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In a daring revisionist history of modern architecture, Mark Wigley opens up a new understanding of the historical avant-garde. He explores the most obvious, but least discussed, feature of modern architecture: white walls. Although the white wall exemplifies the stripping away of the decorative masquerade costumes worn by nineteenth-century buildings, Wigley argues that(...)
White walls, designer dresses : the fashioning of modern architecture
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In a daring revisionist history of modern architecture, Mark Wigley opens up a new understanding of the historical avant-garde. He explores the most obvious, but least discussed, feature of modern architecture: white walls. Although the white wall exemplifies the stripping away of the decorative masquerade costumes worn by nineteenth-century buildings, Wigley argues that modern buildings are not naked. The white wall is itself a form of clothing -- the newly athletic body of the building, like that of its occupants, wears a new kind of garment and these garments are meant to match. Not only did almost all modern architects literally design dresses, Wigley points out, their arguments for a modern architecture were taken from the logic of clothing reform. Architecture was understood as a form of dress design. Wigley follows the trajectory of this key subtext by closely reading the statements and designs of most of the protagonists, demonstrating that it renders modern architecture's relationship with the psychosexual economy of fashion much more ambiguous than the architects' endlessly repeated rejections of fashion would suggest. Indeed, Wigley asserts, the very intensity of these rejections is a symptom of how deeply they are embedded in the world of clothing. By drawing on arguments about the relationship between clothing and architecture first formulated in the middle of the nineteenth century, modern architects in fact presented a sophisticated theory of the surface, modernizing architecture by transforming the status of the surface. "White Walls, Designer Dresses" shows how this seemingly incidental clothing logic actually organizes the detailed design of the modern building, dictating a system of polychromy, understood as a multicolored outfit. The familiar image of modern architecture as white turns out to be the effect of a historiographical tradition that has worked hard to suppress the color of the surfaces of the buildings that it describes. Wigley analyzes this suppression in terms of the sexual logic that invariably accompanies discussions of clothing and color, recovering those sensuously colored surfaces and the extraordinary arguments about clothing that were used to defend them.
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October 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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Studies in Tectonic Culture is nothing less than a rethinking of the entire modern architectural tradition. The notion of tectonics as employed by Frampton -- the focus on architecture as a constructional craft -- constitutes a direct challenge to current mainstream thinking on the artistic limits of postmodernism, and suggests a convincing alternative. Indeed, Frampton(...)
Studies in tectonic culture: the poetics of construction in nineteenth and twentieth century architecture
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Studies in Tectonic Culture is nothing less than a rethinking of the entire modern architectural tradition. The notion of tectonics as employed by Frampton -- the focus on architecture as a constructional craft -- constitutes a direct challenge to current mainstream thinking on the artistic limits of postmodernism, and suggests a convincing alternative. Indeed, Frampton argues, modern architecture is invariably as much about structure and construction as it is about space and abstract form. Composed of ten essays and an epilogue that trace the history of contemporary form as an evolving poetic of structure and construction, the book's analytical framework rests on Frampton's close readings of key French and German, and English sources from the eighteenth century to the present. He clarifies the various turns that structural engineering and tectonic imagination have taken in the work of such architects as Perret, Wright, Kahn, Scarpa, and Mies, and shows how both constructional form and material character were integral to an evolving architectural expression of their work. Frampton also demonstrates that the way in which these elements are articulated from one work to the next provides a basis upon which to evaluate the works as a whole. This is especially evident in his consideration of the work of Perret, Mies, and Kahn and the continuities in their thought and attitudes that linked them to the past. Frampton considers the conscious cultivation of the tectonic tradition in architecture as an essential element in the future development of architectural form, casting a critical new light on the entire issue of modernity and on the place of much work that has passed as "avant-garde."
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October 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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This collection contains studies written by art historian James Ackerman over the past decade. Whereas Ackerman’s earlier work assumed a development of the arts as they responded to social, economic, political, and cultural change, his recent work reflects the poststructural critique of the presumption of progress that characterized Renaissance and modernist history and(...)
