Architectures of Life and Death

Architectures of Life and Death
Author: Andrej Radman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2021-06-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 153814753X

Driven by the Foucauldian attitude of subsuming architectural history into a genealogy of techne, Architectures of Life and Death advances a transdisciplinary approach rethinking subjectivity and exploring the political ramifications of these processes for the discipline of architecture and beyond. In contrast to mainstream approaches, architecture will not be seen as representative of culture, but as the mechanism of culture, the ‘collective equipment’ that rests on the reciprocal determination of social habits and technological habitats. In this sense, the idea that we shape our environments, therefore they shape us, is not to be taken as a metaphor. The animate has always been utterly dependent on the inanimate. A livable habitat is one which the inhabitant actively co-evolves with and which does not constitute a ready-made condition to which the inhabitant would simply have to passively adapt.

Responding to Chaos

Responding to Chaos
Author: David N Buck
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2014-04-04
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1136748296

A celebration of a unique culture and its experience of design, this sensitive text is a timely examination of Japanese design at the start of a new century. The country's economic boom in the 1980s produced a surge of interest in land and building, and consequently in design in all its forms. From restaurant interiors to products, from private housing to recreational spaces, design received an unprecedented degree of attention. However the bursting in the early 1990s of this so-called 'bubble' economy has prompted a re-examination of design and its role in urban society.

Contemporary Japanese Architecture

Contemporary Japanese Architecture
Author: James Steele
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2017-03-16
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 131737729X

Contemporary Japanese Architecture presents a clear and comprehensive overview of the historical and cultural framework that informs the work of all Japanese architects, as an introduction to an in-depth investigation of the challenges now occupying the contemporary designers who will be the leaders of the next generation. It separates out the young generation of Japanese architects from the crowded, distinguished, multi-generational field they seek to join, and investigates the topics that absorb them, and the critical issues they face within the new economic reality of Japan and a shifting global order. Salient points in the text are illustrated by beautiful, descriptive images provided by the architects and from the extensive collection of the author. By combining illustrations with timelines and graphics to explain complex ideas, the book is accessible to any student seeking to understand contemporary Japanese architecture.

Deconstruction II

Deconstruction II
Author: Academy Press
Publisher: Academy Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1994-04-13
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781854902429

Features contributions from Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Andrew Benjamin, Gunter Behnisch, Hiromi Fuji and Morphosis. In a seminal introductory text Jacques Derrida is in conversation with Christopher Norris, discussing Deconstruction as a philosophical idiom and critical methodology, and its role as the basis of the architectural and artistic aesthetic.

Architecture for a Free Subjectivity

Architecture for a Free Subjectivity
Author: Dr Simone Brott
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2013-06-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1409482456

Architecture for a Free Subjectivity reformulates the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's model of subjectivity for architecture, by surveying the prolific effects of architectural encounter, and the spaces that figure in them. For Deleuze and his Lacanian collaborator Félix Guattari, subjectivity does not refer to a person, but to the potential for and event of matter becoming subject, and the myriad ways for this to take place. By extension, this book theorizes architecture as a self-actuating or creative agency for the liberation of purely "impersonal effects." Imagine a chemical reaction, a riot in the banlieues, indeed a walk through a city. Simone Brott declares that the architectural object does not merely take part in the production of subjectivity, but that it constitutes its own. This book is to date the only attempt to develop Deleuze's philosophy of subjectivity in singularly architectural terms. Through a screening of modern and postmodern, American and European works, this provocative volume draws the reader into a close encounter with architectural interiors, film scenes, and other arrangements, while interrogating the discourses of subjectivity surrounding them, and the evacuation of the subject in the contemporary discussion. The impersonal effects of architecture radically changes the methodology, just as it reimagines architectural subjectivity for the twenty-first century.

New Japan Architecture

New Japan Architecture
Author: Geeta Mehta
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 620
Release: 2012-07-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1462908500

Featuring dozens of high-quality photographs, schematic designs and insightful commentary this Japanese architecture book is a must-have for architects or collectors. The past five years are widely consider to have been the most innovative period in contemporary Japanese design history. The projects featured in New Japan Architecture were completed during this extraordinarily fertile time. Featuring breathtaking images of modern Japan, this volume presents forty-eight extraordinary projects by forty-two of the world's leading architects, including: Hitoshi Abe Ward Kishi Tadao Ando Chiba Manabu Architects Toyo Ito Kengo Kuma Kazuyo Sejima This architecture book features a wide-range of buildings, some exhibiting the ultimate ideal of the white Zen cube, while others exemplify the search for the new wow factor in iconic design. In many, cutting-edge modernity is counterbalanced by a concern for sustainability--an issue that has motivated many architects to rethink and reintroduce concepts drawn from traditional Japanese architecture. Projects big and small, private and public, residential and commercial are included. Insightful text by two leading experts in the field of Japanese architecture highlights the remarkable aspects of each building and places these developments within the wider context of world architecture. Offering an essential overview of current trends, New Japan Architecture points the way to modern architecture's future.

