Theory, Criticism and History of Architecture

Despite advancements, changes, transformations, and the gains; the presence of female figures in Turkey is still arguable today due to the state, society and family relations, legal, cultural and individual sense stuck in the autocratic and masculine suppression. Yet, these constraints constitute the main problematic of this paper, with a strong determination of where we are in the change and bringing up the will to map the breakpoints in order to provide the feminist memory of events, actors and milieus in Turkey.

As it is known, women movements and the women's struggle for existence in the public sphere in Turkey have been a long and gradual process initiated with the late Ottoman period, especially with II. Constitutional Monarchy until today. We witness different stages in the process, with accelerations and withdrawals, synchronized with global movements, sometimes being delayed, but frequently being interrupted and suppressed, or tried to be kept under control (Tekeli, 2004) (Sancar, 2017) (Berber, 2017a, 2017b).

In this respect, this paper examines the -historicity of- the woman figure in Turkey and its presence in the public realm in four successive periods, while dismantling four different roles that have emerged or being assigned in the process. In this context; the struggling and militant female figure in the late Ottoman and Early Republican Era (1870s-1935), the female figure serving the modernization and development as a soldier of the revolutions and enlightenment in the Republican Period (1935-70s), a militant feminist female figure after the 80s (1970-2000s) and then seeking the rights of women, and then the pursuit of women's identity, and finally the re-domesticated female figure in the post-2000 period, are discussed.


Türkiye’de toplumsal cinsiyet ve kadın figürüne ilişkin tartışmaların, yeniden yoğunlaştığı günümüzde, kamusal alanda kadın figürünün var olma süreci ve değişimi, kadına biçilen roller ve kadın kimliğini bulması yönünde ortaya koyduğu mücadele; kuşkusuz bu toplumun bir kadın bireyi olarak bizleri de içine almakta, gerek gözlemcisi (tanığı), gerekse bir aktörü (etki veren bir bileşeni) olarak, olaylar ve politikalar üzerine söz söylemek, katkı koymak ve biçimlendirmek yönünde bizleri de tetiklemektedir. Öte yandan, tüm gelişim, değişim ve dönüşümler ile, kazanımlara karşın, hâlâ devlet, toplum ve aile ilişkisinde, hukuksal, kültürel ve bireysel anlamda otokratik ve eril baskılama içerisinde sıkış(tırıl)an Türkiye’deki kadın figürünün tartışmaya açık günümüzdeki mevcudiyeti; bu yazının da temel sorunsalını oluşturan değişimin neresindeyizin tespiti kaygısını ve kırılma noktalarının haritalanmasına yönelik eylemselliği de beraberinde getirmiştir.

Temelde, aile arşivindeki fotografların tasnifi ve Istanbul’daki kamusal alanın değişimine ilişkin minör ve tekil dokümantasyonların avcılığıyla başlayan yolculukta, beni bu yazıyı yazmaya iten ve kendi tanıklığımın önemini kavratan; temelde 1933’teki Sultanahmet Kadınlar Mitingi’ni belgeleyen -yine- aile arşivindeki bir fotograf karesi olmuştur (Resim 1). Bir fotograf karesiyle başlayan bu tanıklık ve bilinçlenme sürecinin olgunlaşması yolculuğunda, bu yazı kapsamında bireysel anlamda bizlerin de birer parçası olduğumuz ailemizdeki tüm kadınların, büyük büyük annemizden bizlere ve bizlerden sonraki nesillere gelene kadar geçmiş ve geçecek olan süreçte, ülkemizdeki kadın figürünün değişimin irdelenmesi, süreklilik ve süreksizliklerin basitçe haritalanması, yol ayrımlarının değerlendirilmesi, yerel-evrensel etkileşiminde ülkemizdeki kadın figürünün zaman zaman değişen konumu ve geleceğine ilişkin dolaylı çıkarımların oluşturulması amaçlanmıştır.

