Goodman For Architects

American philosopher Nelson Goodman (1906-1998) was one of the foremost analytical thinkers of the twentieth century, with groundbreaking contributions in the fields of logic, philosophy of science, epistemology, and aesthetics. This book is an introduction to the aspects of Goodman’s philosophy which have been the most influential among architects and architectural theorists. Goodman specifically discussed architecture in his major work on aesthetics, The Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (1968), and in two essays "How Buildings Mean" (1985), and "On Capturing Cities" (1991). His main philosophical notions in Ways of Worldmaking (1978) also apply well to architecture. Goodman’s thought is particularly attractive because of its constructive aspect: there is not a given and immutable world, but both knowledge and reality are constantly built and rebuilt. Whereas other theories, such as deconstruction, implicitly entail an undoing of modern precepts, Goodman’s conception of world-making offers a positive, constructive way to understand how a plural reality is made and remade. Goodman’s approach to architecture is not only relevant thinking in providing new insights to understanding the built environment, but serves also as an illustration of analytical thinking in architecture. This book shows that the methods, concepts, and ways of arguing characteristic of analytical philosophy are helpful tools to examine buildings in a novel and fruitful way and they will certainly enhance the architect’s critical skills when designing and thinking about architecture.

Published in 1923, Toward an Architecture had an immediate impact on architects throughout Europe and remains a foundational text for students and professionals. Le Corbusier urges readers to cease thinking of architecture as a matter of historical styles and instead open their eyes to the modern world. Simultaneously a historian, critic, and prophet, he provocatively juxtaposes views of classical Greece and Renaissance Rome with images of airplanes, cars, and ocean liners. Le Corbusier's slogans--such as "the house is a machine for living in"--and philosophy changed how his contemporaries saw the relationship between architecture, technology, and history. This edition includes a new translation of the original text, a scholarly introduction, and background notes that illuminate the text and illustrations.

Renowned as one of the most prolific synagogue architects in the United States.

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

This book orchestrates a convergence of two discourses from the 1960s--Nelson Goodman's aesthetic theory on one side, and critiques of modern architecture articulated by figures like Peter Blake, Charles Jencks, and Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown on the other. Grounded in Goodman's aesthetic theory, the book explores his conceptual framework within the context of modern architecture. At the heart of the investigation lies Goodman's concept of exemplification. While his notion of denotation pertains to representational elements, often ornaments, in architecture, exemplification accentuates specific formal properties at the expense of others, including color, spatial orientation, transparency, seriality, etc. Supplemented by findings from phenomenology, the book traces these effects in buildings, notably those by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright--all key figures in the critiques of modern architecture. Employing Goodman's framework, the book aims to address accusations of emptiness and alienation directed at modern architecture in the post-war era. It illustrates that modern architecture symbolizes aesthetically in a fundamentally different way than architecture from earlier periods. This book will be of interest to architects, artists, researchers, and students in architecture, architectural history, theory, cultural theory, philosophy, and aesthetics.

A concise, practical, fully illustrated manual of objective drawing and design drafting skills for beginners, by the authors of the successful four-volume Manual of Graphic Techniques.

The Architect's Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture is the first book to consider the relationship between the neurosciences and architecture, offering a compelling and provocative study in the field of architectural theory. Explores various moments of architectural thought over the last 500 years as a cognitive manifestation of philosophical, psychological, and physiological theory Looks at architectural thought through the lens of the remarkable insights of contemporary neuroscience, particularly as they have advanced within the last decade Demonstrates the neurological justification for some very timeless architectural ideas, from the multisensory nature of the architectural experience to the essential relationship of ambiguity and metaphor to creative thinking