In the vast literature on architectural theory and practice, the ways in which architectural knowledge is actually taught, debated, and understood are too often ignored. The essays collected in this groundbreaking volume address the current state of architecture as an academic and professional discipline. The issues considered range from the form and content of architectural education to the architect's social and environmental obligations and the emergence of a new generation of architects. Often critical of the current paradigm, these (...) essays offer a provocative challenge to accepted assumptions about the production, dissemination, and reception of architectural knowledge. Contributors: Sherry Ahrentzen, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Stanford Anderson, MIT; Carol Burns, Harvard U; Russell Ellis, UC Berkeley; Thomas Fisher, U of Minnesota; Linda Groat, U of Michigan; Kay Bea Jones, Ohio State U; David Leatherbarrow, U of Pennsylvania; A. G. Krishna Menon, TVB School of Habitat Studies, India; Garth Rockcastle, U of Minnesota; Michael Stanton, American U, Beirut; Sharon E. Sutton, U of Washington; David J. T. Vanderburgh, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; and Donald Watson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. (shrink)

Essays at the intersection of philosophy and architecture explore how we understand and inhabit space. To be outside allows one a fresh perspective on the inside. In these essays, philosopher Elizabeth Grosz explores the ways in which two disciplines that are fundamentally outside each another—architecture and philosophy—can meet in a third space to interact free of their internal constraints. "Outside" also refers to those whose voices are not usually heard in architectural discourse but who inhabit its space—the destitute, (...) the homeless, the sick, and the dying, as well as women and minorities. Grosz asks how we can understand space differently in order to structure and inhabit our living arrangements accordingly. Two themes run throughout the book: temporal flow and sexual specificity. Grosz argues that time, change, and emergence, traditionally viewed as outside the concerns of space, must become more integral to the processes of design and construction. She also argues against architecture's historical indifference to sexual specificity, asking what the existence of (at least) two sexes has to do with how we understand and experience space. Drawing on the work of such philosophers as Henri Bergson, Roger Caillois, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, and Jacques Lacan, Grosz raises abstract but nonformalistic questions about space, inhabitation, and building. All of the essays propose philosophical experiments to render space and building more mobile and dynamic. (shrink)

This paper examines large development projects as a function of finance in the context of Hong Kong, taking Kowloon Station as an exceptionally revealing case. Hong Kong's property market is one of the most established in Asia, and it points to the ways in which large-scale development schemes proliferate along efficient and affordable mass transit railway systems with great speed and success. At Kowloon Station, finance redefines architecture; instead of focusing on aesthetics and community, it is now promoting standardization, (...) market visibility and semantic control. The financial viability of these developments depends entirely on these new goals; mega-developments such as Kowloon Station – and those in other parts of Asia – are successful in inventing major mass transit railway stations as terminals, in capturing commuters within spatial enclosures surrounded by barrier-like physical features, and in terminating architecture as it has long been established as a discipline. Mega-development is increasingly reinventing the contemporary Asian city. (shrink)

This essay samples and describes the state of architectural scholarship across various platforms in the age of Cognitive Capitalism. The premise is that, much like scholarship in the Arts and Humanities generally, architectural scholarship suffers from the Either/Or schism between traditional academic research of a non-utilitarian form and the heavily mediatic practices of the mainstream – “mainstream” defined as both online and print publications that eschew the long-form essay or book in favor of the populist modality that serves the neo-liberalization (...) of the discipline. -/- The sampling includes the devolution of the thesis or dissertation to socio-cultural report and/or pseudo-scientific study, with speculative works relegated to the margins of architectural discourse. This shift, while emblematic of the “trade school” mentality of many architecture schools today, also signals a bias at large in the post-recession 2010s where research must be monetized to justify funding, or speculative work must adhere to a format that is dictated from the outside (from the regimes of capitalization imposed by publishers). (shrink)

Mies' disciplined retreat from romantic or individual influence created the illusion of an objective architectural order. Miesian architecture seemed fated, and the public was asked to accept it as a fait accompli. In contrast, Tigerman's "Little House" and the designs of Laurence Booth, Thomas Hall Beeby, Stuart Cohen, James Freed, James Nagle, and Ben Weese are not dependent on their ever being produced. They need not exist in actuality but only in process because their self-conscious styles serve a heuristic (...) purpose. The Chicago Seven exhibitors present an architecture that cannot be understood apart from the ideas which underlie it. The audience is directly involved in architectural creation and leaves such an exhibit better prepared to evaluate the man-made environment. The work is revealed to the audience at its earliest moment of creation and serves as a modest but important first step at demystifying architecture and the entire design process. Conceptual architecture—distinguished from work rendered for particular clients—reveals the fundamentally dialectical nature of contemporary architecture. The linking of method, the way an architectural idea evolves , to product accentuates the art's dynamic quality. Design in this way is seen not merely as a supraorganizational framework capable of defining large areas of urban or exurban space but as a problem-solving tool that can be sensitively applied to meet the specific needs of an individual or community. Ross Miller teaches English and American studies at the University of Connecticut. He has written a book on the roots of contemporary architecture in Chicago. (shrink)

Vu l’intérêt croissant que l’on porte aux questions éthiques dans le monde contemporain, on ne s’étonne plus de voir se multiplier les travaux qui discutent la façon dont ces questions se posent dans telle ou telle discipline. Or parmi celles-ci, l’architecture occupe une place assez particulière. Dans la mesure où l’on a affaire à l’un des beaux-arts, il ne va pas de soi que l’on puisse attribuer à l’architecture une fonction éthique, tant il est vrai que l’artiste (...) authentique est en droit de revendiquer une sorte de liberté qui se prête mal au respect inconditionnel d’impératifs d’origine morale. Toutefois, comme l’architecture est un art dont le propre est de répondre à un besoin fondamental de l’être humain, soit celui de trouver un abri et un lieu propice à l’habitation, au travail, à l’étude, au recueillement, à la détente ou à quelque autre activité jugée importante, les architectes ont rarement eu beaucoup de. (shrink)