The revolutionary Spangen social-housing complex (1919-1921) in Rotterdam, by Michiel Brinkman, has recently been immaculately restored (2012). The project pioneered “street in the sky” deck access, an idea that famously inspired Alison and Peter Smithson’s design of the 1950s Golden Lane housing project in London. The Spangen estate, or Justus van Effen complex, is a rectangular four-story brick urban block, centered around two large courts. Concrete balconies give access to the duplex apartments on the top floors. In its heyday, the project offered many shared amenities, like a public bathhouse located between the two courtyards. A communal spirit was further promoted by making the decks publicly accessible; large cargo lifts allowed tradesmen to reach tenants’ front doors.

This is a review of the monograph on the work of the Austrian architects Riegler Riewe, situating the work in the local history and architectural context. Eva Guttmann replaces the currently predominating and simplistic account, in which Riegler Riewe’s work is mainly understood in opposition to the Graz School, for a more complex view in which the work is explained as the result of differing circumstances and a variety of ideas. After the introduction by Guttmann, the book starts off with an interview by Otto Kapfinger with Riegler and Riewe. The focus is on the early influences and impressions in their work, such as the post-war modernists surrounding Ferdinand Schuster, relatively unknown local architects such as Josef Klose, and the highly tectonic work of Heinz Bienefeld.

A Genealogy of Modern Architecture by Kenneth Frampton is the fruit of decades of teaching activity and gestation. The class on which this book is based was originally more succinctly called Comparative Critical Analysis of Built Form, and was taught at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University from 2004 to 2008.
The 14 comparisons of some 28 buildings that make up most of the
book are divided into programmatic categories: Houses and Pavilions;
Housing; Office Buildings; Civic Buildings; Concert Halls; Museums; and Stadia, and are laid down in diagrams, photographic and orthographic representations, and in written text.
The analyses are richest, most compelling, and indeed exciting, when modernist works of different persuasion are set against each other. The comparison of the Schröder House by Rietveld to Maison Cook by Le Corbusier, and the Casa del Fascio by Terragni to the Gothenburg Law Courts of Asplund come to mind, or neo-plasticism versus purism and fascism versus social democracy.

The Future of the Skyscraper is a collection of essays, edited by SOM architects, of people outside or obliquely related to the profession of architecture to think and reflect on skyscraper design.
This approach is appealing, since the consequences of building skyscrapers with respect to their ecological, material and energy footprints are so large that the decision of their construction ought to be a larger societal question and a shared, public responsibility. In the most positive scenario this building type can help to solve problems of an increasingly urbanised and overcrowded planet: they can make cities denser, function as carbon sinks, generate energy and be used for rainwater retention and urban agriculture. If their explosive, and largely unregulated, growth is left unchecked, however, they will continue to be used to reinforce inequality and class divisions by creating privatised, heavily secured havens for the few, will continue to deplete resources, will create micro climates and heat islands, and last, but not least, will remain a massive contributor to CO2 emissions and thus speed up the process of climate change.

How do young architects move on from the formative influences and design methodologies of previous professional generations, especially when these have claimed a universal, ahistorical, commonsensical relevance? This paper examines the vexed question of cliché and transgression in the context of contemporary Swiss architecture.

The architect’s aforementioned conception of the building, which starts from the event of the concert, suggests that structure is completely suppressed because it can play no part in the composition.
The way he deals with details further
illuminates Scharoun’s approach:
structural articulation was a mere
expression of conjunctions and adjacencies and was not conceived of as the directing and control of forces.
The architect explains that “Everything here serves to prepare for the experience of music, all spaces are related in dynamic tension to the solemn serenity of the auditorium which in the true sense of the world crowns the building.”

Lewerentz’ ability to address the aesthetic concerns through abstract methods in carefully executed buildings have affirmed his presence as an architect with great tectonic sensibility. This paper aims to bring new insights to which how his tectonic execution fused with his articulation of space through St. Peter's Church in Klippan.

