A critical view on the re-conceptualization of context in contemporary architecture

The thesis discusses the conceptualization of context and becoming of contextualism an original discourse of era via past and current architectural theories. For the evaluation and documentation of the contextual concepts and design methods at first it is necessary to look at the contemporary architecture. In this content the operation of the context in architectural theory and practice is searched via different discourses, suggestions and applications.Until late 1970s context debates evaluated in `physical? and `cultural? areas were generally developed with a formal and historical discourse. After this period searches on newness, that foresee a different context discuss, were initiated. New contextualism constitutes its own architectural language through the discusses within the framework of `physical? and `cultural? view. This language displays contemporary-contextual discourse as a `third view?. This discourse in the thesis is illustrated via contemporary architects like Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Peter Eisenman, Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Peter Zumthor. With their new approaches contextualism which is generally defined with a limited formalism and a historical analogy is re-discussed in terms of architecture and space relationship.In the thesis contemporary-contextual discourse is discussed through Koolhaas, Eisenman, Herzog&de Meuron and Zumthor who display contextualism with a shared concept group like continuity, newness, reality and event. These architects re-established and re-defined context by determining borders of inside-outside-landscape-settlement that are discussed before with concepts, instruments, methods and images belonging to different periods and disciplines. Their works as the products of the global architecture display the difference between conventional and innovative contextualism and they re-shape today?s architecture by introducing context with universal and current values instead of regional and archaic ones.