Is architecture relevant for political theory? That is the key question that structures this excellent collection Political Theory and Architecture, although a number of essays fit a broader formulated theme better, namely, concerning the political relevance of the organization and design of our built environment more generally, including architecture but also spatial planning and urban design. The collection demonstrates that our build environment is not merely a passive backdrop to a political community, but actively shapes aspects of (...) our common political life. This constitutive nature of our built environment figures in many different guises throughout this volume. In this review article, I discuss some of these and conclude that concerns about the ‘common good’ and hence about the discipline of political theory should take reflections on urban design, planning, and architecture into account. (shrink)

Practical Ethics in Architecture and Interior Design Practice presents the basics of design practice through ethical scenarios, ushering design students into real-world experiential learning. Each chapter begins with a detailed story involving a complicated set of practical and ethical dilemmas, exemplifying those encountered each day in the world of professional practice. Practice-based topics such as contracts and project delivery methods, marketing design services, cross-cultural collaboration, virtual connectivity, social justice and sustainable design, soft skills, and other related professional practice themes (...) are anchored in realistic scenarios. While all the stories are fictional, in writing them the authors drew from over 75 combined years of professional experience in architecture and interior design, as well as many years of academic experience in teaching professional practice and ethics to architecture and interior design students. Each story is followed by discussion questions and suggested additional resources. This book provides a unique integrated perspective into the allied fields of architecture and interior design with topics relevant to both fields as well as specific to each profession. It prepares students of both disciplines for the broad issues of professional practice and encourages them to become ethical practitioners ready to contribute effectively to design teams and to ask the right questions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Architectural Theory, Volume 1: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870Peg RawesArchitectural Theory, Volume 1: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870, edited by Harry Francis Mallgrave. Malden MA, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2006, 590 pp., $49.95.This anthology is a rich and comprehensive documentation of the key stages that construct Western architectural theory, from Vitruvius's classical writing to Gottfried Semper's theories in late-nineteenth-century Europe. Comprised of 229 texts by these (...) and other significant writers of architectural theory, it represents an extremely valuable resource for architectural design, history, and theory education and, more broadly, for aesthetic education, art history, aesthetics, and visual culture. Professor Mallgrave's career as an architectural historian and theorist at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and editor of Architecture and Aesthetics for the Texts and Documents Series at the Getty Research Institute, has enabled him to bring together a large number of canonical texts by architects and writers, including Alberti, Palladio, Vasari, Perrault, Wotton, Wren, Soufflot, Blondel, Boullée, Ledoux, Soane, Reynolds, Pugin, Viollet-le-Duc, Ruskin, and Greenough. In addition, Mallgrave has selected important contextualizing texts that inform the philosophical, cultural, and aesthetic development of the discipline by writers such as Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Morris, Chambers, Winckelmann, Locke, Hume, Ramsey, Burke, Walpole, Price, von Schlegel, Wolff, Jefferson, Emerson, Hugo, Zola, and Leibnitz.Six stages of development are laid out, beginning with the Classical and Renaissance periods in part I. In part II the debates about Classicism in France and Britain develop, leading into part III, in which texts from the Neoclassical and Enlightenment debates in Europe take precedence. In part IV, Picturesque and Sublime theories are documented, from which part V turns to consider the importance of Historicism in the nineteenth century and, finally, in part VI the impact of Historicism is examined in relation to developments in industrialization.Introducing each part, Mallgrave succinctly highlights the historical, cultural, and political structures that underpin the development of architectural ideas and debates during the period. Within each part, internal sections further distinguish the particular ideas that preoccupied specific individuals and groups to comprise different theoretical positions. Part II, for example, is divided into the nationalist differences between "French Classicism: Ancients and Moderns" and "British Classicism and Palladianism," and part IV identifies key texts that contribute to the theorization of eighteenth-century aesthetics in three stages: "Sources of the Picturesque," "Toward a Relativist Aesthetics," and "Consolidation of Picturesque Theory." In addition, Mallgrave introduces each individual text, drawing attention to the author's intellectual ambitions and the contemporary debates in which their contribution is constructed. Architectural [End Page 111] theory is therefore characterized as a discipline that is made up of dynamic discussions, which are frequently unresolved and irregular in their formation. Diverse and opposing agendas are pursued, both within and between different institutions, academies, and communities, including the late-sixteenth-century "stylistic battles" of Alberti and Serlio's treatises, which were developed out of Vitruvius's ten "books" of architecture; the pluralism of styles in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century that was comprised of puritanical influential theories, Gothic and French Classicism, and the new generation of American architectural theorists; and the emergence of a German architectural theory within the political disputes that led to the unification of Germany in 1871. Architectural theory is therefore firmly constructed in relation to social, material, cultural, and political systems and frameworks.This colorful construction of architectural theory is evident, especially in those sections that are central to Mallgrave's ongoing research interests, in the tension between the rational, technical, and empirical discussions that inform seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century aesthetics. Running through parts II and III, for example, is one of the most drawn-out and bitter disputes, which dominated architectural theory in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French Academy of Architecture. Focused on the value of Vitruvius's Roman origins of Classicism, versus revivalist ambitions to retrieve the ornamental Classicism of Greek and Gothic styles, this great quarrel occupies the texts, letters, essays, and articles by architects and writers, including Blondel, Perrault, Piranesi, Soufflot, Winckelmann, Le Roy, Boullée, and Ledoux. But this debate is also important in the context of... (shrink)

Rudolf Steiner, the often undervalued, multifaceted genius of modern times, contributed much to the regeneration of culture. In addition to his philosophical teachings, he provided ideas for the development of many practical activities including education--both general and special--agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, religion, and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms, and many other organizations based on his ideas. Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct spiritual research, the investigation of (...) metaphysical dimensions of existence. With his scientific and philosophical training, he brought a new systematic discipline to the field, allowing for conscious methods and comprehensive results. A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life. Topics include: the origins and nature of architecture the formative influence of architectural forms the history of architecture in the light of human spiritual evolution new architecture as a means of uniting with spiritual forces art and architecture as manifestations of spiritual realities metamorphosis in architecture aspects of a new form of architecture the first and second Goetheanum buildings the architecture of a community in Dornach the temple is the human being the restoration of the lost temple. (shrink)