In the Nineties, Ignasi de Solà-Morales described the relationship between critics and architects as one of sadomasochism, with the former controlling their anxiety for the recent collapse of grand narratives by exercising a «compensatory aggressiveness» towards the latter, who resignedly offered their projects to «the lashes of their chastisers» with the hope that non-evident meaning would eventually become manifest. Two decades later, this relationship has been largely turned upside-down, with many architects now dictating case-by-case the keys for the interpretation of their projects, and many critics reducing their role to that of observers of the architectural market and promoters of its top products. Under the destabilizing effects of postmodern relativism, ideological conflict has been replaced by pragmatic partnership, legitimately leading to a loss of confidence in critique itself. But was conflict a better alternative? According to common interpretations of the idea of “criticism”, it probably was. In its main acceptations – as a profession, as a set of social practices, or as a disciplinary discourse – the term is in fact used to indicate a set of intellectual activities traditionally placed outside of (and possibly against) the domain of architectural production, being what separates critics from architects precisely «what can ensure – in Luigi Manzione's words – a margin of efficiency in critical discourse». Distancing, however, has its side effects. The fact that Allison Arieff has recently compared reading architectural writings to having a tooth extracted is quite explicative of the way in which many critics work nowadays: little concerned about the use that architects will do of their ideas, they write for no-one except for themselves, locking critical discourse in a cage of autonomy from which no real influence on architectural production can be exercised. Critique for critique's sake tragically reflects a retreat from reality that seems even more problematic if we consider how many opportunities for elaborating alternative ways of communication are offered today by new digital media. In this essay, I intend to speculate on how internet and social networks can play an important part in the redefinition of the attitude and tools of architecture criticism, insisting on the value of sociability over isolation, suggesting an extension of the media through which critique is performed, and proposing a third model of relationship – that of the “sparring partner” – as a possible way of overcoming the present moment of social empasse.

Manfredo Tafuri’s book "Architecture and Utopia, Design and Capitalist Development," deploys what is perhaps the strongest critique on modern architecture and the city. In the book the Italian Architect and Historian argues that, since architecture has been employed as a tool for the development of capitalism, it is unable to become an instrument for social transformation. But "Architecture and Utopia..." was written between 1969 and 1973, when both the organization of the world and the very logics of capitalism were different, so we cannot avoid the question of how such critiques have been addressed since the text was published. This paper is an initial attempt to review Tafuri’s main questions and the responses to them that we can find within architecture as well as outside the discipline.

Massive, raw concrete structures - the likes of the Telecommunications Building (1972/1981) by Janko Konstantinov; the campus of Ss. Cyril and Methodius University (1974) by Marko Mušič; the National Hydraulic Institute (1972) by Krsto Todorovski; and the Bank Complex (1970) by R. Lalovik and O. Papeš - have led to the production of an enduring monumental presence and helped inspire Skopje’s title as the ‘brutalist capital of the world.’ These works followed Kenzo Tange’s introduction of Japanese Metabolism to Skopje through his role in the 1965 United Nations sponsored reconstruction competition. The unique position of a Non-Aligned Yugoslavia staged and facilitated architectural and professional exchange across the Cold War. Each trajectory and manifestation illustrates the complex picture of international architectural exchange and local production. Skopje and its numerous brutalist edifices is an elucidative story because it represents a meeting point between Brutalism, Metabolism and its American parallel.

This paper will look in particular at the Skopje Archive Building (1966) and the “Goçe Delčev” Student Dormitory (1969), two buildings by the architect Georgi Konstantinovski, realised on his return from a Masters programme at Yale University and employment within I.M. Pei’s New York office. Their architecture illustrates the simultaneous preoccupations of leading architects at the time in regaining a conceptual ground made explicit through a complete and apprehensible image.  From this particular position the paper will explore the question of ethics and aesthetics central to Banham’s outline of the New Brutalism.

O presente Trabalho Final de Graduação, apresentado na FAU USP em 2015 pretende ser um estudo histórico sobre a crítica de arquitetura no Brasil, de 1985 a 2010. Inclui um vasto levantamento e análise estatística de artigos e textos, breve definição do que seria crítica de arquitetura, e um estudo aprofundado que relaciona a produção crítica com as obras e o pensamento cultural em geral. Para tanto lança mão de uma periodização tripartite: 1985-1991 / 1991-2000 / 2000-2010.

