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Architectural Principles in the Age of Fraud
Philosophy exercises a massive influence on contemporary architectural culture and the understanding of the built environment.
Discussions of architects and architectural academics are heavily loaded with theoretical ideas, concepts and views imported from the works of philosophers. At the same time this architectural employment of philosophy rarely goes beyond the tendency to mine philosophical works for ideas, words and phrases and use them, often without much understanding, in order to promote architectural agendas and embellish theoretical claims made by architects and academics.
The book presents the history of this phenomenon for the past hundred years. It describes and analyzes numerous, often funny, entertaining as well as embarrassing, examples of false intellectual pretense and pompous but incompetent philosophical posturing by prominent architects and architectural academics of the era and their efforts to bamboozle readers, colleagues and the general public. The book presents a powerful criticism of modernist views on architecture and argues that the rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing among architects and architectural academics is a defensive strategy intended to draw attention away from the failure of Modernism in architecture.
Discussions of architects and architectural academics are heavily loaded with theoretical ideas, concepts and views imported from the works of philosophers. At the same time this architectural employment of philosophy rarely goes beyond the tendency to mine philosophical works for ideas, words and phrases and use them, often without much understanding, in order to promote architectural agendas and embellish theoretical claims made by architects and academics.
The book presents the history of this phenomenon for the past hundred years. It describes and analyzes numerous, often funny, entertaining as well as embarrassing, examples of false intellectual pretense and pompous but incompetent philosophical posturing by prominent architects and architectural academics of the era and their efforts to bamboozle readers, colleagues and the general public. The book presents a powerful criticism of modernist views on architecture and argues that the rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing among architects and architectural academics is a defensive strategy intended to draw attention away from the failure of Modernism in architecture.
- GenresArchitecture
160 pages, Paperback
Published April 12, 2022
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January 29, 2023
I picked this up off the strength of its name alone. I was instantly sympathetic to the claim; I love architecture theory's esoteric styles but have always found them suspiciously incongruous with the simple tangibility of architecture itself. I've been reflecting on the sorry state of architecture recently, and was hoping to be challenged and confronted with new insights by this book.
Unfortunately, the author is stubbornly dedicated to misreading uncomplicated and uncontroversial quotes, taking them extremely literally in an almost anti-intellectual manner. He seems intentionally incapable of meaning making. He does give plenty of examples of genuinely egregious uses of language by architectural theorists, and even toys with some convincing accusations against the state of the academy, but he is so bone-headed that I found just as much bad faith rhetoric in his interpretations as I did in the texts he was (rightfully!) criticising. He ultimately has no backbone with which to support any of his bigger and more interesting claims. A real shame!
Unfortunately, the author is stubbornly dedicated to misreading uncomplicated and uncontroversial quotes, taking them extremely literally in an almost anti-intellectual manner. He seems intentionally incapable of meaning making. He does give plenty of examples of genuinely egregious uses of language by architectural theorists, and even toys with some convincing accusations against the state of the academy, but he is so bone-headed that I found just as much bad faith rhetoric in his interpretations as I did in the texts he was (rightfully!) criticising. He ultimately has no backbone with which to support any of his bigger and more interesting claims. A real shame!
Displaying 1 of 1 review