The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture

Author: Pier Vittorio Aureli
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262515792
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Architectural form reconsidered in light of a unitary conception of architecture and the city. In The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture, Pier Vittorio Aureli proposes that a sharpened formal consciousness in architecture is a precondition for political, cultural, and social engagement with the city. Aureli uses the term absolute not in the conventional sense of “pure,” but to denote something that is resolutely itself after being separated from its other. In the pursuit of the possibility of an absolute architecture, the other is the space of the city, its extensive organization, and its government. Politics is agonism through separation and confrontation; the very condition of architectural form is to separate and be separated. Through its act of separation and being separated, architecture reveals at once the essence of the city and the essence of itself as political form: the city as the composition of (separate) parts. Aureli revisits the work of four architects whose projects were advanced through the making of architectural form but whose concern was the city at large: Andrea Palladio, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Étienne Louis-Boullée, and Oswald Mathias Ungers. The work of these architects, Aureli argues, addressed the transformations of the modern city and its urban implications through the elaboration of specific and strategic architectural forms. Their projects for the city do not take the form of an overall plan but are expressed as an “archipelago” of site-specific interventions.

The Project of Autonomy

Author: Pier Vittorio Aureli
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781568987941
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Book Description
"The Project of Autonomy radically rediscusses the concept of autonomy in politics and architecture by tracing a concise and polemical argument about its history in Italy in the 1960's and early 1970's. Architect and educator Pier Vittorio Aureli analyzes the position of the Operaism movement, formed by a group of intellectuals that produced a powerful and rigorous critique of capitalism and its intersections with two of the most radical architectural-urban theories of the day: Aldo Rossi's redefinition of the architecture of the city and Archizoom's No-stop City. Readers are introduced to major figures like Mario Tronti and Raniero Panzieri who have previously been little known in the English-speaking world, especially in an architectural context, and to the political motivations behind the theories of Rossi and Archizoom. The book draws on significant new source material, including recent interviews by the author and untranslated documents."--PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE.

The City as a Project

Author: Pier Vittorio Aureli
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783944074061
Category : Cities and towns
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
The city is often depicted as a sort of self-organizing chaos. This collection of essays, edited by Pier Vittorio Aureli, makes the case for the opposite hypothesis: The city is always the result of political intention, often in the form of specific architectural projects. Cities are shaped not only by material forces, but also by cultural and didactic visions. This thesis is substantiated by eight thoroughly researched essays scrutinizing a fascinating line-up of urban conditions across more than two thousands years of history: from the political theology of the Islamic city to the political economy of Renaissance architecture; from the rise of public architecture in 17th-century France to the laissez-faire development of the contemporary Greek city; from the exemplary teachings of Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand to the collaborative work of Hannes Meyer; and from the plan of the Mesoamerican metropolis to that of the Fordist factory floor. In challenging the split between theory and practice, The City as a Project reveals the powerful ways in which the city arises from the constant interaction between ideas and spatial conditions.

Living and Working

Author: Dogma
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262543516
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
An argument against the ideology of domesticity that separates work from home; lavishly illustrated, with architectural proposals for alternate approaches to working and living. Despite the increasing numbers of people who now work from home, in the popular imagination the home is still understood as the sanctuary of privacy and intimacy. Living is conceptually and definitively separated from work. This book argues against such a separation, countering the prevailing ideology of domesticity with a series of architectural projects that illustrate alternative approaches. Less a monograph than a treatise, richly illustrated, the book combines historical research and design proposals to reenvision home as a cooperative structure in which it is possible to live and work and in which labor is socialized beyond the family—freeing inhabitants from the sense of property and the burden of domestic labor. The projects aim to move the house beyond the dichotomous logic of male/female, husband/wife, breadwinner/housewife, and private/public. They include the reinvention of single-room occupancy as a new model for affordable housing; the reimagining of the simple tower-and-plinth prototype as host to a multiplicity of work activities and enlivening street life; and a plan for a modular, adaptable structure meant to house a temporary dweller. All of these design projects conceive of the house not as a commodity, the form of which is determined by its exchange value, but as an infrastructure defined by its use value.

Experiencing Architecture, second edition

Author: Steen Eiler Rasmussen
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262680028
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
A classic examination of superb design through the centuries. Widely regarded as a classic in the field, Experiencing Architecture explores the history and promise of good design. Generously illustrated with historical examples of designing excellence—ranging from teacups, riding boots, and golf balls to the villas of Palladio and the fish-feeding pavilion of Beijing's Winter Palace—Rasmussen's accessible guide invites us to appreciate architecture not only as a profession, but as an art that shapes everyday experience. In the past, Rasmussen argues, architecture was not just an individual pursuit, but a community undertaking. Dwellings were built with a natural feeling for place, materials and use, resulting in “a remarkably suitable comeliness.” While we cannot return to a former age, Rasmussen notes, we can still design spaces that are beautiful and useful by seeking to understand architecture as an art form that must be experienced. An understanding of good design comes not only from one's professional experience of architecture as an abstract, individual pursuit, but also from one's shared, everyday experience of architecture in real time—its particular use of light, color, shape, scale, texture, rhythm and sound. Experiencing Architecture reminds us of what good architectural design has accomplished over time, what it can accomplish still, and why it is worth pursuing. Wide-ranging and approachable, it is for anyone who has ever wondered “what instrument the architect plays on.”