German Swiss architecture at the close of the twentieth century has gained worldwide acclaim on account of its formal austerity, material sensitivity, rigorous detailing and contextual observations.  Moreover, beyond its constructional and aesthetic coherence, this production purports an ethical orientation.  In reaction to the culture of postmodernism predominant in the 1970s and 1980s, Swiss production sought to recover a sense of stability through the revaluation of the architectural medium, a sensual use of ordinary materials, and precise readings of place and tradition. 

The various forms of Swiss architectural practice in the 1980s and 1990s can be seen as facets of one artistic and cultural phenomenon.  This study discusses its background conditions, from cultural understandings of Swiss identity and territory, to the theoretical issues that underpin the works and the more pragmatic processes of production.  In-depth case studies from the work of Herzog & de Meuron, Peter Zumthor, Gigon / Guyer, Diener & Diener, Valerio Olgiati, and others illustrate the main themes followed by four thematic essays, which offer a theoretical interpretation of this period of German Swiss architecture. 

Among recent publications on the topic, this book represents an external point of view, drawing from a multi-cultural background and demonstrating the production’s wider international relevance.  The study challenges the monolithic global brand of “Swiss architecture” through a more accurate picture of complexity, opposing attitudes and ongoing developments.  Beneath the accomplished forms and materials, it reveals the implicit conflicts between shared values and individual expression, artistic integrity and economic interest.  This commentary extends beyond the typical conditions of Swiss practice to more general issues, recording the possibilities and limitations of architecture at the close of the twentieth century.

Lewerentz’ ability to address the aesthetic concerns through abstract methods in carefully executed buildings have affirmed his presence as an architect with great tectonic sensibility. This paper aims to bring new insights to which how his tectonic execution fused with his articulation of space through St. Peter's Church in Klippan.

Over the past years, several critics from within the field of modern architectural discourse, such as Adrian Forty (1989), Mark Wigley (1994), and Leila Kinney (1999), have employed the metaphor of fashion as an analytical tool, in order to reflect upon the production process involved in architecture. Yet, except from facilitating the interpretation of the architectural artifact, fashion has also enabled critics to elucidate the relation of man to his material, temporal, and geographical, surroundings. Commencing from the late nineteenth century, when fashion served as a vehicle to suppress concerns about the era of industrialization, the present paper will extend its inquiry across contemporaneity, and the relation of fashion to the anxiety that accompanies digital culture. If in the early modern movement, interior wealth was being concealed behind white plaster walls and the human body behind a series of envelopments, today these envelopments are gradually being transformed, whilst still masking human identities and the body.

The paper “The Dilemma of Authenticity I: Swiss architecture between ethical intent and aesthetic object” was presented at The Complexity of the Ordinary International Conference, Copenhagen, 5-6 October 2006. A second part,  “The Dilemma of Authenticity II: Phenomenological interpretations in Swiss architecture and its criticism” was subsequently presented at the Architecture and Phenomenology International Conference, Haifa, Israel, 20-24 May 2007. Both drafts are presented wherewith, with the stipulation that despite inevitable overlaps and repetitions the ethos of each paper is different. The first examines mainly the built work, whereas the second is a more critical examination of both the intellectual substrate of the built works and their criticism.

This article can be seen as a follow up to "Abstraction and Artifice" (2004), albeit only in reference to one single architect. It identifies, in the work of Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati, certain formal tendencies that are shared with the artistic production of  the Baroque era.

