Download or read book Power and Architecture written by Michael Minkenberg and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital cities have been the seat of political power and central stage for their state’s political conflicts and rituals throughout the ages. In the modern era, they provide symbols for and confer meaning to the state, thereby contributing to the “invention” of the nation. Capitals capture the imagination of natives, visitors and outsiders alike, yet also express the outcomes of power struggles within the political systems in which they operate. This volume addresses the reciprocal relationships between identity, regime formation, urban planning, and public architecture in the Western world. It examines the role of urban design and architecture in expressing (or hiding) ideological beliefs and political agenda. Case studies include “old” capitals such as Rome, Vienna, Berlin and Warsaw; “new” ones such as Washington DC, Ottawa, Canberra, Ankara, Bonn, and Brasília; and the “European” capital Brussels. Each case reflects the authors’ different disciplinary backgrounds in architecture, history, political science, and urban studies, demonstrating the value of an interdisciplinary approach to studying cities.
Download or read book Five Ways to Make Architecture Political written by Albena Yaneva and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five Ways to Make Architecture Political presents an innovative pragmatist agenda that will inspire new thinking about the politics of design and architectural practice. Moving beyond conventional conversations about design and politics, the book shows how recent developments in political philosophy can transform our understanding of the role of the architect. It asks: how, when, and under what circumstances can design practice generate political relations? How can architectural design become more 'political'? Five central chapters, which can be read alone or in sequence, explore the answers to these questions. Powerfully pragmatic in approach, each presents one of the 'five ways to make architecture political', and each is illustrated by case studies from a range of contemporary situations around the world. We see how politics happens in architectural practice, learn how different design technologies have political effects, and follow how architects reach different publics, trigger reactions and affect different communities worldwide. Combining an accessible introduction to contemporary political concepts with a practical approach for a more political kind of practice, this book will stimulate debate among students and theorists alike, and inspire action in established and start-up practices.
Download or read book The Efficacy of Architecture written by Tahl Kaminer and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A significant ideological transition has taken place in the discipline of architecture in the last few years. Originating in a displeasure with the ‘starchitecture’ system and the focus on aesthetic innovation, a growing number of architects, emboldened by the 2007–8 economic crisis, have staged a rebellion against the dominant mode of architectural production. Against a ‘disinterested’ position emulating high art, they have advocated political engagement, citizen participation and the right to the city. Against the fascination with the rarefied architectural object, they have promoted an interest in everyday life, play, self-build and personalization. At the centre of this rebellion is the call for architecture to (re-)assume its social and political role in society. The Efficacy of Architecture supports the return of architecture to politics by interrogating theories, practices and instances that claim or evidence architectural agency. It studies the political theories animating the architects, revisits the emergence of reformist architecture in the late nineteenth century, and brings to the fore the relation of spatial organization to social forms. In the process, a clearer picture emerges of the agency of architecture, of the threats to as well as potentials for meaningful societal transformation through architectural design.
Download or read book Political Theory and Architecture written by Duncan Bell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can political theory teach us about architecture, and what can it learn from paying closer attention to architecture? The essays assembled in this volume begin from a common postulate: that architecture is not merely a backdrop to political life but a political force in its own right. Each in their own way, they aim to give countenance to that claim, and to show how our thinking about politics can be enriched by reflecting on the built environment. The collection advances four lines of inquiry, probing the connection between architecture and political regimes; examining how architecture can be constitutive of the ethical and political realm; uncovering how architecture is enmeshed in logics of governmentality and in the political economy of the city; and asking to what extent we can think of architecture-tributary as it is to the flows of capital-as a partially autonomous social force. Taken together, the essays demonstrate the salience of a range of political theoretical approaches for the analysis of architecture, and show that architecture deserves a place as an object of study in political theory, alongside institutions, laws, norms, practices, imaginaries, and discourses.