Architectural Theory
November 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Origins, imitation, conventions : representation in the visual arts
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This collection contains studies written by art historian James Ackerman over the past decade. Whereas Ackerman’s earlier work assumed a development of the arts as they responded to social, economic, political, and cultural change, his recent work reflects the poststructural critique of the presumption of progress that characterized Renaissance and modernist history and criticism. In this book he explores the tension between the authority of the past--which may act not only as a restraint but as a challenge and stimulus--and the potentially liberating gift of invention. He examines the ways in which artists and writers on art have related to ancestors and to established modes of representation, as well as to contemporary experiences. The "origins" studied here include the earliest art history and criticism; the beginnings of architectural drawing in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; Leonardo Da Vinci’s sketches for churches, the first in the Renaissance to propose supporting domes on sculpted walls and piers; and the first architectural photographs. "Imitation" refers to artistic achievements that in part depended on the imitation of forms established in practices outside the fine arts, such as ancient Roman rhetoric and print media. "Conventions," like language, facilitate communication between the artist and viewer, but are both more universal (understood across cultures) and more fixed (resisting variation that might diminish their clarity). The three categories are closely linked throughout the book, as most acts of representation partake to some degree of all three.
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November 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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Reyner Banham (1922-88) was one of the most influential writers on architecture, design, and popular culture from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s. Trained in mechanical engineering and art history, he was convinced that technology was making society not only more exciting but more democratic. His combination of academic rigor and pop culture sensibility put him in(...)
Reyner Banham : historian of the immediate future
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Reyner Banham (1922-88) was one of the most influential writers on architecture, design, and popular culture from the mid-1950s to the late 1980s. Trained in mechanical engineering and art history, he was convinced that technology was making society not only more exciting but more democratic. His combination of academic rigor and pop culture sensibility put him in opposition to both traditionalists and orthodox Modernists, but placed him in a unique position to understand the cultural, social, and political implications of the visual arts in the postwar period. His first book, "Theory and Design in the First Machine Age", was central to the overhaul of Modernism, and it gave Futurism and Expressionism credibility amid the dynamism and change of the 1960s. This intellectual biography is the first comprehensive critical examination of Banham’s theories and ideas, not only on architecture but also on the wide variety of subjects that interested him. It covers the full range of his oeuvre and discusses the values, enthusiasms, and influences that formed his thinking.
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October 2001, Cambridge, MA
Architectural Theory
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The gray cloth
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The German expressionist, architectural visionary, author, inventor, and artist Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) wrote several fictional utopian narratives related to glass architecture. In "The Gray Cloth", the first of his novels to be translated into English, Scheerbart uses subtle irony and the structural simplicity of a fairy tale to present the theories of coloured glass(...)
The gray cloth
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The German expressionist, architectural visionary, author, inventor, and artist Paul Scheerbart (1863-1915) wrote several fictional utopian narratives related to glass architecture. In "The Gray Cloth", the first of his novels to be translated into English, Scheerbart uses subtle irony and the structural simplicity of a fairy tale to present the theories of coloured glass outlined in his well-known treatise "Glass Architecture". The novel is set forward in time to the mid-twentieth century. The protagonist, a Swiss architect named Edgar Krug, circumnavigates the globe by airship with his wife, constructing wildly varied, colored-glass buildings. His projects include a high-rise and exhibition/concert hall in Chicago, a retirement complex for air pilots on the Fiji Islands, the structure for an elevated train across a zoological park in northern India, and a suspended residential villa on the Kuria Muria Islands off the coast of Oman in the Arabian Sea. Fearing that his architecture is challenged by the colourfulness of women’s clothing, Krug insists that his wife wear all gray clothing with the addition of ten percent white. This odd demand brings him notoriety and sensationalizes his international building campaign. For the reader, it underlines the confluence of architecture with fashion, gender, and global media. In his introduction John Stuart surveys Scheerbart’s career and role in German avant-garde circles, as well as his architectural and social ideas. He shows how Scheerbart strove to integrate his spiritual and romantic leanings with the modern world, often relying on glass architecture to do so. In addition to discussing the novel’s reception and its rediscovery by contemporary architects and critics, Stuart shows fiction to be a resource for the study of architecture and places "The Gray Cloth" in the context of German Expressionism.
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October 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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Since Greek antiquity the human body has been regarded as a microcosm of universal harmony. In this book an international group of architects, architectural historians, and theorists examines the relation of the human body and architecture. The essays view well-known buildings, texts, paintings, ornaments, and landscapes from the perspective of the body’s physical,(...)