La tesi ha per oggetto l’analisi di alcuni meccanismi culturali che hanno determinato una vivace interazione tra America Latina e Italia nel periodo successivo al secondo conflitto mondiale. L’analisi muove da uno studio dei periodici storici di architettura, urbanistica e design in quanto capaci di far emergere attraverso una prospettiva privilegiata, ma non del tutto studiata, tali scambi culturali. Al fine di comprendere le principali dinamiche e ragioni sottese alla diffusione della cultura progettuale italiana in America Latina, nel periodo compreso tra il 1947 ed il 1961, sono state analizzate alcune delle pubblicazioni periodiche latinoamericane che in quegli anni hanno rappresentato fondamentali elementi di dialogo e trasmissione tra le due sponde dell’Atlantico. Dall’analisi dei casi specifici contenuti nelle pubblicazioni periodiche latinoamericane, emerge come la selezione di articoli proposta non sia stata assolutamente un processo guidato dalle prestazioni delle diverse “soluzioni tecniche” progettate dai professionisti italiani ma, al contrario, le “immagini” d’Italia proposte in America Latina sono state principalmente il riflesso di ragioni di opportunità e convenienza o strategia. Ciò che emerge è, quindi, un articolato insieme di vicende, confronti e connessioni trasversali ai due Continenti, senza un’apparente logica unificante che testimoniano interessanti scambi culturali tra Italia ed America Latina veicolati anche attraverso le pubblicazioni periodiche.

The object of this dissertation is the analysis of certain cultural mechanisms that have determinate a vivid
interaction between Latin America and Italy in the period following the Second World War. The analysis starts with studying of historical magazines, dealing with topics such as architecture, urbanism and design, due to their ability to offer a different point of view, though not deeply analysed, of such cultural exchanges.
In order to understand the main dynamics and reasons underlying the diffusion of Italian architectural design culture in Latin America, in the period between 1947 and 1961, some Latin American publications have been analysed. Those publications were the crucial element of dialogue and transmission between the two coasts of the Atlantic.From the analysis of case studies found in Latin American publications emerges how the selection of articles proposed has not been a process guided by performance of various “technical solution” designed by Italian professionals. On the contrary, “images” of Italy suggested in Latin America have mainly been a reflection of opportunities and convenience or strategy. What emerges is a set of events, comparisons and transversal connections, without a clear logic that wouldwhiteness interesting cultural exchanges between Italy and Latin America that can be seen in the magazines published in that period.

Relatore: Federico Deambrosis

The Whitney Museum’s move to its new building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, returns the Whitney to its roots; in 1918 Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Juliana Force opened the Whitney Studio Club on West 4th street, and in 1931 the first Whitney Museum opened in three rowhouses a few blocks to the south on West 8th Street. The new 20,000-square-metre building at 99 Gansevoort Street fulfils the need for more exhibition space, and adds a much needed collection of public, educational and curatorial spaces that have become so important to the operation of contemporary museums.
Renzo Piano’s buildings usually stand up to the closest scrutiny, but like many architects, he has suffered the indignity of poor execution that characterises the US construction industry.

This paper proposes a methodology of analysis of contemporary architecture that deconstructs it in seven major trends based on variables that architects undertake when developing a project. This deconstruction of different practices derives in a mapping of contemporary architecture in which buildings can be classified within a specific trend. This methodology is intended to replace a classification of architecture according to scales, location or use with a mapping that emphasizes design processes and intentions. The development of this mapping of contemporary architecture is based on the identification of variables that determine our practice [figure 1]. The design process is understood as an exercise of equalization in which these variables are raised over each other depending on the particular interests of the designer or the character of the commission This equalization allows classification of buildings by affinity with others even if they are unrelated in terms of use, scale or location; but because they share deeper aspects associated with the design methodology behind. In light of the seven variables seen in figure 1, the following seven trends arise [figure 2]: Rationally Rigorous Architecture [1] that privileges technical premises and rational thought; Expressively Organic Architecture [2] that prioritizes an individual and phenomenological approach towards space, materiality and site; Socio-Economically Resourceful Architecture [3]  that works with contingency and under social and economical restraints; Objectified Architecture [4] that strongly focuses on formal and esthetic explorations; Symbolic architecture [5] that prioritizes the spatialization of concepts; Regionally Characterized Architecture [6], that shows a special rapport with vernacular building traditions and eco-sustainability; and Nondescript Establishment Architecture [7] that privileges commercial premises.  While there are complex cases that can be ascribed to more than one tendency or intention, this paper will present research conducted over three years in a course entitled: “Contemporary Architecture Criticism” [figures 3,4], with architectures designed between 2000 and 2016, in order to demonstrate the relevance and effectiveness of the deconstructive method in teaching contexts, and in the analysis and dissemination of contemporary architecture.