Download or read book Ornament written by Antoine Picon and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-05-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once condemned by Modernism and compared to a ‘crime’ by Adolf Loos, ornament has made a spectacular return in contemporary architecture. This is typified by the works of well-known architects such as Herzog & de Meuron, Sauerbruch Hutton, Farshid Moussavi Architecture and OMA. There is no doubt that these new ornamental tendencies are inseparable from innovations in computer technology. The proliferation of developments in design software has enabled architects to experiment afresh with texture, colour, pattern and topology. Though inextricably linked with digital tools and culture, Antoine Picon argues that some significant traits in ornament persist from earlier Western architectural traditions. These he defines as the ‘subjective’ – the human interaction that ornament requires in both its production and its reception – and the political. Contrary to the message conveyed by the founding fathers of modern architecture, traditional ornament was not meant only for pleasure. It conveyed vital information about the designation of buildings as well as about the rank of their owners. As such, it participated in the expression of social values, hierarchies and order. By bringing previous traditions in ornament under scrutiny, Picon makes us question the political issues at stake in today’s ornamental revival. What does it tell us about present-day culture? Why are we presently so fearful of meaning in architecture? Could it be that by steering so vehemently away from symbolism, contemporary architecture is evading any explicit contribution to collective values?
Download or read book The Autopoiesis of Architecture Volume I written by Patrik Schumacher and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-04-20 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a theoretical approach to architecture with The Autopoiesis of Architecture, which presents the topic as a discipline with its own unique logic. Architecture's conception of itself is addressed as well as its development within wider contemporary society. Author Patrik Schumacher offers innovative treatment that enriches architectural theory with a coordinated arsenal of concepts facilitating both detailed analysis and insightful comparisons with other domains, such as art, science and politics. He explores how the various modes of communication comprising architecture depend upon each other, combine, and form a unique subsystem of society that co-evolves with other important autopoietic subsystems like art, science, politics and the economy. The first of two volumes that together present a comprehensive account of architecture's autopoiesis, this book elaborates the theory of architecture?s autopoeisis in 8 parts, 50 sections and 200 chapters. Each of the 50 sections poses a thesis drawing a central message from the insights articulated within the respective section. The 200 chapters are gathering and sorting the accumulated intelligence of the discipline according to the new conceptual framework adopted, in order to catalyze and elaborate the new formulations and insights that are then encapsulated in the theses. However, while the theoretical work in the text of the chapters relies on the rigorous build up of a new theoretical language, the theses are written in ordinary language ? with the theoretical concepts placed in brackets. The full list of the 50 theses affords a convenient summary printed as appendix at the end of the book. The second volume completes the analysis of the discourse and further proposes a new agenda for contemporary architecture in response to the challenges and opportunities that confront architectural design within the context of current societal and technological developments.
Download or read book Architecture Politics and Identity in Divided Berlin written by Emily Pugh and published by University of Pittsburgh Press. This book was released on 2014-03-21 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 13, 1961, under the cover of darkness, East German authorities sealed the border between East and West Berlin using a hastily constructed barbed wire fence. Over the next twenty-eight years of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall grew to become an ever-present physical and psychological divider in this capital city and a powerful symbol of Cold War tensions. Similarly, stark polarities arose in nearly every aspect of public and private life, including the built environment. In Architecture, Politics, and Identity in Divided Berlin Emily Pugh provides an original comparative analysis of selected works of architecture and urban planning in both halves of Berlin during the Wall era, revealing the importance of these structures to the formation of political, cultural, and social identities. Pugh uncovers the roles played by organizations such as the Foundation for Prussian Cultural Heritage and the Building Academy in conveying the political narrative of their respective states through constructed spaces. She also provides an overview of earlier notable architectural works, to show the precursors for design aesthetics in Berlin at large, and considers projects in the post-Wall period, to demonstrate the ongoing effects of the Cold War. Overall, Pugh offers a compelling case study of a divided city poised between powerful contending political and ideological forces, and she highlights the effort expended by each side to influence public opinion in Europe and around the World through the manipulation of the built environment.
