Theory into History; Or, the Will to Anthology

Author(s): Sylvia Lavin

Source: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians , Sep., 1999, Vol. 58, No. 3,
Architectural History 1999/2000 (Sep., 1999), pp. 494-499
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Society of Architectural
Historians

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Theory into History
or, The Will to Anthology

SYLVIA LAVIN

University of California, Los

he last few years have seen a proliferation

connected of They transfigure
with the anthological museum.
anthologies in architectural theory,
an importantincludingJoan
eighteenth-century strategy for deploying his-
Ockman, Architecture Culture 1943-1968,
tory and criticality through theK.
technique of collecting texts.
Michael Hays, Architecture Theory
TheSince 1968, Neil
French Revolution Leach,
is thought of as not merely linked
to but caused by
Rethinking Architecture, and Kate Nesbitt, the texts that were
Theorizing anthologized under the
a New
philosophes. Setting
Agenda for Architecture. These publications into practice
differ from a philosophical
each spirit of crit-
other in scope and focus, and some, notably
ical reflection led toOckman and
the overturning of the ancien regime
Hays, are researched volumes of
andsubstantial scholarly
to the invention of enlightened Modernism. This
accomplishment. Together, however, this
sequence of set of publications
presumptions, in which abstract ideas gener-
constitutes a symptomatic phenomenon
ated by the that exceeds
philosopher are set intothe
motion by publication
to shape events,consideration.
intentions of any one editor and warrants might well describe the typical role
While as a group these volumesassigned
describe
to theoryarchitectural
in schools of architecture. Postwar the-
upheaval, they perform a contradictory function
ory, as instrumentalized asrecent
by these well.anthologies, is gen-
Anthologies, compendia, and other such
erally collections
understood estab-
as a mobilization of criticality toward a
lish completion and lend stability revolution
to an otherwise promis-
in design practice.3
cuous body of material. In an important critique of this standard teleology,
The techniques of cataloguing and
Roger classification used
Chartier made the following suggestion:
by these volumes provide both order and closure. They link
their collected texts to current compulsions
In affirming about
that it was propriety
the Enlightenment that produced
and resolution. Anthologies are, thus, the literary
the Revolution, merger
the classical interpretation perhaps inverses log-
ical order:
of museums and psychotherapeutic should we not consider
counselors instead that it was the Rev-
at trauma
sites. Anthologies, moreover, create olution
an equivalent
that invented the not just to
Enlightenment by attempting to root
the museum in general but specifically to inconflicted
its legitimacy insti-
a corpus of texts and founding authors recon-
tutions like the Museum of Modern Art in New York-- ciled and united, beyond their extreme differences, by their
institutions that historicize and thus complete a modernist preparation of a rupture with the old world? When they brought
project that was conceived to be always ongoing.2 together (not without debate) a pantheon of ancestors includ-
These publications are not the first time that intellec- ing Voltaire, Rousseau, Mably and Raynal, when they assigned
tual upheaval, or indeed the trauma of revolution, has been a radically critical function to philosophy . . . , the revolutionar-

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ies constructed a continuity that was primarily a process of jus- among the anthologizers that Peter Eisenman and Man-
tification and a search for paternity.4 fredo Tafuri are the most prominent figures of recent
debate, with Bernard Tschumi and Anthony Vidler of
Chartier's argument obstructs the historiographical ten- almost equal influence. Hence, one of the more interesting
dency to abet the quest for closure. He diagnoses that what effects of the anthological museum is to make already archi-
the revolutionaries offered as evidence for the fact that the tectural that which was previously seen as alien and thus to
Revolution had come to a coherent conclusion was instead claim forms of continuity parallel to those diagnosed by
a symptom of unresolved conflict. Chartier.