Prólogo para el nº 56 de 'SINTESIS ARQUITECTURA SELECCIÓN' (junio 2018) dedicado a las obras:

- PABELLON POLIDEPORTIVO Y AULARIO UNIV. FRANCISCO DE VITORIA - Pozuelo/Madrid (Alberto Campo Baeza).
- PALACIO DE CONGRESOS Y HOTEL - Palma de Mallorca (Francisco Mangado).
- MUSEO DE LAS COLECCIONES REALES - Madrid (Mansilla+Tuñón arqs.).
- CENTRO DRAMATÚRGICO 'SALA BECKETT' - Barcelona (Flores y Prats arqs.).
-CENTRO DE DÍA PARA ENFERMOS DE ALZHEIMER - Benavente (studioVRa: Rubén García & Sonsoles Vela).

Raising the persistence question about architectural entities consists in asking what is necessary and sufficient for a past or future architectural entity, like a building, to exist now. In this paper I investigate how the persistence question about buildings is affected by their spatial relocation. Why do we normally doubt that Notre Dame can survive its meticulous stone-by-stone transfer to Las Vegas? I argue that, since architectural plans are not capable of specifying all the constitutive properties of a building, the source of differentiation among constitutive and non-constitutive properties for buildings lies in a property’s being eligible or not eligible to be aesthetically relevant in the aesthetic judgements about them. As a matter of fact, our aesthetic judgements about buildings often concern, and are grounded on, extrinsic contextual properties. This explains why buildings can usually not survive relocation: because normally there is no basis for ruling out any extrinsic contextual feature of the building as inessential. I also try to explain why the change from thirteenth century Paris to contemporary Paris proved not to be lethal to Notre Dame’s persistence, in spite of its being more significant than other imaginary context changes that we would easily count as fatal.

Dengan mengulas Masjid Sudalmiyah Rais yang hadir di lingkungan Kampus 2 Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta (UMS) serta dengan berbekal pendekatan Arsitektur Perilaku dan Semiotika, dalam tulisan ini saya membahas urgensi dipahaminya perwujudan fisik suatu objek arsitektur dikaitkan dengan pembentukan persepsi ruang yang merupakan landasan bagi manusia untuk turut serta berkegiatan dan menampakkan perilaku sepanjang terlibat di dalam ruang.

In late 2010, Kenneth Frampton celebrated his eightieth birthday with a one-day conference at the Graduate School for Architecture, Planning and Preservation at
Columbia University. The conference was, typically, an act of resistance against the prevalent culture of commodification and globalisation and focused on architecture as practice. To this end, five offices were endorsed by Frampton and invited to speak about their work and motivations: Stanley Saitowitz, Brigitte Shim & Howard Sutcliffe,
Rick Joy, John & Patricia Patkau and Steven Holl. In addition to eschewing the prevalent tendency to perceive architecture as a fashionable and expendable consumer product, Frampton thus also decided to put the cult of personality into perspective
and to present Canadian practice on an equal footing with that in the US. The review argues that the work of the offices presented lacks the necessary political bite to address the forces of globalisation and commodification.

Based on a paper delivered in November 2016 at the Musée du Louvre (Publier sur l’art, l’architecture et la ville : La Font de Saint-Yenne [1688-1771] et l’ambition d’une oeuvre), this article argues that La Font de Saint-Yenne was principally a critic of architecture and town planning, despite his reputation as a critic of painting. The article also brings several new works, all on architecture, into his known oeuvre, and analyzes them for what they can tell us about La Font's later years.
This PDF also includes an important table that was accidentally omitted from the final publication.

