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The quest for Architectural Theory

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I have this assignment in my school about writing a 5,000 word theory paper. I was thinking about writing about Schumacher's Autopoiesis and compare it to other seminal texts or at least half-serious trials of other theorists to somehow put an eloquent recent historical account of architectural discourse in the last 20 years. I naturally went and took some books that might help to this endeavour (although rather unsuccessfully) : 'Digital Tectonics' (Leich), Digital Materiality (Gramazio&Kohler) , Atlas of Novel Tectonics (Reiser + Umemoto) and  'Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993-2009' (by A. Krista Sykes). I know there's a lot of animosity towards Schumacher, and it's quite understandable since half of his book is about self-referencing and yes, he tends to compare himself to a figure of no less stature than Palladio, PLUS coins universal terms out of his self-proclaimed wit, but at least you have to give it to him in some respects; even Kipnis in his confrontation at the AA told him that he admired how he could get a book of this length out.

( http://www.aaschool.ac.uk//VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=1517 )

One of my advisors told me to maybe compare Schumacher and DeLanda by reading the 'Autopoiesis' and 'A thousand years of non-linear history' and further compare two buildings and do a " what would DeLanda do? vs. Schumacher".... hmmm thoughts? has anyone done this? would this really count as theory?


Another advisor responded to my question by saying that: this is why theorists like Mark Wigley and Beatriz Colomina (common visitors in our school)  always resort back to people like Corbusier, Tafuri, Rowe or Constant, because there is NOT REALLY that many amazing, real theorists out there.


idk, what do u guys think? any help with books and/or readings

and thank u for reading/caring...

 
Jan 14, 13 7:37 pm

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