The recent anthologies in architectural theory produce The notable exception is the volume edited by Leach,
the same effects of stability and conquest. The differences indeed subtitled A Reader in Cultural Theory. The essays in
among these anthologies, however, are significant. Nesbitt Rethinking Architecture (1997) were "all written by thinkers
is interested in establishing a brute break with Modernismfrom 'outside' architecture" and were collected because and
in order to support a vague pluralism under the name of the insofar as they "stand in opposition to the mainstream body
postmodern; Leach launches a poststructural attack on of accepted architectural theory."' One could quibble with
modern formalism; Hays seeks to position theory as a some of Leach's decisions. For example, why include Kra-
means of resistance to the infiltration of consumer culture; cauer's essay on the hotel lobby rather than the arguably more
Ockman attempts to recover those aspects of Modernism widely read essays on ornament or the arcades? The position
that survive into the postwar period and might still be of the editor is the neo-Marxism characteristic of much
deployed in the service of a social agenda for architecture. British cultural theory, which may help explain, for example,
A broad range of thinkers now upholds theory, just as the why psychoanalytic theory makes no appearance in the col-
philosophes became the unquestioned heroes of modernlection despite its impact on cultural theory in general and
France. But unlike the French version that went undetected, on architectural theory in particular. Nevertheless, the selec-
the Anglo-Saxon anthological museum does not fullytion succeeds in demonstrating the importance of architec-
repress ideological irresolution. ture to a broad range of twentieth-century thinkers.
The recent anthologies in architectural theory exhibit Rethinking Architecture, however, remains generic.
the general symptoms described by Chartier. More specifi- Leach denigrates the specific concerns of architectural the-
cally, they suggest an engagement with an increasingly his- ory as a "discourse of form" and claims that, as a result,
torical or at least genealogical project. Although liberated "architectural discourse ... has operated largely at a super-
from the patriarchy that inflicted the revolutionaries, these ficial level."6 By excluding the problematic of architectural
volumes similarly construct an intellectual lineage for the form altogether, Leach limits the potential of architecture
present. The editors achieve this progeneration by assigningto operate in any capacity beyond that of a metaphor staged
a continuously critical function not to philosophy but to by philosophy. Encountering this particular categorical
architecture theory. Indeed, an issue raised by these antholo- error is peculiar, since Mark Wigley has demonstrated, in
gies concerns the relation between cultural theory and phi-relation to the very body of material anthologized by Leach,
losophy in general and architectural theory in particular. how architecture always exceeds the role of metaphor to
A distinguishing feature of the lineage constructed by which philosophy wants architecture to submit. More sur-
these texts is that it is generated from within the discipline prising is the fact that Wigley himself is not represented in
of architecture. A stormy controversy that has consistentlyLeach's volume.7 Perhaps Leach's desire to include only
surrounded the theorization of architecture since the 1960s those outside the discipline explains this exclusion. A better

is the conflict over engagement with ideas and concepts explanation, however, is the fact that Wigley has done much
developed in other fields. The resistance to theory in archi- to demonstrate the particular importance of architectural
tecture is often framed as a resistance to an invading outside form, which Leach finds superficial. Insofar as Leach con-
force. Whether in reaction to Robert Venturi's interest in structs the importance of architecture only in relation to
literary criticism or to the impact of paraliterary figures suchcultural theory produced by "philosophes," architecture as
as Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, architecture has event escapes the purview of his rethinking, and the
addressed theory with xenophobia. Most of these antholo- Enlightenment model whereby philosophy produces revo-
gies dampen the impact of texts by authors such as Michel lutions (or theory produces design) remains intact.
Foucault or Jiirgen Habermas, even though these authors The Nesbitt volume, Theorizing a New Agenda for
can be said to have had the deepest transformative effects on Architecture (1996), represents the opposite end of the spec-
architectural discourse. Instead, there is wide agreement trum. Appearing to be the most intellectually ecumenical

