Architectural Theory Of Modernism

Architectural Theory of Modernism presents an overview of the discourse on function-form concepts from the beginnings, in the eighteenth century, to its peak in High Modernism. Functionalist thinking and its postmodern criticism during the second half of the twentieth century is explored, as well as today's functionalism in the context of systems theory, sustainability, digital design, and the information society. The book covers, among others, the theories of Carlo Lodoli, Gottfried Semper, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hannes Meyer, Adolf Behne, CIAM, Jane Jacobs, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Charles Jencks, William Mitchell, and Manuel Castells.

Modern Architectural Theory is the first book to provide a comprehensive survey of architectural theory, primarily in Europe and the United States, during three centuries of development. In this synthetic overview, Harry Mallgrave examines architectural discourse within its social and political context. He explores the philosophical and conceptual evolution of its ideas, discusses the relation of theory to the practice of building, and, most importantly, considers the words of the architects themselves, as they contentiously shaped Western architecture. He also examines the compelling currents of French rationalist and British empiricist thought, radical reformation of the theory during the Enlightenment, the intellectual ambitions and historicist debates of the nineteenth century, and the distinctive varieties of modern theory in the twentieth century up to the profound social upheaval of the 1960s. Modern Architectural Theory challenges many assumptions about architectural modernism and uncovers many new dimensions of the debates about modernism.

Architectural Theory of Modernism presents an overview of the discourse on function-form concepts from the beginnings, in the eighteenth century, to its peak in High Modernism. Functionalist thinking and its postmodern criticism during the second half of the twentieth century is explored, as well as today's functionalism in the context of systems theory, sustainability, digital design, and the information society. The book covers, among others, the theories of Carlo Lodoli, Gottfried Semper, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Hannes Meyer, Adolf Behne, CIAM, Jane Jacobs, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Charles Jencks, William Mitchell, and Manuel Castells.

A sharp and lively text that covers issues in depth but not to the point that they become inaccessible to beginning students, An Introduction to Architectural Theory is the first narrative history of this period, charting the veritable revolution in architectural thinking that has taken place, as well as the implications of this intellectual upheaval. The first comprehensive and critical history of architectural theory over the last fifty years surveys the intellectual history of architecture since 1968, including criticisms of high modernism, the rise of postmodern and poststructural theory, critical regionalism and tectonics Offers a comprehensive overview of the significant changes that architectural thinking has undergone in the past fifteen years Includes an analysis of where architecture stands and where it will likely move in the coming years

The production of this book stems from two of the editors’ longstanding research interests: the representation of architecture in print media, and the complex identity of the second phase of modernism in architecture given the role it played in postwar reconstruction in Europe. While the history of postwar reconstruction has been increasingly well covered for most European countries, research investigating postwar architectural magazines and journals across Europe – their role in the discourse and production of the built environment and particularly their inter-relationship and differing conceptions of postwar architecture – is relatively undeveloped. Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal sounds out this territory in a new collection of essays concerning the second phase of the reception and assimilation of modernism in architecture, as it was represented in professional architecture journals during the period of postwar reconstruction (1945–1968). Professional architecture journals are often seen as conduits of established facts and knowledge. The role mainstream publications play, however, in establishing ‘movements’, ‘trends’ or ‘debates’ tends to be undervalued. In the context of the complex undertaking of postwar reconstruction, the shortage of resources, political uncertainty and the biographical complexities of individual architects, the chapters on key European architecture journals collected here reveal how modernist architecture, and its discourse, was perceived and disseminated in different European countries.

Bridges the gap between the history and theory of twentieth-century architecture and cultural theories of modernity. In this exploration of the relationship between modernity, dwelling, and architecture, Hilde Heynen attempts to bridge the gap between the discourse of the modern movement and cultural theories of modernity. On one hand, she discusses architecture from the perspective of critical theory, and on the other, she modifies positions within critical theory by linking them with architecture. She assesses architecture as a cultural field that structures daily life and that embodies major contradictions inherent in modernity, arguing that architecture nonetheless has a certain capacity to adopt a critical stance vis-à-vis modernity. Besides presenting a theoretical discussion of the relation between architecture, modernity, and dwelling, the book provides architectural students with an introduction to the discourse of critical theory. The subchapters on Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, and the Venice School (Tafuri, Dal Co, Cacciari) can be studied independently for this purpose.

It is a major challenge to write the history of post-WWII architectural theory without boiling it down to a few defining paradigms. An impressive anthologising effort during the 1990s charted architectural theory mostly via the various theoretical frameworks employed, such as critical theory, critical regionalism, deconstructivism, and pragmatism. Yet the intellectual contours of what constitutes architectural theory have been constantly in flux. It is therefore paramount to ask what kind of knowledge has become important in the recent history of architectural theory and how the resulting figure of knowledge sets the conditions for the actual arguments made. The contributions in this volume focus on institutional, geographical, rhetorical, and other conditioning factors. They thus screen the unspoken rules of engagement that postwar architectural theory ascribed to.

This anthology collects developing scholarship that outlines a new decentred history of global modernism in architecture using postcolonial and other related theoretical frameworks. By both revisiting the canons of modernism and seeking to decolonize and globalize those canons, the volume explores what a genuinely "global" history of architectural modernism might begin to look like. Its chapters explore the historiography and weaknesses of modernism's normative interpretations and propose alternatives to them. The collection offers essays that interrogate transnationalism in new ways, reconsiders the agency of the subaltern and the roles played by infrastructures, materials, and global institutions in propagating a diversity of modernisms internationally. Issues such as colonial modernism, architectural pedagogy, cultural imperialism, and spirituality are engaged. With essays from both established scholars and up-and-coming researchers, this is an important reference for a new understanding of this crucial and developing topic.