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Intersections of Space and Ethos
The pressing economic, environmental and social crises emanate the need for a redefinition of the dominant views, perspectives and values in the field of architecture. The intellectual production of the last two decades has witnessed an impressive number of new design techniques and conceptual displacements reflecting the dynamic and fluid relation between man and his dwelling space. However, the contemporary market forces are favouring the growth of a star-system in architectural production based on technological innovation, spectacular imagery and formal acrobatics, and are neglecting the social, environmental and moral implications of spatial design. Perhaps the time has come to think ane...
Conflicted Identities
Nation-states have long used representational architecture to create symbolic identities for public consumption both at home and abroad. Government buildings, major ensembles and urban plans have a visibility that lends them authority, while their repeated portrayals in the media cement their image as icons of a shared national character. Existing in tandem with this official self, however, is a second, often divergent identity, represented by the vast realm of domestic space defined largely by those who occupy it as well as those with a vested interest in its cultural meaning. Using both historical inquiry and visual, spatial and film analysis, this book explores the interaction of these tw...
Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey
Mid-Century Modernism in Turkey studies the unfolding of modern architecture in Turkey during the 1950s and 1960s. The book brings together scholars who have carried out extensive research on post-WWII modernism in a global context. The authors situate Turkish architectural case studies within an international framework during this period, providing a close reading of how architectural culture responded to ubiquitous post-war ideas and ideals, and how it became intertwined with politics of modernization and urbanization. This book contributes to contemporary scholarship to reconsider post-war architecture, beyond canonical explanations.
Semiotic Approaches to Urban Space
This book outlines the future of semiotic research in the study of urban spaces, with chapters authored by leading scholars in the field. It offers thought-provoking explanations of semiotic theory, methodology and applications with the goal of exploring recently developed approaches to the interpretive aspects of urban space. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.
The Hybrid Practitioner
Exploring different, interrelated roles for the architect and researcher The practice of architecture manifests in myriad forms and engagements. Overcoming false divides, this volume frames the fertile relationship between the cultural and scholarly production of academia and the process of designing and building in the material world. It proposes the concept of the hybrid practitioner, who bridges the gap between academia and practice by considering how different aspects of architectural practice, theory, and history intersect, opening up a fascinating array of possibilities for an active engagement with the present. The book explores different, interrelated roles for practicing architects ...
Visioning Technologies
Visioning Technologies brings together a collection of texts from leading theorists to examine how architecture has been, and is, reframed and restructured by the visual and theoretical frameworks introduced by different ‘technologies of sight’ – understood to include orthographic projection, perspective drawing, telescopic devices, photography, film and computer visualization, amongst others. Each chapter deals with its own area and historical period of expertise, organized sequentially to mark out and analyse the historical evolution of how architecture has been transformed by technologically induced shifts in human perception from the 15th century until today. This book underlines the way in which architectural forms and design processes have developed historically in conjunction with the systems of sight we manufacture technologically and suggests this continues today. Paradoxically, it is premised on the argument that these technological systems tend, in their initial formulations, to obtain ever greater realism in our visualizations of the physical world.
Bruno Taut's Design Inspiration for the Glashaus
As a formative exemplar of early architectural modernism, Bruno Taut’s seminal exhibition pavilion the Glashaus (literally translated Glasshouse) is logically part of the important debate of rethinking the origins of modernism. However, the historical record of Bruno Taut’s Glashaus has been primarily established by one art historian and critic. As a result the historical record of the Glashaus is significantly skewed toward a singlular notion of Expressionism and surprisingly excludes Taut’s diverse motives for the design of the building. In an effort to clarify the problematic historical record of the Glashaus, this book exposes Bruno Taut’s motives and inspirations for its design. The result is that Taut’s motives can be found in yet unacknowledged precedents like the botanical inspiration of the Victoria regia lily; the commercial interests of Frederick Keppler as the Director of the Deutche Luxfer Prismen Syndikat; and imitation that derived openly from the Gothic. The outcome is a substantial contribution to the re-evaluation of the generally accepted histories of the modern movement in architecture.
The Phoenix Complex
An innovative, wide-ranging consideration of the global ecological crisis and its deep philosophical and theological roots. Global crises, from melting Arctic ice to ecosystem collapse and the sixth mass extinction, challenge our age-old belief in nature as a phoenix with an infinite ability to regenerate itself from the ashes of destruction. Moving from antiquity to the present and back, Michael Marder provides an integrated examination of philosophies of nature drawn from traditions around the world to illuminate the theological, mythical, and philosophical origins of the contemporary environmental emergency. From there, he probes the contradictions and deadlocks of our current predicament...
Drawing the Unbuildable
Architecture is conventionally seen as being synonymous with building. In contrast, this book introduces and defines a new category - the unbuildable. The unbuildable involves projects that are not just unbuilt, but cannot be built. This distinct form of architectural project has an important and often surprising role in architectural discourse, working not in opposition to the buildable, but frequently complementing it. Using well-known examples of early Soviet architecture – Tatlin’s Tower in particular – Nerma Cridge demonstrates the relevance of the unbuildable, how it relates to current notions of seriality, copying and reproduction, and its implications for contemporary practice and discourse in the computational age. At the same time it offers a fresh view of our preconceptions and expectations of early Soviet architecture and the Constructivist Movement.
Through the Healing Glass
In the mid-1920s a physiologist, a glass chemist, and a zoo embarked on a project which promised to turn buildings into medical instruments. The advanced chemistry of "Vita" Glass mobilised theories of light and medicine, health practices and glassmaking technology to compress an entire epoch’s hopes for a healthy life into a glass sheet – yet it did so invisibly. To communicate its advantage, Pilkington Bros. spared no expense as they launched the most costly and sophisticated marketing campaign in their history. Engineering need for "Vita" Glass employed leading-edge market research, evocative photography and vanguard techniques of advertising psychology, accompanied by the claim: "Let in the Health Rays of Daylight Permanently through "Vita" Glass Windows." This is the story of how, despite the best efforts of two glass companies, the leading marketing firm of the day, and the opinions of leading medical minds, "Vita" Glass failed. However, it epitomised an age of lightness and airiness, sleeping porches, flat roofs and ribbon windows. Moreover, through its remarkable print advertising, it strove to shape the ideal relationship between our buildings and our bodies.