THEORY INTO HISTORY 495

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of these anthologies, it perhaps most acutely suffers the tecture qua architecture the status of a theoretical formula-
pathologies of the anthological-museum phenomenon. The tion. For example, Rem Koolhaas's influential design for the
volume was "specifically designed for an audience of prac- Bibliotheque de France is included rather than excerpts
ticing architects," and it proliferates with categories and from S,M,L,XL, even though both explore the concept of
classifications concerned with various facets of the debates bigness.12 The inclusion of this kind of project gives Hays's
about postmodernism.8 But the book is quite limited in volume a distinct and welcome texture in the midst of the

focus and deals precisely with what Leach denigrates as the relentless wordiness of these anthologies."3 At the same
theoretical mainstream, including essays by Robert A. M. time, however, these designs raise questions about the para-
Stern and Michael Graves. Yet, despite the division of the- meters of Hays's book. Although he includes several texts
ory into no less than fourteen types or classes, it is startling that postdate the 1989 Bibliotheque de France competition,
to consider what has been omitted. Nesbitt's claims to plu- no other architectural projects represent the last ten years.14
ralism notwithstanding, her compendium makes no men- This somewhat equivocal attitude toward the more
tion of the impact on architecture made by theories of recent past, and the more recent design project in particu-
everyday life, psychoanalysis, or identity politics.9 Even lar, points to several significant theoretical trajectories Hays
more problematic are Nesbitt's exclusion of any texts that omitted. Media studies and digital technologies have had
consider the role of technology and her inclusion of phe- consequential exchanges with architecture but have very lit-
nomenology without acknowledging the intense scrutiny it tle importance in this compendium.15 Similarly, the emer-
has undergone through the lens of visual culture and other gence of a new materialist thinking in architecture, much
critiques.10 Finally, the majority of texts reprinted by Nes- influenced by Gilles Deleuze, might have been demon-
bitt were written before 1985, and the entire generation of strated and could have been represented by either literary or
theorists whose work came to dominate the discourse after design "texts."16 Hays's selection, by contrast, with its
that-Jeffrey Kipnis, Catherine Ingraham, Jennifer emphasis on the Frankfurt School, Louis Althusser, and the
Bloomer, to name just a few-is conspicuously absent. poststructuralism of Derrida, privileges the writing of a crit-
Nesbitt's anthology suggests that the theorists who were ical theory of architecture. Indeed, the priority given to crit-
prominent in the 1970s still define the terms of the debate icality and resistance is of greater consequence to the book
at the edge of the millennium. This claim is so incredible than is the inclusion or exclusion of any single author or
that making it must have some strategic value. By Nesbitt's school of thought. And it is perhaps the end of the domi-
own admission, the years 1965 to 1995 really comprise two nance of criticality that destabilizes the parameters Hays set
periods divided around 1970, when the certainties of struc- for himself and for his anthology. His volume is not as
tural analyses gave way to the uncertainties privileged by open-ended as the "theory since 1968" in the title suggests,
poststructuralism. Nesbitt's occlusion of these differences but rather it establishes closure for a period ending around
permits her to use "the collapse of the Modern Movement" 1990. The dense cohesion of texts selected by Hays begins
as a self-justifying source of continuity and as a means of co- to dissipate with those written after the Deconstructivist
opting certain texts and figures. Eisenman and Tschumi, the Architecture exhibition at MoMA in 1989, and Architecture
two authors with the largest number of essays in her anthol- Theory Since 1968 might have convincingly ended with that
ogy, did not support the ecumenical side of postmodernism event." Nevertheless, the difference between the two proj-
nor did they mount an antimodern campaign. The volume ects is significant. Instead of reiterating the call made by the
thus establishes a kind of Valhalla of theoretical "greats" who exhibition to generate radical design through the investiga-
are portrayed as, first, in the service of a theoretical plural- tion of critical theory, Hays's primary project is "to show
ism they never endorsed and, second, devoted to an annihi- the prevailing contours . . . of what many readers still take
lation of Modernism they never advocated. to be a dim and shapeless mass of texts, for even if the
The most interesting and provocative anthologies, and importance of theory can hardly be denied, its historical
those that will have the most impact, are the companion configuration has not been charted." Thus we see in Hays
volumes edited by Hays and Ockman. " Architecture Theory the subsuming of a once deniable theoretical provocation
Since 1968 (1998) is the most complex of the volumes. It to be critical within a newly formulated will to historicize
combines texts from inside the discipline with a small num- the theory of architecture.
ber of samples from without. Seminal design projects, both A reconsideration of the status of history may indeed
built and unbuilt, are incorporated as a distinct form of the- turn out to be the most lasting theoretical provocation of
oretical text and architectural thinking. Architecture Theory these anthologies. Ockman's volume is the one least con-
Since 1968 is the only one of these volumes to accord archi- cerned with theory in the contemporary sense-its contents