The monastery of Brou founded by Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian I and aunt of his successor Charles V at the head of the Holy Roman Empire, is a masterpiece that has been regarded as a clever political instrument to represent the power of its commissioner. As such, it could also be said that exhibits a keen modern spirit in line with Alberti's literary suggestions, despite its sheer late Gothic architectural features. Considering that the artistic choices of Margaret of Austria might be related to her stay in Spain during the years previous to this foundation, this paper aims at reflecting about the late Gothic – or early Renaissance?! – stylistic experiments that took place in the Iberian Peninsula during that time, which would give rise to the profoundly rhetoric “styles” that became known as Isabellian, Plateresc, and Manueline. Particularly, and focusing on the relationship between visual form and meaning, the paper seeks to reflect on which ideological values – conspicuously “nationalistic” in all the cases – were associated with which different styles in the eve of the short period of time when patrons and architects chose different styles as alternative speeches (namely, the late-Gothic and the Italian Renaissance). The paper will eventually question the preference of Margaret of Austria for a yet “old-fashioned” architectural language as a sort of appraised criticism to provide the buildings at Brou with a particular meaning – this considering some written, pictorial and material evidence.

A city’s identity can be characterized, and defined by its attitude towards the past, present and future. What and how a city chooses to collect and dispose of its artifacts, directly influence the memories of its people.  A repository, which archives valuable records of the city and by extension, the collective memory of its people, are monuments to life.  

Lisa Landrum's paper "Modus Operandi of an Architectus Doli: Architectural Cunning in the Comic Plays of Plautus"  appears as Chapter 15.  Also in the book are essays by Karsten Harries, Marco Frascari, David Leatherbarrow, Kenneth Frampton, Juhani Pallasmaa, Steven Holl, and other colleages and former students of Alberto Perez-Gomez including: Ricardo L. Castro, Tracey Eve Winton, Robert Kirkbride, Paul Emmons, Indra Kagis McEwen, Santiago de Orduña, Caroline Dionne, Lily Chi, Louise Pelletier, Lawrence Bird, Lian Chikako Chang, Natalija Subotincic, Stephen Parcell, Graham Livesey, Juan Manuel Heredia, Anne Bordeleau, Peter Olshavsky, and David Theodore.

Paper summary/excerpts: "At least five of Plautus’ twenty extant comedies involve what classicists call an architectus doli, an “architect of trickery.” … Plautus’ elaboration of the cunning slave character has long been considered one of his most original contributions to Latin drama; but the “architect” terms associated with these slaves (and with Jupiter) were likely transposed from the now largely lost Greek comedies that Plautus adapted and translated into Latin. These five imported “architects” were generally ignored in early studies of Plautine inventiveness. They eventually gained attention, however, in an important 1952 study on The Nature of Roman Comedy. Since then, Plautus’ architectus figure has been interpreted in a variety of ways within classical scholarship: as a euphemism for the play’s lowly agent of intrigue; as a proxy for the scheming playwright; and as a media-reflexive figure associated with other craft imagery used throughout Plautus’ plays to qualify and vivify not only acts of scheming and plot construction, but also moral edification. Yet, there are further interpretations to be made and important questions to be asked…This essay cannot answer these questions in full, but it will initiate an interpretation of Plautus’ architectus doli with such questions in mind. By lifting this Roman dramatist up out of the footnotes of architectural scholarship (where he is sometimes merely credited with providing the earliest extant use of the Latin term architectus), the following study prepares the grounds for discovering how the cunning agents and agencies of Plautus’ comedies meaningfully illuminate the modus operandi of architects..."