Architecture in the Twentieth Century

Author: Peter Go ssel
Publisher: Taschen
ISBN: 9783822811627
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 472

Book Description
After several pages of prologue summing up 18th century highlights--especially the rise in importance of geometry--some forty pages cover 1784-1916, focusing on the heavily fenestrated high-rises of the Chicago School and the iron and glass pavilions of Europe. The chapter spanning 1892-1925 concentrates on the many disputes over the trajectory of modernism: Nieuwe Kunst, Stile Liberty, Jugendstil, and Art Nouveau, all arguing the direction that the boom of prisons, hospitals, schools, town halls, and other institutional buildings would take. Three more time divisions follow and a concise compendium of architect biographies ends the volume. Along with an array of great pictures (par for Taschen), Gossel and Leuthauser--both active in the private sector--add a strong prose style attentive to debates among architects and the socioeconomic stage on which architects act. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Native American Architecture

Author: Peter Nabokov
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199840512
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 446

Book Description
For many people, Native American architecture calls to mind the wigwam, tipi, iglu, and pueblo. Yet the richly diverse building traditions of Native Americans encompass much more, including specific structures for sleeping, working, worshipping, meditating, playing, dancing, lounging, giving birth, decision-making, cleansing, storing and preparing food, caring for animals, and honoring the dead. In effect, the architecture covers all facets of Indian life. The collaboration between an architect and an anthropologist, Native American Architecture presents the first book-length, fully illustrated exploration of North American Indian architecture to appear in over a century. Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton together examine the building traditions of the major tribes in nine regional areas of the continent from the huge plank-house villages of the Northwest Coast to the moundbuilder towns and temples of the Southeast, to the Navajo hogans and adobe pueblos of the Southwest. Going beyond a traditional survey of buildings, the book offers a broad, clear view into the Native American world, revealing a new perspective on the interaction between their buildings and culture. Looking at Native American architecture as more than buildings, villages, and camps, Nabokov and Easton also focus on their use of space, their environment, their social mores, and their religious beliefs. Each chapter concludes with an account of traditional Indian building practices undergoing a revival or in danger today. The volume also includes a wealth of historical photographs and drawings (including sixteen pages of color illustrations), architectural renderings, and specially prepared interpretive diagrams which decode the sacred cosmology of the principal house types.

Danish Architecture and Society

Author: Nan Dahlkild
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788763546416
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Danish Architecture and Society offers a fascinating architectural history of the institutions and public buildings that have helped shape the everyday lives of Danes since the eighteenth century. The book charts the emergence and development as well as the grandeur and ultimate demise of these institutions, tracing the underlying--and changing--architectural and societal ideals that have been influential in terms of design, organization, and furnishing. The individual contributions detail the often dramatic historical developments of buildings from industrialism's heyday, such as train stations, post offices and customs houses. Although some of these still exist, a great many have today either been adapted to other functions or demolished. The contributing authors examine the significance of the buildings at the time they were constructed and attending understandings of sustainable building, contrasting these with present-day notions of architecture and construction as a more makeshift phenomenon. Through more than two hundred illustrations--drawings, sketches, plans and photos, much of it never before published--the authors provide a vivid and compelling account of Danish architectural history and its influence in framing the Danish welfare state as we know it today.

The Architecture of the City

Author: Aldo Rossi
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262680431
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Book Description
Aldo Rossi was a practicing architect and leader of the Italian architectural movement La Tendenza and one of the most influential theorists of the twentieth century. The Architecture of the City is his major work of architectural and urban theory. In part a protest against functionalism and the Modern Movement, in part an attempt to restore the craft of architecture to its position as the only valid object of architectural study, and in part an analysis of the rules and forms of the city's construction, the book has become immensely popular among architects and design students.

Hendrik Petrus Berlage

Author: Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Publisher: Getty Publications
ISBN: 0892363339
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Dutch architect and architectural philosopher, created a series of buildings and a body of writings from 1886 to 1909 that were among the first efforts to probe the problems and possibilities of modernism. Although his Amsterdam Stock Exchange, with its rational mastery of materials and space, has long been celebrated for its seminal influence on the architecture of the 20th century, Berlage's writings are highlighted here. Bringing together Berlage's most important texts, among them "Thoughts on Style in Architecture", "Architecture's Place in Modern Aesthetics", and "Art and Society", this volume presents a chapter in the history of European modernism. In his introduction, Iain Boyd Whyte demonstrates that the substantial contribution of Berlage's designs to modern architecture cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of the aesthetic principles first laid out in his writings.