The practice of architecture, a discipline that is inescapably contingent on the particular, but that is also required by society in some way to represent an ideal, raises a number of specific ethical issues. Following an essay by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, this paper argues that it is intrinsic to professional judgement that this involves the prioritizing of unquantifiable ‘goods’. A twentieth-century case study is examined, which exhibits the choices made by a well-known architect. The changed nature of (...) architectural practice in the United Kingdom in the twenty-first century is then described, whereby the privilege of making such judgements has been severely limited by the substitution of managerial values for professional values. In the face of different ethical imperatives – most obviously to design responsibly within pressing ecological concerns – it is argued that the task for architects now is to re-establish a context within which sound judgements can be made, which of course implies a degree of professional trust. Their ability to balance managerial values (technical competence for example) with ethical decision-making is what may prove to be most valuable. There are implications for architectural education, which in the past has either pretended to be a science or has retreated into aesthetic speculation, providing training in the skills of persuasion rather than relationship-building. The conclusion is that ethical thinking is inescapable for the profession of architecture in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Deleuze and Guattari develop a notion of “minor literature” in their short book on Kafka, and the opposition major/minor has been used with varying degrees of success by critics working in a range of disciplines including architectural theory. Teasing out the potentially subversive implications of the major/minor opposition requires reading it in relation to other binarisms developed by Deleuze and Guattari in those same years, e.g., state/nomadic science, striated/smooth space, optic/haptic, as well as Guattari’s useful concept “machinic heterogenesis.” Then, one (...) ends up with a minor architecture concerned with partially subversive practices rather than with structure per se. A building’s minor status is figured through its deployment in and production of a space that is a technological, social and political pattern as well as a line of flight. This paper reads minor architecture by examining the minor house built by Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond and those currently being assembled by the Mad Housers in Atlanta, Georgia. (shrink)

This article provides a reading and analysis of Foucault’s 1973-4 lecture course Le pouvoir psychiatrique. It begins by situating the course within the wider context of Foucault’s work, notably in relation to Histoire de la folie and the move of the early 1970s to the conceptual tools of power and genealogy. It is argued that Le pouvoir psychiatrique is a rewriting of the last part of Histoire de la folie from the perspective of these new conceptual tools. Analysis then moves (...) to more thematic concerns, showing how this course enriches our understanding of Foucault’s work on the sources of power, the individual and the family, and the spaces of the disciplinary society. Particular focus is given to the role of the army, public health, the hospital, children, women and hospital architecture. The article concludes by showing how the themes of this course, while not worked up for publication themselves, point the way to concerns in Foucault’s later work, notably The History of Sexuality and collaborative work on urban medicine and habitat. (shrink)

Technologies not only change “external reality” but also change our internal consciousness, shaping the way we experience the world. As the reality of intelligent environments is upon us—ushered along with the age of ubiquitous computing—we must be careful that the ideology these technologies embody is not blindly incorporated into the environment. As disciplines, engineering and computer science make implicit assumptions about the world that conflict with traditional modes of cultural production. For example, space is commonly understood to be the void (...) left behind when no objects are present. Unfortunately, once we see space in this way, we are unable to understand the role it plays in our everyday experience. In order to make computationally enhanced spaces that are meaningful at the level of the everyday, we must exorcise the notion of intelligence from their design and replace it with life. Henri Lefebvre’s discussions of the space of everyday life provide a framework to help conceive this transition. (shrink)

Architecture and human-built structures are embedded with speciesist practices of domination over the environment, where humans are considered special and superior to other species. This (hu)man exceptionalism has driven architecture and the built environment to be conceived in opposition to ‘nature’, dominating natural terrains and consequently displacing or instrumentalizing the many other species that are given little to no ethical consideration. This way of intervening in the world is leading to the existential questions that must be posed given (...) our global climate crisis. A reframing of human intervention as ‘built environment’ placed in opposition to the ‘natural environment’ of supposedly passive nature, is urgently needed. The motivation for this paper is rooted in a deep concern for the role of humans in the climate crisis and a realization that architecture as a discipline is complicit in elevating the human category above all other beings in nature. There are biases embedded in the practices and teaching of architecture that need to be interrogated and reflected upon, starting with the role models and ideals that we unwittingly operate within. To contextualize the idea of human exceptionalism in architecture, we will explore deep-seeded ideals in architecture linked to the concept of Rectitude as a form of ‘rightness’ -or correct- mode of intervening in the world, conceptualized by Western men as a human-centric practice distinct from nature-made. Supported by Ecofeminist thought, the aim is to open alternative models for world-building and housing humans on earth living in its sixth extinction. (shrink)

Contract cheating services are marketing to students at discipline level, using increasingly sophisticated techniques. The discipline level reach of these services has not been widely considered in the academic integrity literature. Much of the academic understanding of contract cheating is not discipline specific, but the necessary solutions to this problem may need to vary by discipline. This paper reviews current knowledge about contract cheating services at the discipline level, including summarising four studies that rank the (...) relative volume of contract cheating within different academic disciplines. The reviewed studies show high volumes of contract cheating transactions in the disciplines of Business and Computing. Examples of discipline level contract cheating research and service advertising are provided. The main contribution of the paper is an analysis of the discipline level reach by contract cheating services as seen through an analysis of Google search results from the United Kingdom. This analysis of 19 discipline groups uses measures of organic search engine results, paid results and competition. Three discipline groups are shown as currently being heavily exploited by essay mills; these are: Architecture, Building and Planning, Computer Science and Law. In addition, the discipline group of Creative Arts and Design is shown to be at risk of future exploitation. The paper recommends that academics are made aware about continual change in the contract cheating industry including the involved marketing taking place at discipline level. The paper concludes with a call to action for academia to develop discipline specific solutions to contract cheating. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, the (...) second one, in which a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

Soft systems attempt to account for non-linear processes whose complexity derives from shifting interrelationships between elements. The move towards soft systems, whose stability is rooted in dynamism, represents a significant shift across disciplines with important implications for the way we approach architectural environments and materials. This article investigates the effects of physical and operational softness on the experience of architectural space through the lens of a recent installation using mycelium biocomposites, an emergent soft material. This contemporary exploration of architectural softness (...) builds in new and technically sophisticated ways on earlier experiments in architectural softness that explored the promise of creating responsive and flexible architectures. (shrink)