496 JSAH / 58:3, SEPTEMBER, 1999

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belong largely in the tradition of manifestoes, writings on There is, thus, ample evidence that architectural theory
design method, and criticism. Consequently, Architecture has been the purview of the architect and his milieu and that
Culture will have scant impact on current design practices. something is taking place to dislodge that nexus. That this
By the same token, however, it evokes most fully the his- self-theorizing of the architect evolved in schools of archi-
torical issues raised by this set of anthologies. Ockman's tecture and in the context of teaching design rather than
focus is on what she calls architecture culture rather than architectural history might be explained by the vagueness of
on architecture theory. While this distinction reveals Ock- architecture within the academy. Sometimes considered a
man's own interest in demonstrating the cultural embed- profession, sometimes a part of the humanities, architecture
dedness of architecture, it also helps set up a particular is frequently relegated to vocationally oriented campuses or
historical scenario. Ockman, Hays, and Tschumi (in his is simply not taught by major universities.22 This placeless-
preface to Ockman's volume) all similarly explain that there ness of the discipline, a function of the porosity of the disci-
was no theory, properly speaking, in architecture before pline's boundaries, contributed to architecture's great
1968. Instead, there was a culture of criticism that made the capacity to absorb and respond to extradisciplinary forces.
emergence after 1968 of a theoretical radicality possible. But even more important is the professional school's tra-
What they do not go on to say, however, is that this theo- ditional emphasis on the architectural studio and the object
retical emergence has itself engendered the emergence of a it produces. This object provides the event in which archi-
new phenomenon: it is now possible to return to the post- tectural theory has sought to be instantiated. Although mar-
war period and there to construct an intricate culture rather ginalized by the purported priority given to built work, the
than a listing of programs and manifestoes.I8 In contrast to supplementarity of theory in the university abets critical the-
the recent past, when theorists actively disdained historical ory's claim to be the origin of radical design. In this sense,
work and its institutional imbrications, the Ockman volume the relations between ideas and revolution described by
develops a new form of theorized architectural history. Chartier, wherein philosophy is called upon to initiate as well
If historical studies are to be the locus of a next period as to stabilize revolution, have their counterpart in the cur-
of theorization in architecture, this development must in ricula of schools of architecture. In the contemporary acad-
part be seen in institutional terms. Both the Hays and the emy, theory both drives design and maintains criticality
Ockman volumes were published by Columbia Books of through institutional marginalization. Although the texts
Architecture produced by Columbia University, while the themselves resist this instrumentality, and in fact have helped
Nesbitt volume and the Oppositions Reader were published by make such unilateral claims about the relationship between
Princeton Architectural Press. Several of these publications theory and design untenable, this particular academic econ-
began as seminar material taught to architecture students.19 omy has supported much of the work here anthologized.
In any case, all four spring specifically from design culture.20 The recent drift in architectural theory toward histor-
The editors are members of architecture faculties and most
ical studies arises from and extends this circulation through
were trained as architects rather than architectural histori-
institutional structures. Architectural historians now pur-
ans. Except for those in the Leach volume, almost every sin- sue research on feminism and gender, for example, an
gle author anthologized was trained as an architect.21 important subject of theoretical inquiry underrepresented
These facts compare rather dramatically with the insti- in these compendia.23 The refocusing of theoretical energy
tutional history of theory in the visual arts, where promi- on historical research is evident in a wide range of phe-
nent figures such as Rosalind Krauss were trained in art nomena, from the work of scholars such as Wigley, who has
history, not the fine arts. Oppositions and October played par- moved from theoretical writing to writing in more histori-
allel roles in their respective disciplines, but the original edi- cal terms, to the organization of these anthologies, to these
tors of October were primarily art historians, not practicing remarks occasioned by an invitation issued by the JSAH to
artists, whereas the editors (and authors) of Oppositions were address these issues.24 The relations between history and
primarily architects, not architectural historians. None of theory have been an important debate for theorists over the
these anthologies contains a single text previously published last twenty years, a point made particularly clear by the
by the JSAH, and almost all of them were first published in Oppositions Reader, and the revisiting of historiography is
journals with a more design-oriented architectural audi- thus far from naive. The anthological museum should
ence. Finally, not many readers of the JSAH would have therefore be viewed in relation to its performative subtext:
been interested in these reissued texts ten years ago-or by announcing a historical revolution, a revolution in his-
even seen them as antagonistic, while theJSAHwas treated tory is initiated. And if history becomes the locus for a new
by theorists with indifference. period of theorization in which the basic parameters of the

