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Princeton University has shared news of the passing of beloved longtime School of Architecture faculty member Anthony Vidler yesterday, October 20th, after a short battle with illness. He was 82. Vidler was known throughout academia as a formative mentor and thought leader who shaped the... View full entry
An important driver of postmodernism in Italy has been lost following the death of Italian architect, theorist, and historian Paolo Portoghesi in his native country this week at the age of 91. The author of the 2000 title Nature and Architecture enjoyed a long and influential academic career in... View full entry
The world of architectural theory is in mourning after news that architect, urbanist, AIA Gold Medalist, and former UC Berkeley professor Christopher Alexander passed away peacefully in his home in the south of England Thursday following a long illness. Alexander was a pioneering theorist and... View full entry
Over 20 years since the Kyoto Protocol, over 10 years since the Global Financial Crisis, and in the first year of the global Coronavirus pandemic, there has been no real change in the architecture of architecture itself. That will only happen when it stops connecting everything with itself, stops beginning with itself. When it admits the revolution into its own citadel. — Volume
Ole Bouman writes a Volume piece on 'Solipsism of Architecture' where he discusses a revolution will not happen in architecture until......Until then, in an inversion of Le Corbusier’s most notorious epigram: Architecture or Revolution. Architecture can be avoided.Previously on Archinect... View full entry
Clean lines, white surfaces and indoor-outdoor living epitomise early modern architecture. Contrary to received wisdom, to Colomina this is less a machine aesthetic than a hospital aesthetic. Through the lens of disease, nervous disorders, sexuality and self-expression, Colomina’s fascinating interpretation of modern architecture suggests the motivating factors behind the architectural revolution were the need for health and cleanliness, hygiene and smooth, calming surfaces. — The Sydney Morning Herald
In light of her recently published book X-Ray Architecture, architectural historian Beatriz Colomina talks about the history of how illnesses shaped the clean aesthetics of 20th-century modern architecture. ‘‘In the 20th century architects from Le Corbusier to Mies van der Rohe to Alvar... View full entry
The idea of the “both-and” suggested a new pluralism, and maybe a new tolerance, in architecture. But the phrase turned out to have its limits. To the extent that Venturi was making an argument in favor of a kind of big-tent populism in architecture, it was a space for new styles instead of new voices, new forms rather than new people. In fact, tucked inside Complexity and Contradiction is an argument for a renewed insularity in the profession [...]. — The Atlantic
Christoper Hawthorne, former LA Times architecture critic and now Design Officer for the City of Los Angeles, dissects Robert Venturi's 1966 book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (which famously scoffs at the Miessian classical Modernism with the "less is a bore" tagline), and argues... View full entry
In her latest book Medium Design, Easterling turns this idea of disposition to our ways of thinking, and rehearses a set of tools to address unfolding relations in spatial and non-spatial contexts. She rejects the righteousness of manifestos and certainty of ideologies, urging ways of thinking better attuned to complexity and ambiguity. — failedarchitecture.com
Keller Easterling, architect, theorist, writer and Professor at Yale University School of Architecture, discusses her new book, Medium Design, with Hettie O’Brien. In this conversation she expounds on the ideas around no new master plans or right answers, tying together concepts from her... View full entry
Jakarta is perhaps the truest realization of a post-colonial cosmopolis. Many former colonial capitals stage a rivalry between quaint traditional centers and desperation-driven peripheries. But Jakarta can be understood not as a dialogue with its former foreign overlords but rather as a fiercely insistent projection of Indonesian independence. — Places Journal
In his latest article for Places, Joe Day examines the contemporary architecture of Jakarta through the framework of the utopian terms of the Five Pancasilas, the founding principles of modern Indonesia. Day traces the development of Indonesian architecture from founding president Pak Sukarno's... View full entry
Archigram can be seen as part of several trends that influence metropolitan life to this day. One was the Pop Art movement, where color, dynamism, fashion, and disposability were presented in graphics as understated as a passing billboard. — CityLab
While history may be said to define us, it could also be that history paves the roads in which we will ultimately walk. Archigram, known for being an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s and for its neo-futuristic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist theoretical projects, may, in fact... View full entry
In order for that kind of writing instruction to occur, what is needed is a culture shift toward an environment where all teachers — not just English teachers — believe they have permission to devote meaningful amounts of class time to writing instruction. — Washington Post
The romanticized view of the Architect, sitting, drawing and creating is a beautiful one indeed, but all too often are the words, the text that pulls the sketches together, that make sense of the whimsical strokes stay forgotten. Without the written history of Architecture, we would not have isms... View full entry
Therefore it ought to be recognized that even in the entire second half of the 20th century, the true way to try to find out what architectural theory means ought to be figured out by reading historians. In a way, historians are depositaries, they have defined the paradigm of what could be considered ‘modernities,’ something that has changed radically in this new century. — magaceen.com
"The ever diminishing role played by theory and thought in professional practice is, according to Frampton and Moneo, one of the principal challenges that contemporary architecture is faced with. Add to this the great transformations taking place in society, the economy, and architecture itself... View full entry
The Modulor Man is a healthy white male enhanced by mathematical proportional gimmicks ‘of nature’, such as golden ratio and Fibonacci series. He represents the normative and normalised body around which Le Corbusier conceived his designs. As a result, most modern architectural forms are all tellingly calibrated on a similar standard, the healthy white male body. — failedarchitecture.com
"Given the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s groundbreaking research regarding medicalisation in architecture and its extensive Le Corbusier collection," the author Federica Buzzi writes, "I think it is time to address the role of norm and standard in Le Corbusier’s work and its legacy." View full entry
These are the articles that made big waves in 2016 – not just in traffic, but in defining the discussions architects were having. From professional practice issues to academia to interviews and showcases, we present to you our favorite original editorial of the year:One student's solution to the... View full entry
MASKS is an independent journal of dissimulation in art | architecture | design founded in 2015 by Clemens Finkelstein and Anthony Morey while being graduate students in the History and Philosophy of Design at Harvard University.Faux Families exploits our insatiable longing... View full entry
Sean Smith continues his series, in which three architects discuss their transition from student to professional. Therein, Eric Höweler of Höweler + Yoon makes the point that much of running a firm is about finding work; "In school everyone wants to be designers and have their own practice... View full entry