In the last decades, the rapid growth of functional brain imaging methodologies allowed cognitive neuroscience to address open questions in philosophy and the social sciences. At the same time, novel insights from cognitive neuroscience research have begun to influence various disciplines, leading to a turn to cognition and emotion in the fields of planning and architectural design. Since 2003, the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture has been supporting ‘neuro-architecture’ as a way to connect neuroscience and the study of (...) behavioral responses to the built environment. Among the many topics related to multisensory perceptual integration and embodiment, the concept of hapticity was recently introduced, suggesting a pivotal role of touch and haptic imagery in architectural appraisal. Arguments have thus risen in favor of the existence of shared cognitive foundations between hapticity and the supramodal functional architecture of the human brain. Precisely, supramodality refers to the functional feature of defined brain regions to process and represent specific information content in a more abstract way, independently of the sensory modality conveying such information to the brain. Here we highlight some commonalities and differences between the concepts of hapticity and supramodality according to the distinctive perspectives of architecture and cognitive neuroscience. This comparison and connection between these two different approaches may lead to novel observations in regard to people-environment relationships, and even provide empirical foundations for a renewed evidence-based design theory. (shrink)

A landmark study in the field of political science, The Changing Architecture of Politics charts the profound structural changes taking place in the late twentieth-century state. Looking at both theory and practice, Cerny argues that political structures--states in the broadest sense--are the key to understanding both the history and the future of modern politics. Included for discussion are such salient topics as the problem of locating institutional and structural theory within political and social science, how to describe and classify (...) the main elements of political structures, and a penetrating analysis of the structured action field that lies at the crossroads of political structuration. In addition, he explores several core areas in practice, including how states will operate in the next century and how states will interact with the manifold changes in social and economic processes--at both the domestic and international levels. Through his masterly portrayal of the architecture of contemporary politics, Cerny lays the foundations for an understanding of new political structures that are needed if the pursuit of human values is to continue into the next century. As such, this fascinating volume will appeal to all those interested in the paradigms of political and social science, whether from a purely theoretical or from a more empirical standpoint. "This is the best introduction available in English to contemporary academic discussions about the purpose and prospects of applying the comparative method to political science. Cerny's book is comprehensive in scope and accomplishes three, quite rare tasks: it brings together material on North America, Western Europe, and Japan; it combines theories of comparative politics and international relations; it pays equal attention to systems of party competition and of interest intermediation, although its primary focus is upon the state. Philip Cerny has produced a tour de force, an intelligent, erudite, and comprehensive text that cuts decisively through artificial barriers within the discipline." --Political Science Quarterly. (shrink)

If there is nothing more to architecture than design –and to its attendant thinking processes–than design thinking, then core dimensions of the architectural enterprise from the perspective of (a) production and (b) use have no special character, over and above their counterparts in general design. Yet that does not appear to be true by the lights of architects or design specialists or the public at large. So what is it, at the core or periphery of the discipline or (...) its objects, that makes architecture not design? The ways in which architecture and design constitute artistic enterprises, drawing on and promoting aesthetic interest, differ such that architecture is not, or at least not only, a branch of or variation on design generally construed. (shrink)

: As a form of in vivo knowledge, the transdisciplinary methodology suggests going beyond disciplines. According to Nicolescu, this methodology occurs at different levels of reality, different levels of perception, and within the logic of the included middle axioms that exist simultaneously. In addressing these levels, the researcher is the interlocutor between the external world of the Object and the internal world of the Subject. In architecture, this knowledge emerges through a variety of disciplines that need to be fused (...) with an approach that is rhizomatic and nomadic, leading to thought without an image as characterized by Deleuze and Guattari. By following their “Pink Panther” metaphor for an imageless thought and approach in TR, this article aims to understand the relationship between the TR methodology and the theory of thought without an image - an approach which can enable the comprehension of ambiguous architecture and urban design problems. Resumo: Como um conhecimento in vivo, a metodologia transdisciplinar sugere ir além das disciplinas. Segundo Nicolescu, essa metodologia ocorre em distintos níveis de realidade, em diferentes níveis de percepção e na lógica do terceiro incluído, que existem simultaneamente. Ao abordar esses níveis, o pesquisador é a correspondência entre o mundo externo do Objeto e o mundo interno do Sujeito. Na arquitetura, esse conhecimento surge por meio de uma variedade de disciplinas que precisam ser combinadas e fundidas com uma abordagem rizomática e nômade, levando ao pensamento sem imagem, como tratado por Gilles Deleuze e Félix Guattari. Seguindo a metáfora da “pantera rosa” para um pensamento sem imagem e abordagem em TR, que não imita ou reproduz outra coisa, o objetivo deste artigo é compreender a relação entre a metodologia TR, a teoria do pensamento sem imagem - uma abordagem que pode permitir a compreensão de arquitetura ambígua e problemas de projeto urbano. (shrink)

The Hermit’s Hut offers an original insight into the profound relationship between architecture and asceticism. Although architecture continually responds to ascetic compulsions, as in its frequent encounter with the question of excess and less, it is typically considered separate from asceticism. In contrast, this innovative book explores the rich and mutual ways in which asceticism and architecture are played out in each other’s practices. The question of asceticism is also considered—as neither a religious discourse nor a specific (...) cultural tradition but as a perennial issue in the practice of culture. The work convincingly traces the influences from early Indian asceticism to Zen Buddhism to the Japanese teahouse—the latter opening the door to modern minimalism. As the book’s title suggests, the protagonist of the narrative is the nondescript hermit’s hut. Relying primarily on Buddhist materials, the author provides a complex narrative that stems from this simple structure, showing how the significance of the hut resonates widely and how the question of dwelling is central to ascetic imagination. In exploring the conjunctions of architecture and asceticism, he breaks new ground by presenting ascetic practice as fundamentally an architectural project, namely the fabrication of a “last” hut. Through the conception of the last hut, he looks at the ascetic challenge of arriving at the edge of civilization and its echoes in the architectural quest for minimalism. The most vivid example comes from a well-known Buddhist text where the Buddha describes the ultimate ascetic moment, or nirvana, in cataclysmic terms using architectural metaphors: “The roof-rafters will be shattered,” the Buddha declares, and the architect will “no longer build the house again.” As the book compellingly shows, the physiological and spiritual transformation of the body is deeply intertwined with the art of building. The Hermit’s Hut weaves together the fields of architecture, anthropology, religion, and philosophy to offer multidisciplinary and historical insights. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, it will appeal to readers with diverse interests and in a variety of disciplines—whether one is interested in the history of ascetic architecture in India, the concept of “home” in ancient India, or the theme of the body as building. (shrink)

