Paola Massalin. I am presenting here only the commentary on annotations that I have authored.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of Art Historiography, 1 (2009).
- There is the individualist view that the creativity of a community is a result of the creativity of individuals that participate in it and their interactions (e.g. through artistic education). The opposing, collectivist, view is that the creativity of individuals is merely a result or manifestation of the creativity of the group–that groups are thus the primary explanatory entities in art and architectural history, not individuals that constitute them. Social entities on this latter account are conceived of as superior forces that drive and determine the creative and intellectual capacities of individuals. The article analyses the domination of such collectivist positions in the German art historiography of the Wilhelmine and Weimar eras and seeks to examine in how far it reflects German historians’ implicit assumptions of their cultural inferiority (esp. towards Italy) and the need to construct historiographical positions that would deny it. The paper a preliminary study for the research that resulted in my book Rage and Denials (Penn State Press, 2015)
- Branko Mitrović
- Log, 17 (2009), 17-25.
- Hardly any other assumption was shared by so many streams of twentieth century philosophy as the view that language plays the central role in human interactions with the world. The phrase “linguistic turn” is usually employed to refer to the various forms of philosophical interest in language deriving from this position—for instance, the belief that all philosophical problems are problems of language or that all thinking is verbal. Much of architectural theory of the last decades of the twentieth century (such as deconstruction or various phenomenological positions) was also built on philosophical positions that emphasised the primacy of language (over, for instance, visual experience). The fact that by the beginning of the twenty-first century the linguistic turn has run out of steam, and that very few philosophers today subscribe to the view that all thinking is a linguistic affair thus invalidates much of the work in architectural theory that has accumulated for the past half a century. The paper analyses the consequences of the demise philosophical faith in language for contemporary architectural theory.
- Branko Mitrović
- I Tatti Studies. Journal of the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies. 12 (2009), 233-263.
- It is a curious detail of the Soviet intellectual life of the Stalin era that in the period 1932-1940 almost the entire corpus of Renaissance architectural treatises was translated into Russian and published together with a substantial body of related scholarship. The project directly originated from a decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. This work was done by some of the most prominent Soviet historians of the era and the translations and commentaries they published are generally of a very high quality. The paper analyses the project, the approach of the participants and the results of their work–with a particular emphasis on the work of two main protagonists of the project, Aleksander Georgievich Gabrichevsky (1891-1968) and Vasiliy Pavlovich Zubov (1900-1963).
- Branko Mitrović
- Originally published as “The Tsar’s Last Philosopher on the Method of Architectural History: Orthodox Theology versus Geistesgeschichte.”, Architectural History, 51 (2008), 1-21. I am presenting here the original version of the article, that had a somewhat different title.
- Vasiliy Pavlovich Zubov is a towering figure in the Russian intellectual life of the twentieth century. Mainly known to Western art historians for his book on Leonardo da Vinci, he also made substantial contributions to architectural history and received the highest international recognition for his work in the history of science. In this paper I analyse his approach to history writing and in particular the methodological position he developed in opposition to German-style Geistesgeschichte. I argue that the core tenets of this position are underwritten by the strong emphasis on free will that he implicitly derived from Orthodox theology.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 63 (2004), 424-439.
- Ever since Erwin Panofsky suggested early in the twentieth century that the invention of perspective resulted from a massive cultural change in the way things are perceived and the reorganisation of human vision according to the principles of homogenous space, numerous authors have asserted that the homogenous conception of space itself was inconceivable before the early 1400s, or even before the late Enlightenment. In this paper I challenge these claims by analysing Leon Battista Alberti’s views on space and the Aristotelian context that dominated the intellectual life of the fifteenth century.
- Branko Mitrović
- Zeitschrift f̈ür Kunstgeschichte, 66 (2003), 321-339.
- In the second half of the twentieth century scholarship on Renaissance architectural theory came to be dominated by the emphasis on the study of the “meanings” (i.e. the ideas) associated, or allegedly associated, with architectural works during the Renaissance. In this paper I question the validity of this methodology and argue for a formalist approach that emphasises the aesthetic significance of formal properties of architectural works, such as shapes and colours.
- Branko Mitrović, Vittoria Senes
- Annali di architettura, 14 (2002), 195-213.
- The article presents that Vincenzo Scamozzi made on a copy of Daniele Barbaro’s commentary of Vitruvius’ De Architectura. The book is preserved toda in the Vatical library.
- Branko Mitrović
- Architectural History, 45 (2002), 115-127.
- The question of the correct form of the Corinthian entablature presented substantial problems for Renaissance architects, since Vitruvius’s account was unsatisfactory, while Roman ruins provided an extensive variety of examples. In the first book of his I quattro libri dell’architettura Palladio copied the morphology of the canonical Corinthian entablature from Vignola, but recommended a different set of proportions. In order to establish the origin of these alternative proportions, in this paper I analysed their relationship to the proportions of the Corinthian entablatures from Roman temples as Palladio presented them in his archaeological surveys in the fourth book of I quattro libri.
