Revolution ore contrrevolution? About the book "Theory of Architecture" by Nikos Salingaros. Afterword to the book: Salingaros, Nikos. Theory of Architecture. (2025)

The article is the translator's foreword to the Russian–language edition of Nikos Salingaros's book "A Theory of Architecture" [5], which is currently being prepared for publication by the publishing house "Armchair Scientist" («Кабинетный учёный», Moscow – Yekaterinburg). The book summarizes the long-term scientific research of Nikos Salingaros, Professor of Mathematical Physics, overturning the ideas about architecture that have developed over the past hundred years. The original English version of The Theory of Architecture was first published in 2006; since then, the book has undergone two reprints – in 2013 and 2016 – and has been translated into more than ten languages. However, Salingaros' theory, which challenges established ideas today, can only be seen as revolutionary in the context of modern design approaches. However, if we consider that these approaches, at one time, (i.e., about a hundred years ago), revolutionized design by rejecting the centuries-old experience of traditional architecture, then Salingaros' proposals may seem rather conservative and counterrevolutionary. The uniqueness of the book "A Theory of Architecture" lies in its ability to identify, substantiate, and summarize the thousand-year-old, unwritten fundamental rules based on the imitation of natural patterns, that have guided architects for centuries both by intuition and tradition. Thus, it links the idea of mimesis - the ancient principle of "imitating nature", offering architects a reliable tool for creating adaptive (i.e., corresponding to human nature) architecture, not related to a specific style or trend (The article was previously published in English in the journal: “New Design Ideas”, vol. 9, no. 1, 2025, pp. 306–309).