My research is centred upon how architecture is invigorated by cyberspace, the blurred boundary between the virtual and the actual, and how the different parameters of these spaces can be used to inform one another. My early experience in practice was that buildings are limited by the inert materials used to construct them and by the unimaginative ideas of what a building should look like and be. My research draws upon a variety of different disciplines to inform one (...) class='Hi'>architecture. The areas of research are multidisciplinary and include the changing status of the architectural drawing, smart materials, computer-aided architectural drawing, computer-aided manufacture, emergent systems, responsive environments, the architectural design of cyberspace, interactivity, cybernetics and evolving systems and algorithmic design. To create responsive, non-prescriptive designs for architectural intervention was the starting point that led to an interest in the logic of algorithms and open-ended systems. These problem-solving diagrams used by computer programmers are very useful as a way of describing fluctuating conditions in responsive environments. This led to an interest in other computing paradigms such as cellular automata, complexity and emergence. These and other ideas I attempted to bring into the arena of architectural design to help architects cope with the rapid growth of computational technology, which is starting to revolutionize the way buildings are designed, drawn and built. We are at another of the important perturbations in technology and epistemology that seems to affect us so often these days. Cell biology is the new cyber-space and nanotechnology. Once we fully understand the exact nature of how our world makes us and, indeed how it sometimes kills us, we will be able to make true architectures of ecological connectability. This is our profession's future. Small steps have been made, but much more remains to be done. (shrink)

This book engages with the writings of W.G. Sebald, mediated by perspectives drawn from curriculum and architecture, to explore the theme of unsettling complacency and confront difficult knowledge around trauma, discrimination and destruction. Moving beyond overly instrumentalist and reductive approaches, the authors combine disciplines in a scholarly fashion to encourage readers to stretch their understandings of currere. The chapters exemplify important, timely and complicated conversations centred on ethical response and responsibility, in order to imagine a more just and aesthetically (...) experienced world. In the analysis of bildung as human formation, the book illuminates the pertinent lessons to be learned from the works of Sebald and provokes further investigations into the questions of memory, grief, and limits of language. Through its juxtaposition of curriculum and architecture, and using the prose of Sebald as a prism, the book revitalizes questions about education and ethics, probes the unsettling of complacency, and enables conversation around difficult knowledge and ethical responsibility, as well as offering hope and resolve. An important intervention in standard approaches to understanding currere, this book provides essential context for scholars and educators with interests in the history of education, curriculum studies, cultural studies, memory studies, narrative research, Sebaldian studies, and educational philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.3 (2004) 73-90 [Access article in PDF] Intellectual Friendship in Architectural Education Yonca Hurol Introduction Limits are causes of repression, and it is usually accepted that repression affects creativity. There are two different approaches to the effects of limits on creativity. According to the first approach, creativity increases parallel to the increase of limits and repression. According to the second approach, any artificial increase (...) of limits produces passionate "locked in" mechanisms. A decrease of limits is necessary for an increase in creativity. Since it is never possible to eliminate some "natural" limits, it is not necessary to create some other "artificial" ones by introducing authoritarian attitudes. Creativity should be directed only toward the natural problems and limits.The aim of this essay is to develop a theoretical base for the following philosophical statement: "Decreasing authoritarian limits causes an increase in creativity in architectural design education." The concepts in such a philosophical statement must be operationalized in order to be applied to the practice of architectural education. The concepts of "limits" and "creativity" should be replaced with some other concepts (variables) which are observable so that they can be applied to the cases in practice.The essay is based on the poststructuralist philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, specifically their understanding of the relation betweenthe body and the mind;1 even though other thinkers have related emotion and rationality, for example, Fredrich Nietzsche's nomadic thought, Gaston Bachelard's "childhood dreams," and Antonin Artaud's "theatre of cruelty."2 In this essay, Deleuze and Guattari's philosophy is used more intensively over that of others, because of the clarity of the concepts it contains.The concept of creativity is operationalized by replacing it with the variable of the "design psychology of the student" which can, in turn, be replaced by the constants of "passionate mechanism" and "desire machine." [End Page 73] These psychological states and the their architectural indications are analyzed in the first section. The concept of limits is replaced by the "limiting role of the studio teacher," instead of the natural limits in architecture such aseconomy and technology. This role has two constants: the "role of the authority figure" and the "role of the intellectual friend."In architectural design courses students design buildings which combine the demands of strength, usefulness, and aesthetics. This process relates rationality (mind) to irrationality (body/feelings). Students learn about the rational aspects of architecture in their own ways, while designing the irrational aspects of their projects. They make contact with the studio teachers whenever they need advice or supportive criticism. This is a one-on-one relationship. The early approaches to design education depend on authoritarian "correction," while the new models propose "objective criticism."However, none of these concepts cover the existing power relations between teachers and students. Some teachers believe in the positive role of authority, while others do not. A conflict arises between the authority figures, and the friendly teachers.The formation of an intellectual friendship between students and teachers of architecture is not new. It has existed since postmodernism was first founded in architecture with the differing viewpoints about architecture. Sinan Omacan, was a student of architecture when he described the changing demands of education as follows: School is not simply a structure that is abstract. It is not only an institution of discipline that programs, deals with quantities, and evaluates. The name of it, the building of it, and the people in it, always give it a certain personality, and the strongest part of this story can only start with the relationship between these personalities. While this medium of personal relationships forms an unpredictable and unavoidable situation for the institution, it becomes exactly the right thing that students are looking for, because the most important aspect for students in a school is the possibility created by unprogrammed time and unplanned space.3This essay provides a theoretical explanation of these existing categories for the first time. The concepts which are analyzed in the first two parts are used as variables for comparative research. The third part contains comparative... (shrink)

