History and Theory of Architecture
Two strands, one exam
History items in the ALE are largely recall: name the period, the movement, the architect, or the building. Sort your memory chronologically. Start with Vitruvius and the triad firmitas, utilitas, venustas (structure, use, delight) - still the standard lens for theory questions. Then Renaissance discipline (Brunelleschi, Palladio), the 19th-century morality of Pugin, Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc, and the modern rupture: Sullivan's "form follows function," Loos' "Ornament and Crime," Wright's organic architecture, and Le Corbusier's Five Points (pilotis, free facade, ribbon windows, open plan, roof garden). Later theory - Venturi's complexity and contradiction, Rossi's typology, post-modernism, critical regionalism, sustainability - usually appears as definition matching rather than deep analysis.
Philippine track
Move from the pre-colonial bahay kubo (elevated, cross-ventilated, modular bay) to the Spanish colonial bahay na bato, then earthquake Baroque churches (Paoay, Miag-ao), Burnham's 1905 Manila plan and City Beautiful, Art Deco (Antonio's Ideal Theater, FEU), modernist concrete (Locsin's CCP and PICC), and Mañosa's neo-vernacular. Know the National Artists for Architecture: Nakpil (1973), Antonio (1976), Locsin (1990), Zaragoza (2014), Mañosa (2018).
Traps and a rule of thumb
Distractors usually pair a building with the wrong architect or shift a date by one generation. Ildefonso Santos Jr. is National Artist for Landscape Architecture, not Architecture - a favourite trick. Another trap asks for the theory behind a building's form when the question is really about its period. Rule of thumb: identify one signature material or gesture - thin shell concrete (Locsin), coconut/bamboo timber (Mañosa), decorative geometry (Antonio) - and let that anchor the answer instead of the date.