Resisting Postmodern Architecture

Resisting Postmodern Architecture
Author: Stylianos Giamarelos
Publisher: UCL Press
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2022-01-10
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1800081332

Since its first appearance in 1981, critical regionalism has enjoyed a celebrated worldwide reception. The 1990s increased its pertinence as an architectural theory that defends the cultural identity of a place resisting the homogenising onslaught of globalisation. Today, its main principles (such as acknowledging the climate, history, materials, culture and topography of a specific place) are integrated in architects’ education across the globe. But at the same time, the richer cross-cultural history of critical regionalism has been reduced to schematic juxtapositions of ‘the global’ with ‘the local’. Retrieving both the globalising branches and the overlooked cross-cultural roots of critical regionalism, Resisting Postmodern Architecture resituates critical regionalism within the wider framework of debates around postmodern architecture, the diverse contexts from which it emerged, and the cultural media complex that conditioned its reception. In so doing, it explores the intersection of three areas of growing historical and theoretical interest: postmodernism, critical regionalism and globalisation. Based on more than 50 interviews and previously unpublished archival material from six countries, the book transgresses existing barriers to integrate sources in other languages into anglophone architectural scholarship. In so doing, it shows how the ‘periphery’ was not just a passive recipient, but also an active generator of architectural theory and practice. Stylianos Giamarelos challenges long-held ‘central’ notions of supposedly ‘international’ discourses of the recent past, and outlines critical regionalism as an unfinished project apposite for the 21st century on the fronts of architectural theory, history and historiography.

Autonomous Architecture in Flanders

Autonomous Architecture in Flanders
Author: Caroline Voet
Publisher: Leuven University Press
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2016-06-05
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9462700672

The influence and position of the ‘Generation 74’ in Flemish and international architecture Five well-known architects who studied together in Ghent, Marie-José Van Hee, Christian Kieckens, Marc Dubois, Paul Robbrecht and Hilde Daem, can be considered as leading protagonists of their generation. From their education at Sint-Lucas Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts to the present day, their professional careers and legacy have been of great importance to the development of Flemish architecture. In their early works and writings, they established a distinct architectural language, rooted in historical knowledge and with a reflection to art and craftsmanship. Architecture was singled out as a spatial phenomenon with an autonomous logic grounded in inhabitation and experience. This generation represents a significant turn towards architectural autonomy in Flanders which resonated with similar international developments in the late 1970s. Moreover they played a decisive role in the emancipation and professionalization of the architectural culture in Flanders. With contributions by Birgit Cleppe (Ghent University), Sofie De Caigny (CVAa), Maarten Delbeke (Ghent University), Fredie Floré (KU Leuven), William Mann, Yves Schoonjans (KU Leuven), Eireen Schreurs (TU Delft), Lara Schrijver (University of Antwerp), Dirk Somers (Ghent University), Sven Sterken (KU Leuven), Mechthild Stuhlmacher (TU Delft), Hera Van Sande (VUB / KU Leuven), Katrien Vandermarliere, Caroline Voet (KU Leuven)

Oppositions Reader

Oppositions Reader
Author: K. Michael Hays
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Total Pages: 994
Release: 1998
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781568981529

In its eleven-year history, Oppositions, the journal of the New York-based Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), had an impact far beyond what its modest cover might suggest. Indeed, Oppositions set the agenda, introduced the key players, and published the seminal pieces in the theorization of architecture in the last twenty years. It is a testament to the enduring importance of the journal that its issues are still highly sought after today, prized (and priced) as collector's items, and found behind the desk at virtually every architectural library. Oppositions Reader collects the most important essays from 26 issues of Oppositions. Essays from the editors of the series-Peter Eisenman, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Anthony Vidler, and Kurt Forster-are included, along with texts by such noted architects, theorists, and historians as Aldo Rossi, Alan Colquhoun, Leon Krier, Denise Scott Brown, Bernard Tschumi, Rem Koolhaas, Mary McLeod, Georgio Ciucci, and Rafael Moneo. The page design, by Massimo Vignelli, has been faithfully reproduced. Harvard Professor K. Michael Hays has selected the writings for inclusion. Contributors include: Diana Agrest, Stanford Anderson, Giorgio Ciucci, Stuart Cohen, Alan Colquhoun, Francesco Dal Co, Peter Eisenman, William Ellis, Kurt W. Forster, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Giorgio Grassi, Fred Koetter, Rem Koolhaas, Leon Krier, Mary McLeod, Rafael Moneo, Joan Ockman, Martin Pawley, Aldo Rossi, Colin Rowe, Denise Scott Brown, Jorge Silvetti, Ignasi de Sol -Morales, Manfredo Tafuri, Bernard Tschumi, Anthony Vidler, and Hajime Yatsuka. It is an understatement to say that this volume is indispensable for any scholar or student interested in contemporary architectural theory.