Download or read book The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism written by Gwendolyn Wright and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics and culture are at once semi-autonomous and intertwined. Nowhere is this more revealingly illustrated than in urban design, a field that encompasses architecture and social life, traditions and modernization. Here aesthetic goals and political intentions meet, sometimes in collaboration, sometimes in conflict. Here the formal qualities of art confront the complexities of history. When urban design policies are implemented, they reveal underlying aesthetic, cultural, and political dilemmas with startling clarity. Gwendolyn Wright focuses on three French colonies--Indochina, Morocco, and Madagascar--that were the most discussed, most often photographed, and most admired showpieces of the French empire in the early twentieth century. She explores how urban policy and design fit into the French colonial policy of "association," a strategy that accepted, even encouraged, cultural differences while it promoted modern urban improvements that would foster economic development for Western investors. Wright shows how these colonial cities evolved, tracing the distinctive nature of each locale under French imperialism. She also relates these cities to the larger category of French architecture and urbanism, showing how consistently the French tried to resolve certain stylistic and policy problems they faced at home and abroad. With the advice of architects and sociologists, art historians and geographers, colonial administrators sought to exert greater control over such matters as family life and working conditions, industrial growth and cultural memory. The issues Wright confronts--the potent implications of traditional norms, cultural continuity, modernization, and radical urban experiments--still challenge us today.
Download or read book The Social Re Production of Architecture written by Doina Petrescu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social (Re)Production of Architecture brings the debates of the ‘right to the city’ into today’s context of ecological, economic and social crises. Building on the 1970s’ discussions about the ‘production of space’, which French sociologist Henri Lefebvre considered a civic right, the authors question who has the right to make space, and explore the kinds of relations that are produced in the process. In the emerging post-capitalist era, this book addresses urgent social and ecological imperatives for change and opens up questions around architecture’s engagement with new forms of organization and practice. The book asks what (new) kinds of ‘social’ can architecture (re)produce, and what kinds of politics, values and actions are needed. The book features 24 interdisciplinary essays written by leading theorists and practitioners including social thinkers, economic theorists, architects, educators, urban curators, feminists, artists and activists from different generations and global contexts. The essays discuss the diverse, global locations with work taking different and specific forms in these different contexts. A cutting-edge, critical text which rethinks both practice and theory in the light of recent crises, making it key reading for students, academics and practitioners.
Download or read book Governing by Design written by Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-04-29 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governing by Design offers a unique perspective on twentieth-century architectural history. It disputes the primacy placed on individuals in the design and planning process and instead looks to the larger influences of politics, culture, economics, and globalization to uncover the roots of how our built environment evolves. In these chapters, historians offer their analysis on design as a vehicle for power and as a mediator of social currents. Power is defined through a variety of forms: modernization, obsolescence, technology, capital, ergonomics, biopolitics, and others. The chapters explore the diffusion of power through the establishment of norms and networks that frame human conduct, action, identity, and design. They follow design as it functions through the body, in the home, and at the state and international level. Overall, Aggregate views the intersection of architecture with the human need for what Foucault termed "governmentality"—societal rules, structures, repetition, and protocols—as a way to provide security and tame risk. Here, the conjunction of power and the power of design reinforces governmentality and infuses a sense of social permanence despite the exceedingly fluid nature of societies and the disintegration of cultural memory in the modern era.
Download or read book The Politics of Architecture written by Samuel E. Bleecker and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nelson Rockefeller's fondness for massive architectural projects was never a secret. From the 1930s when he first worked with his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., on the construction and management of Rockefeller Center, his fascination with building on a large scale had been set in motion. As governor of New York from 1959 through 1973, he launched such projects as the State University Construction Fund, a huge effort to build not only new campus buildings, but entire new campuses across the state; he was responsible for at least 90,000 low to middle-income housing units; and Albany Mall, one of the largest, most grandiose single governmental construction projects in American history. He was also a prime mover in the creation of the United Nations and the determination of its site in New York City. These are only a few of the projects covered in this book since Rockefeller's administration produced buildings the way other administrations produced official declarations. The Politics of Architecture is about politics and architecture. It's about power in that era and the people who wielded it - Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Alger Hiss, Robert Moses, William Zeckendorf, just to name a few. It's about negotiations and compromise, and when those failed, it's about a well-oiled political crew who pulled out all stops. "Architecture," Rockefeller said, "is not just bricks and mortar, steel and glass, but an expression of economic needs, cultural aspirations, political life, and international relations." The book also reveals Rockefeller's use of art in architecture; his lifelong affair with contemporary tastes and standards, his affection for painting, sculpture, and architecture. His lifelong professional relationship with architect Wallace K. Harrison is traced from their early Rockefeller Center days to Nelson's death in 1979. Published here for the first time are Ezra Stoller's photographs of the private houses of Nelson Rockefeller at Pocantico Hills, New York, and Seal Harbor, Maine. The projects that Rockefeller launched, negotiated, and saw to completion could not have been accomplished by one person alone, but demanded a cast of hundreds, a multitude of opinions, and scores of successes and failures. The Politics of Architecture is a glance into the history and the people who shaped the New York landscape - and in particular, it is the story of one man's intimate involvement with the details and realities of architecture. -- Book Jacket
Download or read book Ethno Architecture and the Politics of Migration written by Mirjana Lozanovska and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethno-Architecture and the Politics of Migration explores the interface between migration and architecture. Cities have been substantially affected by transnational migration but the physical manifestations of migration in architecture – and its effect on streetscape, neighbourhood and city – have so far been understudied. This contributed volume examines how migrants interact with, adapt, and construct new architecture. Looking at the physical, urban and cultural impact of these changes on a variety of sites, the authors explore architecture as an identity category and investigate what buildings and places associated with migration tell us about central questions of belonging, culture, community, and home in regions such as North America, Australia and the UK. An important contribution to debates on place identity and the transformation of places as a result of mobility and globalised economies in the 21st century.
