This book brings together a diverse group of theoreticians to explore architectural theory as a discipline, assessing its condition and relevance to contemporary practice.
Offering critical assessment in the face of major social and environmental issues of today, 17 original contributions address the relevance of architectural theory in the contemporary world from various perspectives, including but not limited to: politics, gender, representation, race, environmental crisis, and history.
The chapters are grouped into two distinct sections: the first section explores various historical perspectives on architectural theory, mapping theory’s historiographical turn and its emergence and decline from the 1960s to the present; the second offers alternative visions and new directions for architectural theory, incorporating feminist and human rights perspectives, and addressing contemporary issues such as Artificial Intelligence and the Age of Acceleration. This edited collection features contributions from renowned scholars as well as emergent voices, with a Foreword by David Leatherbarrow.
This book will be of great interest to graduate and upper-level students of architecture, as well as academics and practicing architects.
Foreword
David Leatherbarrow
PART I. Historical Perspectives on Architectural Theory
1. What ever Became of Architectural Theory?
Elie G. Haddad
2. Architecture’s Historiographical Turn
Andrew Leach
3. Erase the Traces! History and Destruction in Brecht, Benjamin, and Tafuri
Francesco Marullo
4. The End of Theory and the Division between History and Design
Joseph Bedford
5. Rehabilitating Operative Criticism: The Return of Theory against Entrepreneurialism
Nathaniel Coleman
6. Building Without End: The Travails of Archè and Téchne
Claudio Sgarbi
7. The Theory Nobody Knows
Penelope Dean
8. Theorizing a Modern Tradition
Macarena de la Vega de León
9. Postmodernist Revivalism and Architectural Gimmicks
Lidia Klein
PART II. Alternative Visions and New Directions
10. The Form of Utopia: Architectural Theory in the age of Hyperobjects
Stefano Corbo
11. Senses of Reality, or: Realism and Aesthetics, Today?
Giacomo Pala
12. On the Use and Abuse of Biological Functionalism for Architecture
Kasper Lægring
13. Architecture Theory in the Age of Acceleration
Véronique Patteeuw and Léa-Catherine Szacka
14. Architecture, Justice, and Theories of Rights
Esra Akcan
15. Colonialism as Style: On the Beaux-Arts Tradition
Charles L. Davis II
16. Feminist Architectural Figurations: Relating Theory to Practice through Writing in Time
Jane Rendell
17. From Deconstruction to Artificial Intelligence: The New Theoretical Paradigm
Neil Leach
Biography
Elie G. Haddad is Professor of Architecture at the Lebanese American University, where he is currently Dean of the School of Architecture and Design. Haddad completed his PhD studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1998 with a dissertation on Henry van de Velde. His research focuses on architectural theory, urbanism, and modern architecture. In 2014, Haddad co-edited a survey on contemporary architecture and is in the process of finalizing a new volume titled Modern Architecture in a Post-Modern Era (forthcoming). In parallel to his academic activities, Haddad was recently elected as President of the Association of Arab Architects.