THEORY INTO HISTORY 497

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discipline are interrogated, history will no longer need to Notes
1. See Joan Ockman, ed., with the collaboration of Edward Eigan, Archi-
provide therapeutic closure but will instead open new
tecture Culture 1943-1968 (New York, 1993); K. Michael Hays, ed., Archi-
potentials for intellection.
tecture Theory Since 1968 (Cambridge, Mass., 1998); and Neil Leach, ed.,
A perfect anthology of architectural theory cannot be
RethinkingArchitecture (London and New York, 1997). See also Kate Nes-
imagined, because no such compendium could ever escape bitt, Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology ofArchitectural
the conditions of the form. Hence, the particulars of any Theory 1965-1995 (New York, 1996); Jay Stein and Ken Spreckelmeyer,
one argument matter less than the common structure of the eds., Classic Readings in Architecture (Boston,1999); and K. Michael Hays,
ed., Oppositions Reader (New York, 1998).
argumentation. Despite their differences, all the recent vol-
2. The Museum of Modern Art was recently forced to give several valuable
umes constitute efforts to chart the historical terrain of the
drawings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art
years following World War II. In the past, studies of the Ital- Institute of Chicago. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the original donor of the
ian Renaissance elicited the most advanced theoretical drawings, by van Gogh and Seurat, had specified in her will that after fifty
years, when the paintings were no longer "modern," MoMA be required
scrutiny--indeed, Rudolf Wittkower's Architectural Principles
to deaccession them. On this event and the transformation of MoMA into
haunts these volumes, as it resonates through the work of
a museum with a historical mission, see the New York Times, 26 October
Colin Rowe and Peter Eisenman to the present moment.25
1998.
Today, if these anthologies are any indication, historical3. By contrast, the books of Vitruvius or the writings of a theorist such as
research on the postwar years engenders the most theoreti- Jacques Frangois Blondel, for example, are understood to reflect and artic-
cal development. This field of study, particularly in relationulate the common architectural practices of their times rather than to have
caused a fundamental change in the discipline.
to the United States, brings to the fore issues of urgent con-
4. Roger Chartier, The Cultural Origins of the French Revolution, trans. Lydia
temporary concern including architecture's interaction with
G. Cochrane (Durham, N.C., and London, 1991), 5.
media, the restructuring of professional practice, psycho-
5. Leach, RethinkingArchitecture, xvi and xvii.
analysis, corporate culture and globalization, postmetropol-6. Ibid., xiv.
itan urbanism, and technologized visuality. 7. Of Wigley's publications, the most relevant to Leach's argument include
The architectural theorist may be the nominal protag-Derrida's Haunt, The Architecture of Deconstruction (Cambridge, Mass., and
London, 1993) and, with Philip Johnson, Deconstructivist Architecture, exhi-
onist of these anthologies, but the emergent figure of con-
bition catalogue (New York, 1988).
sequence is the historian.26 Indeed, the research these
8. See Nesbitt, Theorizing a New Agenda, 13.
volumes solicit is a radical rewriting of the history of archi-
9. Hays's volume also excludes feminism and identity politics, but it neither
tecture, a job proper to an academic context. If recent devel-shares Nesbitt's claim to ecumenical pluralism nor leaves the omission
opments, both those included and those not included in unmentioned. See Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, xv n. 8.

