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This book introduces architects to a philosopher, Immanuel Kant, whose work was constantly informed by a concern for the world as an evolving whole. According to Kant, in this interconnected and dynamic world, humans should act as mutually dependent and responsible subjects. Given his future-oriented and ethico-politically concerned thinking, Kant is a thinker who clearly speaks to architects. This introduction demonstrates how his ideas bear pertinently and creatively upon the world in which we live now and for which we should care thoughtfully. Kant grounded his enlightened vision of philosophy’s mission using an architectural metaphor: of the modest 'dwelling-house'. Far from constructing speculative 'castles in the sky' or vertiginous 'towers which reach to the heavens', he tells us that his humble aim is rather to build a 'secure home for ourselves', one which appropriately corresponds at once to the limited material resources available on our planet, and to our need for firm and solid principles to live by. This book also explores Kant's notions of cosmopolitics, which attempts to think politics from a global perspective by taking into account the geographical fact that the earth is a sphere with limited land mass and natural resources. Given the urgent topicality of sustainable development, these Kantian texts are of particular interest for architects of today. Students of architecture, who are necessarily trained in negotiating between theory and practice, gain much from considering Kant, whose critical project also consisted of testing and exploring the viability of ideas, so as to ascertain to what extent, and crucially, how ideas can have a constructive effect on the whole world, and on us as active agents therein.
Philosophy for Architects is an engaging and easy-to-grasp introduction to philosophical questions ofinterest to students of architectural theory. Topics include Aristotle's theories of "visual imagination" and their relevance to digital design, the problem of optical correction as explored by Plato, Hegel's theory of zeitgeist, and Kant's examinations of space and aesthetics, among others. Focusing primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, it provides students with a wider perspective concerning philosophical problems that come up in contemporary architectural debates.
Jacques Derrida’s thinking is radical, provocative, controversial, and even difficult. This book looks afresh at Derrida’s thinking in relation to architecture. It simplifies his ideas in a clear, concise way. As well as a review of Derrida’s interaction with architecture, it is also a careful consideration of the implications of his thinking, particularly on the way architecture is practiced.
What should our buildings look like? Or is their usability more important than their appearance? Paul Guyer argues that the fundamental goals of architecture first identified by the Roman architect Marcus Pollio Vitruvius - good construction, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - have remained valid despite constant changes in human activities, building materials and technologies, as well as in artistic styles and cultures. Guyer discusses philosophers and architects throughout history, including Alberti, Kant, Ruskin, Wright, and Loos, and surveys the ways in which their ideas are brought to life in buildings across the world. He also considers the works and words of contemporary architects including Annabelle Selldorf, Herzog and de Meuron, and Steven Holl, and shows that - despite changing times and fashions - good architecture continues to be something worth striving for. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.
Anaximander and the Architects opens a previously unexplored avenue into Presocratic philosophy—the technology of monumental architecture. The evidence, coming directly from sixth century B.C.E. building sites and bypassing Aristotle, shows how the architects and their projects supplied their Ionian communities with a sprouting vision of natural order governed by structural laws. Their technological innovations and design techniques formed the core of an experimental science and promoted a rational, not mythopoetical, discourse central to our understanding of the context in which early Greek philosophy emerged. Anaximander's prose book and his rationalizing mentality are illuminated in surprising ways by appeal to the ongoing, extraordinary projects of the archaic architects and their practical techniques.
Philosophy for Architects is an engaging and easy-to-grasp introduction to philosophical questions of interest to students of architectural theory. Topics include Aristotle's theories of "visual imagination" and their relevance to digital design, the problem of optical correction as explored by Plato, Hegel's theory of zeitgeist, and Kant's examinations of space and aesthetics, among others. Focusing primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, it provides students with a wider perspective concerning philosophical problems that come up in contemporary architectural debates.
The eighteenth century struggled to define architecture as either an art or a science—the image of the architect as a grand figure who synthesizes all other disciplines within a single master plan emerged from this discourse. Immanuel Kant and Johann Wolfgang Goethe described the architect as their equal, a genius with godlike creativity. For writers from Descartes to Freud, architectural reasoning provided a method for critically examining consciousness. The architect, as philosophers liked to think of him, was obligated by the design and construction process to mediate between the abstract and the actual. In On the Ruins of Babel, Daniel Purdy traces this notion back to its wellspring. He surveys the volatile state of architectural theory in the Enlightenment, brought on by the newly emerged scientific critiques of Renaissance cosmology, then shows how German writers redeployed Renaissance terminology so that "harmony," "unity," "synthesis," "foundation," and "orderliness" became states of consciousness, rather than terms used to describe the built world. Purdy's distinctly new interpretation of German theory reveals how metaphors constitute interior life as an architectural space to be designed, constructed, renovated, or demolished. He elucidates the close affinity between Hegel's Romantic aesthetic of space and Daniel Libeskind's deconstruction of monumental architecture in Berlin's Jewish Museum. Through a careful reading of Walter Benjamin's writing on architecture as myth, Purdy details how classical architecture shaped Benjamin's modernist interpretations of urban life, particularly his elaboration on Freud's archaeology of the unconscious. Benjamin's essays on dreams and architecture turn the individualist sensibility of the Enlightenment into a collective and mythic identification between humans and buildings.
Polemics and reflections on how to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Architecture depends—on what? On people, time, politics, ethics, mess: the real world. Architecture, Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself. Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect's best-laid plans—at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy. Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be. Mixing anecdote, design, social theory, and personal experience, Till's writing is always accessible, moving freely between high and low registers, much like his suggestions for architecture itself.
This introductory book, specifically for architects, focuses on the work of critic Homi K. Bhabha, who's work has been used as a means to analyse architectural practices in previously colonised contexts. This title reveals how his work contributes to architectural theory and the study of contemporary architectures in general, not only in colonial and postcolonial contexts.