This book orchestrates a convergence of two discourses from the 1960s—Nelson Goodman’s aesthetic theory on one side and critiques of modern architecture articulated by figures like Peter Blake, Charles Jencks, and Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown on the other. Grounded in Goodman’s aesthetic theory, the book explores his conceptual framework within the context of modern architecture. At the heart of the investigation lies Goodman’s concept of exemplification. While his notion of denotation pertains to representational elements, often ornaments, in architecture, exemplification accentuates specific formal properties at the expense of others, including color, spatial orientation, transparency, seriality, and the like. Supplemented by findings from phenomenology, the book traces these effects in buildings, notably those by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright—all key figures in the critiques of modern architecture. Employing Goodman’s framework, the book aims to address accusations of emptiness and alienation directed at modern architecture in the postwar era. It illustrates that modern architecture symbolizes aesthetically in a fundamentally different way than architecture from earlier periods. This book will be of interest to architects, artists, researchers, and students in architecture, architectural history, theory, cultural theory, philosophy, and aesthetics.

Evaluates for the first time one of the foundational works in architecture criticism. Immediately on its publication in 1972, Learning from Las Vegas, by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour, was hailed as a transformative work in the history and theory of architecture, liberating those in architecture who were trying to find a way out of the straitjacket of architectural orthodoxies. Resonating far beyond the professional and institutional boundaries of the field, the book contributed to a thorough rethinking of modernism and was subsequently taken up as an early manifestation and progenitor of postmodernism.

This dissertation examines the evolution of Western and Modern architecture in Siam and Thailand. It illustrates how various architectural ideas have contributed to the physical design and spatial configuration of places associated with negotiation and allocation of political power, which are throne halls, parliaments, and government and civic structures since the 1850s.

The Production Sites of Architecture examines the intimate link between material sites and meaning. It explores questions such as: how do spatial configurations produce meaning? What are alternative modes of knowledge production? How do these change our understanding of architectural knowledge? Featuring essays from an international range of scholars, the book accepts that everything about the production of architecture has social significance. It focuses on two areas: firstly, relationships of spatial configuration, form, order and classification; secondly, the interaction of architecture and these notions with other areas of knowledge, such as literature, inscriptions, interpretations, and theories of classification, ordering and invention. Moving beyond perspectives which divide architecture into either an aesthetic or practical art, the authors show how buildings are informed by intersections between site and content, space and idea, thought and materiality, architecture and imagination. Presenting illustrated case studies of works by architects and artists including Amale Andraos, Dan Wood, OMA, Koen Deprez and John Soane, The Production Sites of Architecture makes a major contribution to our understanding of architectural theory.

Between Theory and Practice in Architectural Design: Imagination and Interdisciplinarity in the Art of Building examines the intersection of philosophy and practice in architecture, exploring life, viability, and interdisciplinary collaboration and offering practical design insights for all beings. This book highlights several key architectural features, including a philosophical exploration of life, a focus on creating organic spaces, and the use of the viable system model (VSM) for organisational resilience. Additionally, it emphasises interdisciplinary design thinking and introduces a platform for viable and agile AI-assisted design. The book provides practical case studies highlighting how theory and practice can be integrated into architectural projects, giving architects actionable insights for innovative, adaptive, and purposeful design. By utilising organic design principles and interdisciplinary collaboration, readers will gain a transformative understanding of architecture. The book encourages the application of the viable system model to enhance organisational viability while promoting flexibility and viability in design. Furthermore, architects are encouraged to use logic-based and object-oriented ontology (OOO)-based AI-assisted design approaches due to their ability to evaluate design scenarios quickly. This book will be of interest to architects, designers, and enthusiasts seeking a comprehensive understanding of architecture, and professionals in architectural enterprises looking to enhance organisational viability will find value. Interdisciplinary collaboration is emphasised throughout the book. Students and academics in architecture and related fields will also benefit from its philosophical exploration and practical insights.

The Politics of Architectural Pedagogy in Iran explores the evolution of architectural pedagogy during two significant socio-political upheavals in Iran: The White Revolution (1963) and the Islamic Revolution (1979). It examines how these transformative periods influenced the field, providing valuable insights into the intersection of architectural education and broader socio-political shifts in Iran. By examining the critical role of education in achieving geopolitical objectives during the Cold War, this book explores architectural pedagogy as an agent for resistance and revolution. It highlights how architectural pedagogy not only reflects radical ideologies but also actively engages in socio-political transformation. The book uncovers how architectural pedagogy became one of the mechanisms to accomplish revolutionary goals. This is evident in initiatives like the "Pedagogical Revolution" during the White Revolution (1963), aimed at modernizing educational institutions, and the "Revolutionary Pedagogy" during the Islamic Revolution (1979), which sought to serve the masses and the religious revolutionary society. In this way, the book adds a new geopolitical perspective to the contemporary discourse of radical pedagogies. This book explores the intricate connections between architectural pedagogy and politics through a transdisciplinary approach. It analyzes original multilingual documents, including political agendas, cultural agreements, curricula, teaching methods, student works, exhibitions, and conferences. It will be of interest to architectural historians and architecture students, particularly those interested in Global South development, modernism, architectural pedagogy, international relations, and Middle Eastern studies.