Download or read book The Political Unconscious of Architecture written by Professor Nadir Lahiji and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-06-28 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years have passed since eminent cultural and literary critic Fredric Jameson wrote his classic work, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, in which he insisted that "there is nothing that is not social and historical - indeed, that everything is 'in the last analysis' political." Bringing together a team of leading scholars this book critically examines the important contribution made by this eminent cultural and literary critic, and breaks new ground in architectural criticism, offering insights into the interrelationships between politics, culture, space, and architecture. Fredric Jameson himself provides an afterword.
Download or read book The Politics of Design written by Ruben Pater and published by BIS Publishers. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many designs that appear in today's society will circulate and encounter audiences of many different cultures and languages. With communication comes responsibility; are designers aware of the meaning and impact of their work? An image or symbol that is acceptable in one culture can be offensive or even harmful in the next. A typeface or colour in a design might appear to be neutral, but its meaning is always culturally dependent. If designers learn to be aware of global cultural contexts, we can avoid stereotyping and help improve mutual understanding between people. Politics of Design is a collection of visual examples from around the world. Using ideas from anthropology and sociology, it creates surprising and educational insight in contemporary visual communication. The examples relate to the daily practice of both online and offline visual communication: typography, images, colour, symbols, and information. Politics of Design shows the importance of visual literacy when communicating beyond borders and cultures. It explores the cultural meaning behind the symbols, maps, photography, typography, and colours that are used every day. It is a practical guide for design and communication professionals and students to create more effective and responsible visual communication.
Download or read book Architecture Against the Post Political written by Nadir Lahiji and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a team of renowned contributors and carefully edited to address the themes laid out by the editors in their introduction, the book includes theoretical issues concerning the questions of aesthetics and politics and addresses city and urban strategies within the general critique of the "post-political." By focusing on specific case studies from Warsaw, Barcelona, Dubai, Tokyo and many more the book consolidates the contributions of a diverse group of academics, architects and critics from Europe, the Middle East and America. This collection fills the gap in the existing literature on the relation between politics and aesthetics, and its implications for the theoretical discourse of architecture today. In summary, this book provides a response to the predominant de-politicization in academic discourse and is an attempt to re-claim the abandoned critical project in architecture.
Download or read book Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918 1945 written by Barbara Miller Lane and published by . This book was released on 1985-01-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the spring of 1933, the Nazi government began its campaign to eliminate "modern" tendencies in German art--with particular emphasis on architecture--and to eradicate what it chose to call "art bolshevism." The Bauhaus, by then an internationally famous center of avant garde design, was shut down. In a close analysis of intellectual, political, social, and economic developments, Lane shows that Nazi views on architecture were generated by a complex of historical factors. Far from being cohesive, Nazi cultural policy was largely the product of the conflicting ideas about art held by the Nazi leaders and their efforts to advance these ideas during internal power struggles.
Download or read book Anarchitecture written by Lebbeus Woods and published by Academy Press. This book was released on 1992-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Study of Woods' visionary architecture which is concerned with the cultural regeneration of society.