Recent years have seen a gradual convergence of seemingly distant research fields over a single goal: understanding and replicating biological intelligence in artifacts. This work presents a general overview on the origin, the state-of-the-art, scientific challenges and the future of Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architecture (BICA) research. Our perspective decomposes the field into the four principal semantic components associated with the BICA challenge that together call for an integration of efforts of researchers across disciplines. Areas and directions of study where (...) new integrated efforts will be primarily needed are summarized. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Affective Spaces: Architecture and the Living Body by Federico de MatteisJasna SersicAffective Spaces: Architecture and the Living Body BY FEDERICO DE MATTEIS New York, NY: Routledge, 2021What is architectural space? For architects, urban planners, and all involved in the design and transformation of the environment, space is a central subject. However, despite this fact, nobody accurately states what space is all about. As a result, the (...) concept of space remains ambiguous, challenging to transmit, and a point of fundamental misunderstandings, with consequences on how we move, inhabit, and transform the world around us (1).In the attempt to provide order in today’s theory of space in architecture, De Matteis’ Affective Spaces invites the reader to explore the question of space from the subject’s point of view by asking what the encounter with architecture is like, and how do I feel, here, now?, borrowed from Eugene Minkowski (7). De Matteis offers an interconnected yet clear and instructive way to explore further what first-hand, direct experience with architecture can tell us about the effects it produces on us. Through this exciting intellectual journey, De Matteis thus shows how architecture, generally understood as an art of building space, does not regard the built environment alone. As people are also emotionally affected by the (built) world they live in, this book can ultimately be read as a quest to understand the relation between the feelings and moods arising from the bodily, corporeal experience of the built environment and the way they invite us to respond and act within environments we inhabit and modify (130).To accept De Matteis’ invitation to join him on his quest entails two things. The first is to take the position that the root of the emergence of sense and feelings is the subject’s corporeity. We must thus acknowledge the primacy of feeling (130). The second, by extension, is to put aside preconceived notions and conceptual tools for representing space inherited from modernity, as they are grounded in dualistic contraposition between physical reality, which is seen as objective (9). In contrast, experience and feeling are seen as subjective (9). Consequently, [End Page 142] they cannot adequately grasp the non- measurable dimensions of the lived space and thus the experience that the subject makes of it.Instead, De Matteis argues that one cannot describe space as a thing separate from us and that we are always a part of the space we inhabit. For this purpose, the book derives its theoretical model of space from phenomenology, which considers the felt body as a sounding board for the built environment and human experience of the world.The book is arranged into fourteen chapters that show the thematic progression of the argument, and is structured in three parts that explore space, the living body and corporeal dynamics, and the experiential character of some specific families of space. Titles of the chapters provide clear signposts to the reader about where the story is going and are much appreciated in this unique exploration. They also show that the author carefully weaves the conceptual intersections between phenomenology and its model of space with investigations in several fields of knowledge. Drawing across a multitude of disciplines, ranging from geography, anthropology, psychology, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics to neurosciences, and offering many examples from art, literature, film, and everyday life, the book helps the reader visualize the content discussed. This panoramic character and accessible language and format make it an engaging read for experts in the field and to a broader audience interested in topics addressed in the book.Perhaps one of the most compelling arguments the book brings forward is that the corporeal dynamics of space enable understanding of space as a thing that is not separate from us. It is from the coming together of persons and things that atmospheres arise. They are not objective, yet they exist as the natural qualities of things; neither are they subjective, yet they belong to sensing beings. This understanding implies a possible workable definition with no boundary between the subject and object. However, it also clearly points out that the book emerged in response to our modern understanding and critique... (shrink)

Architecture and urbanism seem to be »weak« disciplines, constantly struggling for a better understanding of their nature and disciplinary borders. The huge amount of metaphors appearing in the discourse of both not only reference to their creative nature but also indicate their weakness and the missing piece strengthening their own understanding: a definition of space for architecture and of city for urbanism. But using metaphors in this field implies a problem - though metaphors achieve to bring opposites together, (...) there remains the question how literal they can actually become in order to relate to these subjects properly. In this volume, several authors from various fields using different approaches discuss this question. (shrink)

One determining characteristic of contemporary sociopolitical systems is their power over increasingly large and diverse populations. This raises questions about power relations between heterogeneous individuals and increasingly dominant and homogenizing system objectives. This article crosses epistemic boundaries by integrating computer engineering and a historicalphilosophical approach making the general organization of individuals within large-scale systems and corresponding individual homogenization intelligible. From a versatile archeological-genealogical perspective, an analysis of computer and social architectures is conducted that reinterprets Foucault’s disciplines and political anatomy to (...) establish the notion of politics for a purely technical system. This permits an understanding of system organization as modern technology with application to technical and social systems alike. Connecting to Heidegger’s notions of the enframing (Gestell) and a more primal truth (anfänglicheren Wahrheit), the recognition of politics in differently developing systems then challenges the immutability of contemporary organization. Following this critique of modernity and within the conceptualization of system organization, Derrida’s democracy to come (à venir) is then reformulated more abstractly as organizations to come. Through the integration of the discussed concepts, the framework of Large-Scale Systems Composed of Homogeneous Individuals (LSSCHI) is proposed, problematizing the relationships between individuals, structure, activity, and power within large-scale systems. The LSSCHI framework highlights the conflict of homogenizing system-level objectives and individual heterogeneity, and outlines power relations and mechanisms of control shared across different social and technical systems. (shrink)

This essay pushes the history of a scientific discipline, morphology, toward a broader philosophically informed and cross-disciplinarily engaged history of knowledge. It shows that by looking at how knowledge and practices circulated between scientific disciplines (such as biology) and technoscientific ones (like architecture and design) we can better understand how (morphological) knowledge was produced. By doing so, the analysis contributes to the study of the mechanisms of knowledge exchange between the organic and the technical worlds and, more broadly, (...) to the study of the dynamics of knowledge circulation. First, the essay analyzes the engineering studies of organic form conducted by the Austro-Hungarian botanist Raoul Heinrich Francé (1874–1943) and the Scottish polymath D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). Subsequently, the essay moves to twenty-first-century morphogenesis. It examines the transfer of the notion of morphospace, a paleontological practice of data visualization, into biology-inspired architectural design. The conclusion deals with the broader features of knowledge transfer and circulation. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century morphologists successfully translate and transfer morphogenetic processes from nature into technical artifacts to achieve technical solutions to given problems. In the translation of organic morphogenesis into a technical process, evolution’s intrinsic historical contingency was deliberately left behind. (shrink)