Architecture has always been a decisive manifestation of power. This volume represents an attempt to question and reflect on the relationship between power and architecture from three philosophical perspectives: materialistic, phenomenological and post-structuralist. This collection opens an interdisciplinary investigation that aims to reflect on architecture and its interconnectedness with power within philosophy and cultural theory at large while presenting these concepts using practical examples from the built environment. Internationally recognised authors – philosophers, architectural theorists and historians – Andrew Benjamin, Andrew Ballantyne, Mladen Dolar, Hilde Heynen, Nadir Lahiji, Jeff Malpas, Dean Komel, Elke Krasny, Robert Pfaller, Gerard Reinmuth, Luka Skansi, Douglas Spencer, Teresa Stoppani and Sven-Olov Wallenstein present their reflections in original unpublished essays and interviews. In the presented works, architecture is combined and transgressed by philosophy in a new discussion that focuses only on power. The contributions in this collection open a variety of architectural questions, one of the central among them being the impact of neoliberal capitalism on architecture. Architecture, with its implications on the complex contemporary political and social reality, is severely changing our space and, more globally, our environment. A reflection on the multilayered relation between architecture and power has never been as topical as it is today. This book will, therefore, be of interest to students, researchers and academics or professionals within the fields of architecture, philosophy, sociology, political sciences and cultural sciences.

This book offers a novel perspective on contemporary architecture, exploring its position in mediatization, attained through technological apparatuses. It introduces the novel concepts of apparatus-centricity and mediatization of architecture, which have significant disciplinary and cultural ramifications. Highlighting key technological and theoretical developments, the book’s narrative traces the transformation of architecture from the modernist era to the present, digital age. En route, it reflects on how architecture becomes a crucial element of shifting dispositives through its confluence with technologies of aestheticization and virtualization, and by emblematizing ecological ideals. It also illuminates the reconfiguring of architectural practice through examining surprising interactions and analogies between architecture and music, whose developments in notation and codification continually change the relationship between composer and performer. The book explores how architecture is reshaped by broader theory and practice in media and ultimately serves as a cognitive agent. It underscores that architecture profoundly influences our phantasmagoric, image-driven affective world through its increasingly apparatus-centric approach to conception, design, production, and mediatization. Architecture in the Age of Mediatizing Technologies brings into focus the behavior of architecture in mediatization for researchers and advanced students in architectural design, theory, and history. As an investigation into the interdisciplinary impact of architecture in a mediatized culture at large, it also provides a valuable resource for cultural and media studies.

Drawing Imagining Building focuses on the history of hand-drawing practices to capture some of the most crucial and overlooked parts of the process. Using 80 black and white images to illustrate the examples, it examines architectural drawing practices to elucidate the ways drawing advances the architect’s imagination. Emmons considers drawing practices in the Renaissance and up to the first half of the twentieth century. Combining systematic analysis across time with historical explication presents the development of hand-drawing, while also grounding early modern practices in their historical milieu. Each of the illustrated chapters considers formative aspects of architectural drawing practice, such as upright elevations, flowing lines and occult lines, and drawing scales to identify their roots in an embodied approach to show how hand-drawing contributes to the architect’s productive imagination. By documenting some of the ways of thinking through practices of architectural handdrawing, it describes how practices can enrich the ethical imagination of the architect. This book would be beneficial for academics, practitioners, and students of architecture, particularly those who are interested in the history and significance of hand-drawing and technical drawing.

In Mies Contra Le Corbusier, Gevork Hartoonian embarks on a captivating exploration of the architectural ideologies embodied in the works of Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Focusing on the non-synchronicity inherent in their approaches to the tectonics of the column and wall, Hartoonian conducts a comparative analysis of carefully selected diachronic projects from each architect. This insightful journey unravels the architects' ideological stances within the ongoing dialogue between modernity and tradition. Hartoonian sheds light on the inclination of Mies and Le Corbusier toward a frameless architecture, a characteristic prominently displayed in their late works. Drawing inspiration from Marxian philosophy, the author contends that significant technological developments play a crucial role in shaping subjectivities across the cultural spectrum, creating an uneven dissemination. The frame, in Hartoonian’s lens, transcends the boundaries of a single building, becoming a lens through which to frame a nuanced understanding of the urban landscape and tectonics. Mies Contra Le Corbusier stands as a thought-provoking exploration that not only unveils the intricacies of architectural history but also offers profound insights into the cultural and technological forces shaping the built environment. This book will be of interest to researchers and students of architectural history and theory. Additionally, it offers a timely discussion of Mies and Le Corbusier’s contributions to architecture’s contemporaneity for the younger generation of architects.