A Palladian Palinode: Reassessing Rodolf Wittkower’s Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism
- Branko Mitrović
- architectura 31 (2001)
- Rudolf Wittkower’s interpretation of Palladio’s proportional theory has exercised massive impact on Palladian scholarship over decades. The paper argues that Wittkower’s approach cannot be sustained if one takes into account the musical theory of the era and the importance of classical orders for Renaissance architectural theory.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of Architectural Education 54(2000), 95-103.
- Geoffrey Scott’s The Architecture of Humanism is one of the great classics of architectural theory. The book came out in 1914 and has enjoyed massive appreciation for more than a century–paradoxically, this is true even of the era when the targets of Scott’s criticism (the four “fallacies” that he describes) came to be universally endorsed as the core tenets of modernist architecture. The paper analyses the aesthetic-theoretical background for Scott’s views. Because of a reference to Theodor Lipps, many authors have placed Scott’s book in the tradition of empathy-based architectural theories. The paper shows that it was rather the German formalist tradition going back to Kant that influenced Scott and underwrote his analysis of the “fallacies”. The core contribution of Scott’s book is its application of the formalist programme to architectural history. In order to present the implications of this programme, the paper compares Scott’s views to the conception of art history exposed by Hans Georg Gadamer in his Truth and Method.
- Branko Mitrović
- Architectural History 42 (1999), 110-140
- The article analyses Palladio’s presentation of the five orders in the first book of his treatise I quattro libri dell’architettura and compares it with the formulations presented by other Renaissance authors. One important aspect of the comparison are the differences between Palladio’s descriptions of the proportions of the orders in the text and in the illustrations, which suggest different historical levels of Palladio’s preparation of his treatise for publication.
- Branko Mitrović
- Originally published in The Sixteenth Century Journal, 29 (1998), 667-688. Substantially revised version subsequently published in: Monteleone, C., Williams, K. (eds) Daniele Barbaro and the University of Padova. Birkhäuser, Cham, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29483-9_9
- Daniele Barbaro’s 1556 commentary on Vitruvius (second edition 1567) is generally regarded as the highest achievement of Renaissance Vitruvian exegesis. Because of Palladio’s participation in its writing, the commentary has been widely discussed by architectural historians. The paper analyses Barbaro’s theoretical views on architecture in the context of Paduan Aristotelianism in which he was educated. This study shows that Barbaro’s views on a number of important issues in architectural theory, such as perception, optical corrections, imitation, meaning, and the formulation of the canon of the classical orders, were fundamentally influenced by his Aristotelianism and Paduan philosophical education. The original paper was published in The Sixteenth Century Journal in 1998 and in later years, as I worked more extensively on Paduan Aristotelianism, I became quite unsatisfied with the formulations and the terminology I used in that article and with the elaboration of the interpretations I proposed. Nevertheless, I still think that the article asked the right questions, and that ultimately Barbaro’s understanding of architectural judgment was based on the Aristotelian conception of the active intellect, though my original formulations sound quite naive from my current perspective. The version of the article that I upload here is therefore the revised version that I prepared for Monteleone’s and Williams’s volume on Barbaro and the University of Padua.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 52 (1993), 59-67.
- Once we accept a theory of proportions as the basis of an architectural aesthetic theory, we come immediately to the question of whether we talk about the proportions of a building ur about the proportions perceived on a building. This question isi also closely related to the question, What si the aesthetic object of architecture–the building, oran idea of a building, or a project, a set of drawings, or some other entity?
- Branko Mitrović
- Komunikacije 77 (December 1991), 15-17.
- The article analyses the decline of Modernist purism in Serbian architecture in the 1970s and the 1980s.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of the Society of Historians, 49 (1990), 279-292;
- The paper analyses the proportional relationships in the plans of Palladio’s buildings presented in the second book of his I quattro libri dell’architettura. In 1949 Rudolf Wittkower suggested that harmonic proportions were the underlying principle of Palladio’s designs, but he analysed only 8 out of 44 buildings that Palladio presented in the book. Subsequently, in 1982, Deborah Howard and Malcolm Longair attempted a comprehensive statistical and quantitative analysis of all 44 buildings. Their results were only partly satisfactory: although Palladio’s ratios in about two-thirds of plans fitted Wittkower’s interpretation, proportions of some of Palladio’s best known buildings, such as the villa Rotonda remained unexplained. Further, neither Wittkower nor Howard and Longair took into consideration the heights of the rooms–they studied only ground-plan (room length/width) ratios. This paper increased the number of explainable length/width ratios, introduced the consideration of triangulation in Palladio’s designs, analysed data pertaining to rooms’ heights, and offered a theory about the way Palladio coordinated of proportions between rooms.
- Branko Mitrović
- Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 76 (2013), 71-89.
- The paper analyses the changes in the understanding of visuality and their implications on (art) historiography since the times of Ernst Gombrich.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of Art Historiography 9 (2013)
- The paper seeks to explains motivations behind collectivist positions on social ontology in the history of German art historiography.
- Branko Mitrović
- Journal of Art Historiography 3(2010)
- The paper analyses Gombrich’s polemics with his postmodernist critics in the context of his views on perception and social ontology.