Once the province of film and media scholars, today the moving image is of broad concern to historians of art and architecture and designers of everything from websites to cities. As museums and galleries devote increasing space to video installations which no longer presuppose a fixed viewer, urban space becomes envisioned and planned through "fly throughs," and technologies such as GPS add data to the experience of travel, moving images have captured the attention of geographers and scholars across the (...) humanities and social sciences. Their practice of "mobility studies" is remaking how we understand a contemporary world in relentless motion. Media theorist and historian Anne Friedberg (1952-2009) was among the first practitioners of visual studies to theorize the experience of vision in motion. Although widely influential beyond her own discipline, Friedberg's work has never been the subject of an extended study. The Moving Eye: Film, Television, Architecture, Visual Art and the Modern gathers together essays by renowned thinkers in media studies, art history, architecture, and museum studies to consider the rich implications of her work for understanding film and video, new media, visual art, architecture, exhibition design, urban space, and virtual reality. Ranging from early cinema, to works by Le Corbusier, Sergei Eisenstein, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Pierre Huyghe, to theories of the image in motion informed by psychoanalysis, theories of the public sphere, and animal studies, each of the nine essays in the book advances the lines of inquiry commenced by Friedberg. (shrink)

This article in its essence aims to challenge and unfold, each at a time, two different fields of methodology – cybernetics and phenomenology – that have direct effects on the product of being and the process of becoming in architectural discourse. Furthermore, this article suggests a third way philosophy for architecture that relates notions of post-phenomenology and technoscience, and considers both to be equally vital to development and speculation within current architectural discourse. First, the history of each of the (...) two fields – cybernetics and phenomenology – will be unveiled with a focus on exploring their impact upon architecture in particular and diverse fields such as other art disciplines, computer science and psychology. Second, a critique of the historic rivalry between pioneers in each of the two fields will be unpacked through their errors and limits. Third, the article will discuss attempts at converging the two fields in order to address the relationship of notions of humanism, machinism and technology. Finally, a declaration of the characteristics of such a convergence that will lead to a third way philosophy for architectural discourse will be asserted. (shrink)

How we experience space by listening: the concepts of aural architecture, with examples ranging from Gothic cathedrals to surround sound home theater. We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. (...) Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling. Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects. (shrink)

The paper proposes a distinction between ethical problems internal to the practice of a discipline and ethical problems external to it. It argues that ethical problems encountered in architecture are typically of the former kind, in contrast, for example, to bioethical problems. From this point of view, it discusses the state of other arts and surveys various 19th and 20th century positions concerning ethics in architecture. It illustrates that, where architecture is concerned, ethics is closely related (...) to aesthetics and frequently tied to a philosophy of history, a point which is explained with the help of the above-mentioned distinction. (shrink)

A multi-disciplinary study of the house that the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein built for his sister in Vienna between 1926 and 1928, this book weaves together ideas taken from a number of disciplines_sociology, political science, aesthetics, architecture, urban planning, and philosophy_to develop a complex, multifaceted interpretation of the purpose and design of the house, which, in turn, is used to ground a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical works emphasizing their mystical nature and practical purpose.

This paper aims to show that in ancient Greek architecture, it is possible to find a genesis of the geometric modeling of visual perception present in propositions of Euclid's Optics, considering mathematical knowledge as a human wisdom expression. Let us start by emphasizing that mathematical thinking is not exclusively rooted in mathematical disciplines, but also includes the broad spectrum of human activities, including activities that come from everyday life. Based on this, we present a socio-cultural characterization of human experience (...) as the source and sustainer of mathematical knowledge. Thereafter, on the basis of a content and contextual analysis of _Euclid's Optics_, we explain the use and development of geometry in the study of various optical effects of visual perception in the architectural art embodied in the Acropolis of Athens; and we focus our analysis on one of the most important of these effects, the Acropolis of Athens. We focus our analysis on one of the most emblematic architectural works of ancient Greek culture: the Parthenon of Athens. (shrink)

One of the important modernist terms – flexibility – offers the introduction of time and of the unknown as parameters in design. Yet the development of flexibility in modern architecture shows also the ambivalent relationship between architecture and the user – the objective of incorporating flexibility in archi-tecture. The span between introducing the freedom of choice and expression and the reality of totally controlled spaces and movements shows the range of interpretations of this subject. By looking at the (...) strategies and evolution of flexibility in architecture one can project possible problems and frictions for the new discipline – ubiquitous computing. Both flexible architecture and the ubiquitous house are devoted to space, time and technology, and intend to give the user the maximum of possibilities inside the house. What are the mistakes that some of the development in flexible architecture has made, that ubiquitous computing might learn from, especially in its relation to the user? (shrink)

It's taken yoga several thousand years to make the journey from a handful of monasteries dotting the Himalayas to the yoga studios popping up everywhere. Whether bathing with holy men in the Ganges or joining the chorus of a thousand voices chanting 'om,' photographer Michael O'Neill decided to devote himself to experience and record the world of yoga at this critical juncture in its history. The result is a powerful photographic tribute to the age-old discipline turned global phenomenon, with (...) over 250 million practitioners united in physical, spiritual, and mindful practice worldwide. (shrink)

Phenomenology of the Cultural Disciplines is an interdisciplinary study, reflecting the recent emergence of various particular forms of `phenomenological philosophy of ...'. Included are such fields as psychology, social sciences and history, as well as environmental philosophy, ethnic studies, religion and even more practical disciplines, such as medicine, psychiatry, politics, and technology. The Introduction provides a way of understanding how these various developments are integrated. On the basis of a Husserlian notion of culture, it proposes a generic concept of `cultural (...) disciplines' (which is broader than but inclusive of `human sciences') which subsumes the more specific concepts of `cultural sciences', `axiotic disciplines' (e.g. architecture), and `practical disciplines'. (shrink)