these volumes, are indicators, the period of theorization in10. See, for example, Martin Jay, Downcast Eyes, The Denigration of Vision in
Twentieth-Century French Thought (Berkeley, 1993), 265-275. Nesbitt's pri-
architecture concerned above all with problems of signifi-
mary identification of phenomenology with what she calls questions "of
cation, representation, and criticality has come to a close.
meaning and place," rather than with issues in technology and visuality, is
But this termination offers neither closure nor resolution.
similarly problematic.
Instead, it suggests that if the formative discourses in
11. Hays describes the relation between the two volumes as companions in
schools of architecture are going to be displaced by the the first note of his introduction. See Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968,
xiv.
analyses of historians, a new space of rigor may be opened
12. See Rem Koolhaas, Bruce Mau, and the Office for Metropolitan Archi-
up for an emergent architectural theory. Historical work
tecture, S,M,L,XL (New York, 1995), particularly 494-517.
may even become of interest to nonhistorical thinking.
13. It must be noted, on the other hand, that it is not always clear what is
The will to anthology exposes a prevalent wish for
"theoretical" about the projects Hays included. For example, there is no
genealogical continuity and the desire to claim victory over
question that the Frank Gehry House (Santa Monica, Calif., 1979) is impor-
tant. Its status as a theoretical text, however, is debatable unless one under-
ongoing theoretical conflicts. The need for conquest, reso-
stands design innovation to be synonymous with theoretical formulation.
lution, and hence catharsis notwithstanding, these volumes
14. The only exception is the image on the book's cover, Stan Allen's Spec-
describe a difficult series of displacements and oscillations
tral Geographies of 1991, which, as far as I could find, receives no discussion
among theory, design, and the historical archive. The symp-other than a figure credit on the back flap of the jacket. The project is thus
toms of the French revolutionaries went undiagnosed for presented with exquisite ambivalence, simultaneously invisible wallpaper
centuries, when wishes were mistaken for facts. Theorized
and prominent falade.

historiography has eliminated the need for that particular15. Given Hays's inclusion of designs as text, the absence of the work of
Diller + Scofidio is somewhat surprising. Their work exemplifies architec-
form of sublimation. As a result, the new ditournements will
ture's critical engagement with new technologies both in theoretical terms
permit a long-awaited radicalization of history, as well as
as well as in relation to design. It is perhaps worth noting in this context that
the reemergence of the design project as a distinct and dis-
a new periodical, Grey Room, is currently preparing its first issue to appear
tinguished theoretical event. in August 2000. This new publication is in some sense a reformulation of

498 JSAH / 58:3, SEPTEMBER, 1999

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Assemblage, which has been the primary vehicle for architectural theory in 24. Wigley's White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Archi-
the United States during the last decade but which will soon cease publica- tecture (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1995), for example, is much more
tion. One of the major ways the editors of Grey Room are distinguishing historical in emphasis than was his earlier work on Derrida and decon-
their project from that of Assemblage is through an emphasis on architec- struction cited above.

