Theory

Kate Nesbitt: Theory is a discourse that describes the practice and production of architecture and identifies challenges to it Overlaps with, but differs from, architectural history - it poses alternative solutions; it is speculative,

anticipatory and catalytic

Theory deals with architectures aspirations as much as its accomplishments Since the 1960s: pluralist period that is loosely defined as postmodern Architectural theory became truly

interdisciplinary

Types of theory
Prescriptive, proscriptive, affirmative, critical
Prescriptive theory offers new or revived solutions for specific problems Proscriptive theory states what is to be avoided in design

Critical theory is broader than

either, it evaluates the built world and its relationship to society It is polemical, often expresses political and ethical orientation and aims to stimulate change It is speculative, questioning and sometimes utopian

Theoretical treatise: defining the scope of the discipline

Theoretical treatises are concerned

practice

with the origins of a

Example: the origin of architecture is in imitation of nature - mimesis - and mans desire to improve upon it Basic subject matter of treatises: 1 requisite qualities of an architect (with regard to personality, education, experience, etc.) 2 requisite qualities of architecture (Vitruvius: firmness, commodity, delight) 3 a theory of design or construction method (Abbot Laugier) 4 examples of the cannon of architecture 5 attitude about the relationship between theory and practice (useful, predictable - or not)

Postmodernism
The 1960s are in many ways the key transitional period in which the new international order (neocolonialism, the Green Revolution, computerization, and electronic information) is at one and the same time set in place and is swept away and shaken by its own internal contradictions and by external resistance. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism and Consumer Society

Challenges to the Modern Movement in

architecture

The demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex, 1972 (St Louis)

hailed as the failure of modern architectures vision for housing (this example a bureaucratic application of modernist principles) The aesthetic of modernism was also increasingly seen as a sign of the corporate, commercial world; the social programme was lost: European modern architecture was imported to America without its ideological component Colin Rowe

Architectural theory

becomes institutionalised in this period

In 1967-68 independent think tanks founded, in New York and Venice Manhattan: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), similar in its mission to Londons Architectural Association (AA, founded 1847) was established by a board of architects (led by Peter Eisenman) in opposition to the existing education It published Oppositions

and October journals and a series of books

like Aldo Rossis The Architecture of the City (1982, Italian 1966) Italian architects among the most influential theorists of the period Architectural Institute at the University of Venice (IAUV) important in particular, but also Rome and Milan 1968 Manfredo Tafuri founded the Institute of Architectural History at IAUV (Critical theory and Marxism) School of Venice - a number of important architects

Mid-1960s: publication of several important treatises Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City (1966) Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) Christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture (1965) Christopher Alexander, Notes on the Synthesis of Form (1964)

Venturi: the importance of looking at and using

architectural history in contemporary design; a manifesto for historicist eclecticism hybrid/pure, distorted/straightforward, ambiguous/articulated Communication of meaning on various levels; multiple

interpretations

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott-Brown, Learning from Las Vegas (1972) In a decade, his theory became widespread Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture (1977): Codifies the emerging movement as a style

1969, conference at the MoMA; 1972 publication of Five Architects from it Modern Movementinspired work, countertendency in abstraction in relation to Venturi

Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, Richard Meier became
know as the New

York Five
Common ground is formalist: interest in early Le Corbusier and cubism

The Venice Bienalle 1980 - Paolo Portoghesi: The Presence of the Past Nostalgic and scenographic: negative judgement passed by some critics

MoMA exhibition in 1988 Deconstructivist

Architecture

Aimed to show a new movement, but the work wasnt as related/homogenous as suggested The term is a combination of philosopher Jacques Derridas deconstruction and Russian Constructivism

Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid closest to

Constructivism (through formal explorations)

Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi closest

to philosophical deconstruction (critique and dismantling of disciplinary boundaries)

Frank Gehry, Steven Hall, Coop Himmelblau not similar to the above (intuition and sensuous approach to materials)