Publié en 1966, le livre The New Brutalism. Ethic or Aesthetic ? marque un tournant déterminant dans le processus de redéfinition de l’un des concepts les plus célèbres et les plus ambigus de l’architecture de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle : le « New Brutalism ». Les critiques et polémiques qu’a soulevées cette expression, forgée en 1953 par Peter et Alison Smithson, semblent pourtant témoigner de la capacité exceptionnelle du New Brutalism à alimenter un débat intense qui, aujourd’hui encore, n’a rien perdu de son actualité.
Le corpus inédit de lettres échangées de 1962 à 1966 entre l’auteur Reyner Banham, les propriétaires de la maison d’édition de Stuttgart Karl Krämer Verlag, Karl Krämer père et fils, et l’éditeur Jürgen Joedicke, constitue l’une des rares sources disponibles à ce jour qui permette de retracer la genèse du livre de Banham, The New Brutalism, et révèle que, dans sa forme comme dans ses contenus, cet ouvrage est le fruit d’une étroite collaboration entre l’auteur et son éditeur.

Si la relation des individus à l’architecture est communément fonction de la position d’où ils la considèrent - spécialiste, usager ou amateur, homme de l’art ou commanditaire -, le Siècle des lumières peut aujourd’hui être vu comme un moment de brouillage de ces distinctions. Deux publications en livrent une passionnante démonstration, sous l’angle respectivement de l’histoire et de la philosophie. Elles montrent comment les interactions que favorisent alors l’imprimé et l’espace public y ont contribué.
Livres commentés :
- Richard Wittman, Architecture, culture de l’imprimé et sphère publique dans la France du XVIIIe siècle [2007], Dijon, Les Presses du réel, 2019.
- Ludger Schwarte, Philosophie de l’architecture [2009], Paris, La Découverte / Zones, 2019.

English: The article critically analyses the book Chaos Warszawa. Porządki przestrzenne polskiego kapitalizmu [Warsaw-Chaos. Spatial Orders of Polish Capitalism] by Joanna Kusiak. An attempt at juxtaposing the said publication with other takes on today’s Warsaw space, the city’s post-World War II rebuilding, and post-1989 transformation, results in complex yet reappearing image of Warsaw as a city tainted with chaos. Considering different ways out of this stalemate, on the other hand, as in approaching the problem from another angle, is the aim of the present text. The book by Kusiak is a starting point for a discussion regarding not only space and chaos, but also theoretical discourse related to the city space and its meaning for Warsaw’s development.

French:  L’article est une analyse critique du livre Chaos Warszawa. Porządki przestrzenne polskiego kapitalizmu de Joanna Kusiak. Par la tentative du rapprochement de cette publication d’autres perspectives sur l’espace contemporaine de Varsovie, de sa reconstruction après-guerre et sa transformation constitutionnelle on découvre une
image de la capitale en tant qu’une ville contaminée du chaos. Une analyse des sorties de cette impasse et – de l’autre coté – d’une autre vision de ce problème est le but de cet article. Le livre de Kusiak est un point de départ à la discussion non seulement sur l’espace et le chaos mais aussi sur le discours théorique de l’espace de ville et son importance pour le développement de Varsovie.

Mimarlık alanı özelinde eleştiriye ‘tuhaf’ bir hâller oluyor" diyor Berin Gur. Metnin amacı "Mimarlığın pratiği ile eleştirisi arasındaki, başka bir deyişle mimar ile eleştirmen arasındaki, sarkaç gibi bir uçtan diğer uca savrulan [...] süreçlere, birbirini düşman cepheler ve tehdit olarak algılayan anlayışlara işaret etmek.

هذا المقال يدور حول عمل ليبسكيند الأول من حيث التنفيذ متحف فيليكس نوسباوم. بعد سنوات قضاها كبروفيسور وكاتب معماري، استطاع انتزاع فرصة تنفيذ مشروعه الأول، المتحف هو محاولة لتخليد ذكرى الفنان الألماني ابن مدينة اوسنابروك فيليكس نوسباوم، من خلال عرض 160 عمل من اعماله التي تؤرخ مرحلة مهمة جدًا من مراحل الدولة الألمانية، والتي اعتُبِرَت إرثًا قوميًا ألمانيًا، ولذلك محور السؤال الأول كان يجب أن يكون: من هو فيليكس نوسباوم؟ ولماذا هو على كل هذا القدر من الأهمية؟