ture's relationship to media technologies. I was asked to write an essay for the Special Double Issue ofJSAH by
16. See, for example, Bernard Cache, Terre meuble (Orleans, 1997), and Greg Eve Blau, the editor, on the subject of "the impact that theory (as consti-
Lynn, Folds, Bodies and Blobs: Collected Essays (Brussels, 1998), or Lynn, Ani- tuted and taught in schools of architecture) has had on the discipline of
mate Form (New York, 1999). architectural history and its relationship to its own history."
17. Hays includes the exhibition in the anthology as one of the nonliterary 25. Sections of Wittkower's Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism
theoretical "texts" described above. Moreover, five of the seven architects were first published as "Alberti's Approach to Antiquity in Architecture,"
in the Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition were also selected by Hays to Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes IV, nos. 1-2 (1940-1941): 1-18;
represent theoretical design projects in his compendium. "Principles of Palladio's Architecture," ibid. VII, nos. 3-4 (1944): 102-122;
18. Ulrich Conrad's Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-century Architecture and "Principles of Palladio's Architecture II," ibid. VIII (1945): 68-106. On
(Cambridge, Mass., 1964) is the best-known example of this type of anthol- the importance of Wittkower to analytic formalism and to contemporary
ogy. While Conrad's volume certainly does not lack for ideology-Conrad architectural theory, see ANY Magazine 7/8 (1994), a special issue on Colin
intended his compendium to defend rationalist functionalism-it is not the- Rowe, especially Greg Lynn's "New Variations on the Rowe Complex."
oretical in any contemporary sense of the term. 26. In this context, Nesbitt makes some telling remarks about the relation-
19. Nesbitt, Leach, and Stein and Spreckelmeyer all explicitly describe the ship between history and theory. Confusing a lack of theoretical self-
origins of their volumes in material prepared for courses taught in archi- consciousness with a lack of ideology, she believes historians can be
tecture programs. objective: "a conventional historian might show how others have
20. This institutional convergence suggests, among other things, the approached the issues of the moment, without explicitly advocating a posi-
increasing coherence of what were once considered very distinct theoreti- tion." The historian is in fact a straw man set up in order to be toppled by
cal trajectories. the engagement of theorists. While the oscillation between history and the-
21. Hays seems especially central in this nexus of publications through ory is an important symptom of these volumes, Nesbitt's simple opposition
which theory is being newly historicized. For example, several essays in of aware theorist and objective historian is simply no longer tenable.
Architecture Theory Since 1968, such as ones by Jorge Silvetti, Eisenman, and
Diana Agrest, appear in the Oppositions Reader, which Hays also edited; many
essays included in Architecture Theory Since 1968 were first published in Selected Texts
Assemblage, of which Hays is a founding editor, and some, such as Robert Hays, K. Michael, ed. Architecture Theory Since 1968. A Columbia Book of
Somol's "One or Several Masters," were originally published in volumes Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998.
Hays edited. - , ed. Oppositions Reader. New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
22. On the relationship between architecture and the academy, see Mark 1998.

Wigley, "Prosthetic Theory: The Disciplining of Architecture," Assemblage Leach, Neil, ed. Rethinking Architecture. London and New York: Rout-
15 (1991): 7-30. ledge, 1997.
23. In this context, one should compare the theoretical ambitions of Beat- Nesbitt, Kate. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of
riz Colomina, ed., Sexuality and Space, Princeton Papers on Architecture Architectural Theory 1965-1995. New York: Princeton Architectural
(New York, 1992), with the historical work in Alice Friedman's Women and Press, 1996.
the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (New York, Ockman, Joan, ed., with the collaboration of Edward Eigan. Architecture
1998). This current shift parallels the one that took place in Tafuri's work. Culture 1943-1968. A Columbia Book of Architecture. New York:

By the end of his life, Tafuri worked almost exclusively on historical subjects Rizzoli International Publications, 1993.
and his influence on contemporary American architectural scholarship Stein, Jay, and Ken Spreckelmeyer, eds. Classic Readings in Architecture.
remains inestimable. Boston: WCB/McGraw-Hill,1999.

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