Theoretical paradigms
The postmodern period characterised by a number of theoretical paradigms or ideological frameworks imported from other disciplines: phenomenology, aesthetics, linguistic theory, Marxism, feminism

1 Phenomenology
This philosophical thread underlies a number of attitudes towards site, place, landscape and making More recently, this strand has moved into problematising the bodys interaction with its environment Martin Heidegger (1887-1976) Building, Dwelling, Thinking One of the most influential phenomenological works for architectural theory Dwelling is defined as a staying with things

Norwegian critic

Christian Norberg-Schulz interprets dwelling as being at peace in

a protected place The primary purpose of architecture is hence to make to make a world visible. It does this as a thing, and the world it brings intro presence consists in what it gathers Existence, Space and Architecture, 1971 and onwards - explores architecture and dwelling Phenomenology of architecture: concretization of existential space through the making of places Finnish phenomenologist Juhani Pallasmaa - psychic apprehension of architecture: opening up a view into a second reality of perception, dreams, forgotten memories and imagination

Peter Zumthor contemporary example of architecture that displays a phenomenological sensibility

2 Aesthetic of the sublime

Aesthetics deals with the production and reception of the works of art The sublime is the principal aesthetic category of modernity and as such carried on afterwards The effect the work of architecture has on the viewer in the case of the sublime is visceral The definitions of the sublime (such as the uncanny and the grotesque) give shape to the modern aesthetic discourse and coincide with postmodern thought Scientific strand in modernism suppressed this aesthetic enquiry Emphasis on rationality and function marginalised beauty and the sublime as subjective issues Psychoanalytic and deconstructionist models revitalise this discourse Anthony Vidler deals with the uncanny; Peter Eisenman with the grotesque Uncanny in this context: the return of the body into an architecture that had repressed its conscious presence (Vidler) Grotesque: the condition of the always present or the already within, that the beautiful in architecture attempts to repress (Eisenman)

3 Linguistic theory
Linguistic paradigms shaped cultural criticism Semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism reshaped many disciplines: literature, philosophy, anthropology, sociology and all critical activity

This development in the 1960s parallels the revived interest in meaning and symbolism in architecture
Architects studied how meaning is created in language and applied it to architecture Modernism characterised by the belief in a whole, or unity, while postmodernism introduces the notions of multidimensional space and a methodological field Poststructuralism is characterised by the critique of the sign It also represents the shift from language to discourse (Terry Eagleton)

Kate Nesbitt: Before structuralism, the act of interpretation sought to discover the meaning which coincided with the intention of the author or speaker; this meaning was considered definitive. Structuralism does not attempt to assign a true meaning to the work (beyond its structure) or to evaluate the work in relation to the cannon. In poststructuralism, it is asserted that meaning is indeterminate, elusive, bottomless. Deconstruction (Jacques Derrida) is one of the most significant poststructuralist manifestations Tschumi and Eisenman representatives in architecture The philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) is only now emerging as potentially extremely productive in the context of culture and architecture in particular

4 Marxism
Particularly important for the study of the city and its institutions School of Venice spearheaded by Manfredo Tafuri particularly influential raising the issue of the relationship of class struggle and architecture Tafuri: the crisis of modern architecture[is] a crisis of the ideological function of architecture Jameson: grass-roots resistance to the status quo is possible through Marxist theory Important poststructuralist working with the questions of the structure of political power: Michel Foucault The Frankfurt School (Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse) also fuses in an interdisciplinary approach philosophy, history and psychology in order to explain the phenomena of culture Walter Benjamin, although peripheral to the circle, became the most known and is often cited in architectural theory

5 Feminism
Activism in the 1960s drew attention to the disenfranchisement within democratic societies of groups defined by gender, race, or sexual orientation This discourse often goes under the banner the critique of the Other It broadens the discussion of architecture from formal grounds to cultural, historical and ethical grounds Feminism is an important instance of this sort of critique

Postmodern architectural themes

1 History and historicism 2 Meaning 3 Place 4 Urban theory 5 Political and ethical agendas 6 The body

Nesbit, Kate, ed. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture, An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995 (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996)