Architectural Theory
November 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Body and building : essays on the changing relation of body and architecture
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Since Greek antiquity the human body has been regarded as a microcosm of universal harmony. In this book an international group of architects, architectural historians, and theorists examines the relation of the human body and architecture. The essays view well-known buildings, texts, paintings, ornaments, and landscapes from the perspective of the body’s physical, psychological, and spiritual needs and pleasures. Topics include Greek temples; the churches of Tadao Ando in Japan; Renaissance fortresses and paintings; the body, space, and dwelling in Wright’s and Schindler’s houses in North America; the corporeal dimension of Carlo Scarpa’s landscapes and gardens; theory from Vitruvius to the Renaissance and Enlightenment; and Freudian psychoanalysis. The essays are framed by an appreciation of architectural historian and theorist Joseph Rykwert’s influential work on the subject. Written for a symposium in honour of Joseph Rykwert held in March 1996 at the University of Pennsylvania.
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November 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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The discipline of architecture depends on the transmission in space and time of accumulated experiences, concepts, rules, and models. From the invention of the alphabet to the development of ASCII code for electronic communication, the process of recording and transmitting this body of knowledge has reflected the dominant information technologies of each period. In this(...)
Architecture in the age of printing : orality, writing, typography, and printed images in the history of architectural theory
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The discipline of architecture depends on the transmission in space and time of accumulated experiences, concepts, rules, and models. From the invention of the alphabet to the development of ASCII code for electronic communication, the process of recording and transmitting this body of knowledge has reflected the dominant information technologies of each period. In this book Mario Carpo discusses the communications media used by Western architects, from classical antiquity to modern classicism, showing how each medium related to specific forms of architectural thinking. Carpo highlights the significance of the invention of movable type and mechanically reproduced images. He argues that Renaissance architectural theory, particularly the system of the five architectural orders, was consciously developed in response to the formats and potential of the new printed media. Carpo contrasts architecture in the age of printing with what preceded it: Vitruvian theory and the manuscript format, oral transmission in the Middle Ages, and the fifteenth-century transition from script to print. He also suggests that the basic principles of "typographic" architecture thrived in the Western world as long as print remained our main information technology. The shift from printed to digital representations, he points out, will again alter the course of architecture.
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September 2001, Cambridge, Mass.
Architectural Theory
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At a time when the fragmented ideas and styles in architecture make it seem as if "anything goes," Anything asks whether there are constraints to thought and action that change "anything" to "the thing." In thirty-two original essays, many of them illustrated, leading architects, theorists, historians and others discuss their works. The wide-ranging topics include a(...)
Anything
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At a time when the fragmented ideas and styles in architecture make it seem as if "anything goes," Anything asks whether there are constraints to thought and action that change "anything" to "the thing." In thirty-two original essays, many of them illustrated, leading architects, theorists, historians and others discuss their works. The wide-ranging topics include a "refugee republic," "blur buildings," virtual environments, shopping, and stress. Anything is the tenth and final book in the ongoing series that began in 1991. Each volume is based on a conference at which architects and leaders in other fields came together to present papers and discuss a particular idea in architecture from a cross-cultural and multidisciplinary perspective.
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September 2001
Architectural Theory
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Using language - speaking and understanding it - is a defining ability of human beings, woven into all human activity. It is therefore inevitable that it should be deeply implicated in the design, production, and use of buildings. Building legislation, design guides, competition and other briefs, architectural criticism, teaching and scholarly material, and the media all(...)
Architectural Theory
November 2001, London
The words between the spaces : buildings and language
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Using language - speaking and understanding it - is a defining ability of human beings, woven into all human activity. It is therefore inevitable that it should be deeply implicated in the design, production, and use of buildings. Building legislation, design guides, competition and other briefs, architectural criticism, teaching and scholarly material, and the media all produce their characteristic texts. The authors use texts about such projects as Berlin's new Reichstag, Scotland's new Parliament, and the Auschwitz concentration camp museum to clarify the interaction between texts, design, critical debate, and response.
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November 2001, London
Architectural Theory
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The author concentrates on fundamental texts in the study of architectural history with special reference to eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain. The texts under discussion address key themes or methods in the construction of architectural histories. Alongside this, philosophical or theoretical writings that address the abstract issues surrounding the main texts are(...)
Reading architectural history
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The author concentrates on fundamental texts in the study of architectural history with special reference to eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain. The texts under discussion address key themes or methods in the construction of architectural histories. Alongside this, philosophical or theoretical writings that address the abstract issues surrounding the main texts are presented as a kind of exegesis on the chosen texts. This, together with an introduction and discursive essays which preface each of the sections, present a trans-disciplinary discourse around the discipline of architectural history.
Architectural Theory