Zoomorphic architecture is the practice of using animal forms as the inspirational basis and blueprint for architectural design. "While animal forms have always played a role adding some of the deepest layers of meaning in architecture, it is now becoming evident that a new strand of biomorphism is emerging where the meaning derives not from any specific representation but from a more general allusion to biological processes." The practice is said by some to be a reaction against some of the modern schools of architecture, such as

Modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

and their apparent opposition to nature and organic form. Commenting on the movement away from these rigid and artificial design trends, Susannah Hagan, in her book ''Taking Shape'', has this to say: "The oppositions between culture and nature, so importantly and brutally drawn up by modernism, are dissolving again, not in a return to what was, but a transformation of it...The division between the living organism and the machine continues to collapse." Zoomorphic architecture is sometimes used in contemporary Native American architecture to reflect animals prominent in Indigenous cosmology, such as The Turtle, also known as the Native American Center for the Living Arts, in Niagara Falls, New York.

Famous works

Some well-known examples of zoomorphic architecture can be found in the

TWA Flight Center The TWA Flight Center, also known as the Trans World Flight Center, is an airport terminal and hotel complex at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City. The original terminal building, or head house, operated as a terminal ...

building in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, by

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer who created a wide array of innovative designs for buildings and monuments, including the General Motors Technical Center; the pa ...

, or the

Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (also referred to as MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection of over 34,000 works of art and gallery spaces totaling 150,000 sq. ft. (13,900 m²) make it the largest art museum in the state of Wis ...

Santiago Calatrava Santiago Calatrava Valls (born 28 July 1951) is a Spaniards, Spanish-Swiss people, Swiss architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter, particularly known for his bridges supported by single leaning pylons, and his railway stations, stad ...

, both inspired by the form of a bird's wings. The Oriental Village by the Sea by Basil Al Bayati which "is based upon Oriental building types arranged in a plan originating in patterns of insect and plant life. The exoskeleton of a dragonfly forms the main body of the building's layout, its triangular mouth of stairs on the waterfront leading to the creature's circular head of the entrance lobby. The insect's long segmented yellow body is the central corridor, dome-lit, which intertwines with a branch of a tree, its stem a road and its leaves the roofs of condominiums and leisure facilities. The colourful berries are cone-topped villas intended to be reminiscent of Chinese temples."

Architects who have used zoomorphism in their work

* Basil Al Bayati *

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , ; ), was a Swiss-French architectural designer, painter, urban planner and writer, who was one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture ...

* Fariborz Sahba *

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{Cite book , last = Bingham , first = Neil , title = 100 Years of Architectural Drawing: 1900-2000 , publisher = Laurence King , year = 2012 , page = 288 , location = London , chapter = 1974-2000 The Dextrous Architectural Drawing , isbn = 978-1780672724 {{Cite book , last = Hagan , first = Susannah , title = Taking Shape , publisher = Architectural Press , year = 2001 , page = 240 , isbn = 978-0750649483 {{Cite book , last = Aldersey-Williams , first = Hugh , title = Zoomorphic: New Animal Architecture , publisher = Laurence King , year = 2003 , page = 19 , location = London , chapter = Introduction , isbn = 1-85669-340-6 . {{cite news , url = https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/20/nyregion/twa-s-hub-is-declared-a-landmark.html?scp=8&sq=%22twa%20flight%20center%22&st=cse , work = New York Times , title = T.W.A's Hub is Declared a Landmark , date = July 1994 , author = David W. Dunlap Architectural styles