Architecture Crisis And Resuscitation

Studying the relation of architecture to society, this book explains the manner in which the discipline of architecture adjusted itself in order to satisfy new pressures by society. Consequently, it offers an understanding of contemporary conditions and phenomena, ranging from the ubiquity of landmark buildings to the celebrity status of architects. It concerns the period spanning from 1966 to the first years of the current century – a period which saw radical change in economy, politics, and culture and a period in which architecture radically transformed, substituting the alleged dreariness of modernism with spectacle.

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.

Looking back over the twentieth century, Hartoonian discusses the work of three major architects: Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry and Bernard Tschumi, in reference to their theoretical positions and historicizes present architecture in the context of the ongoing secularization of the myths surrounding the traditions of nineteenth century architecture in general, and, in particular, Gottfried Semper's discourse on the tectonic. Providing a valuable contribution to the current debates surrounding architectural history and theory, this passionately written book makes valuable reading for any architect.

An examination of the influential Italian architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri's historical construction of contemporary architecture. The influential Italian architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri (1935–1994) invoked the productive possibilities of crisis, writing that history is a "project of crisis" (progetto di crisi). In this entry in the Writing Architecture series, Marco Biraghi explores Tafuri's multifaceted and often knotty oeuvre, using the historian's concept of a project of crisis as a lens through which to examine his historical construction of contemporary architecture. Mindful of Tafuri's statement that there is no such thing as criticism, only history, Biraghi carefully maps the influences on Tafuri's writing—Walter Benjamin, Karl Krauss, Massimo Cacciari, and the architect Ludovico Quaroni, among others—in order to create a portrait of one of the most complex minds in twentieth-century architecture and architectural history. Tracing an arc from Tafuri's first articles in the magazine Contropiano to the idea of contradiction at the center of the project of crisis, Biraghi cites Tafuri's writing on some of his contemporaries, including Louis Kahn, Le Corbusier, Robert Venturi, Aldo Rossi, and the "Five Architects" (Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, and Richard Meier). Tafuri's historical construction of the contemporary, Biraghi explains, is based on the idea that the past is open, providing the present with ever-changing and indeterminate form. There is no contradiction between Tafuri the historian and Tafuri the contemporary critic, only the greatest possible integration. The importance of Tafuri's interpretation of architecture goes beyond mere academic or historiographic interest, Biraghi argues; Tafuri's notion of the project of crisis is fundamentally important in understanding our present-day architectural condition

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.