Designing a virtual environment within a digital game occupies a large part of the design procedure, requiring holistic attention and a broad arrangement of the game constituents. Considering other design disciplines, they occupy a unified design methodology; however, a comprehensive literature review reveals the lack of the intended design methodology in the digital game domain's virtual environment development, despite a currently proposed theoretical methodology trying to dissolve the issue. Hence, this research aims to determine the industry's requirements and provide a (...) set of assets included in current digital games as an initial step of providing such a design methodology for the domain. In this regard, the researchers reverse-engineered ten selected digital games, understanding the current condition of digital games via adopting the mentioned currently available design methodology. This dataset reveals a lack in the assets of the story layer in the recent digital games, despite their focus on being story-based. This dilemma leads to long text or speech conversations between game characters, disrupting the players while following the game. The current design focuses on environmental resources only, however, as a virtual landscape, the story needs to be reinforced to be a balanced and well-designed game. Hence, increasing the ratio of the assets in this layer will advance the games' interactivity. Also, as future work, this data set could pave the way for a digital game industry design tool regarding the virtual environment. (shrink)

Appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche has been the subject of countless volumes of literature. Until now, though, there has been no in-depth study devoted specifically to Nietzsches thoughts and impact on architecture. In the essays comprising Nietzsche and An Architecture of Our Minds, thirteen eminent scholars from a wide variety of disciplines--including art history, architecture and architecture theory, literature, philosophy, and city planning--address his far-reaching notion of an (...) architecture commensurate with the modern mind. They assess the relationship of Nietzschean philosophy to art and architecture, elucidate frequent misunderstandings, and determine patterns of influence, illuminating an unsurveyed aspect of the philosophy of one of the most profound thinkers of the modern age. (shrink)

“Else-where” is a synoptic survey of the representational values given to art, architecture, and cultural production from 2002 through 2011. Written primarily as a critique of what is suppressed in architecture and what is disclosed in art, the essays are informed by the passage out of post-structuralism and its disciplinary analogues toward the real Real . While architecture nominally addresses an environmental ethos, it also famously negotiates its own representational values by way of its putative autonomy ; (...) its main repression in this regard is “landscape,” figure of the Other and figure of the Real. Engaging forms of spectrality, and not necessarily speculative intelligence per se, architecture is also “conscious” of its own complicity in capitalist orders, a complicity that in part underwrites its avant-garde forms of agitation since the onset of modern architecture. As a result, and over the course of the twentieth century, architectural vanguards have successively been depleted such that they return only as reified half-measures in the late-modern production of difference. As such, the essay “Actually Existing Ground” examines the failed promise of Landscape Urbanism. Since the 1960s, as with the allied arts, architecture has evacuated many of the utopian gestures given to modernism and embraced a form of ultra-contingency in a direct alliance with the post-modern and post-Marxist concession to markets and to cultural production as principal means of establishing formal hegemony. This recourse or surrender to the economic-determinist ethos of post-modernity, regardless of attempts to problematize it and/or critique it through types of what Manfredo Tafuri has called “operative criticism” , has, arguably, all but failed, and with the suggestive return circa 2011 of new forms of resistance an exit from the accommodating spirit of the times is indicative of the expectation of strenuous, yet highly formal and non-discursive operations within artistic and architectural production. The essays collected in “Else-where” cross various disciplines, inclusive of landscape architecture, architecture, and visual art, to develop a nuanced critique of an emergent formal regard in the arts that is also an invocation of the highest coordinates given to the arts – formal ontology as speculative intelligence itself – or the return of the universal as utopian thought “here-and-now.”. (shrink)

Biology in the popular mind remains tied to the doctrines of the struggle forsurvival and the survival of the fittest. Physics is linked to the heat deathof the universe – the inexorable march towards greater disorder,increasing entropy. Our field, on the other hand, focuses on orderedstructures, molecules and crystals, and their aggregates, and what holdsthem together. The philosophy of chemistry is centered on affinity,cohesion, the architecture of the very small, attraction, harmony, and, ifyou permit, beauty. Our discipline is (...) the voice of the twenty-first century,a message, a clarion call of life, of hope. This paper addresses failures ofreductionist and deterministic claims in the face of the cussedness ofchemical facts. It will examine uncertainty principles, Edmund Whitaker'spostulates of impotence, Gerald Holton's themata, Isaiah Berlin's warning –and the wisdom of the Chinese. We can teach the world the need for humilityin the face of the wonder and mystery of our world. (shrink)

On Surface and Place is a rich and poetic exploration of surfaces which foregrounds their significance in our understanding and experience of place. Adopting weaving as its overarching metaphor, it departs from Gottfried Semper's discussion of correspondences between architecture and textiles, and emerges from the reading of photographs, a swatch of Harris Tweed and curtain wall façade juxtaposed. In juxtaposing the fabric of the city with the weave of Harris Tweed the book charts an original course across a range (...) of connected ideas and questions, combining many different themes, writers and disciplines. It presents integrated and innovative rethinkings on a number of fundamental relationships, including correlations between body and building, word and image, and between the rural and the metropolitan, and the hand-crafted and the mass-reproduced. In doing so, it seeks to foreground the very interrelationship of surface and place, as it makes a claim for the relational nature of the world in which we live. (shrink)

Not-I/Thou: The Other Subject of Art and Architecture is a series of essays delineating the gray areas and black zones in present-day cultural production. Part One is an implicit critique of neo-liberal capitalism and its assault on the humanities through the pseudo-scientific and pseudo-empirical biases of academic and professional disciplines, while Part Two returns to apparent lost causes in the historical development of modernity and post-modernity, particularly the recourse to artistic production as both a form of mnemonics and periodic (...) (and renascent) avant-garde agitation. In-between these twin systems of taking the measure of things, Art and Architecture, as forms of speculative intellectual capital, emerge from the shadow-lands of half-conscious and half-unconscious forces to become gestures toward a type of knowledge that has no utilitarian or generic agency. Defying the tendencies of such discourses to fall prey to instrumental orders that effectively neuter the inherent radical agenda of both, Art and Architecture are represented in this series of essays as noetic apparatuses, operating at the edge of authorized systems of knowledge, quietly and secretly validating and valorizing the shadowy and recondite, collective and personal operations of intellect in service to no particular end. (shrink)

boundaries. It is impossible to do good science without having an appreciation for the problems and concepts in the other levels of abstraction (at least in the direction from biology towards physics), but there are whole sets of tools, methods of analysis, theories and explanations within each discipline which do not cross those boundaries.