The Parking Garage as the Undocumented Search for Modernism

Architectural Theory Review, 2007

The Public Value of the Humanities

Architecture is, like all areas of the arts and humanities, a complex affair, and involves a very wide range of people and personalities, ideas and philosophies, theories and actions. But, more than any other artistic endeavour, architecture is also an inherently interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practice, and is inextricably linked to our everyday world of business, work, leisure, health, environment and social life. We can do almost nothing in our lives without encountering architecture, whether as offices, housing, hotels, sports facilities, hospitals, train and bus stations, or architecture in drawings, fi lms and video-games, or architecture as part of the hidden world of communications and virtual technologies. For this reason, the UK's research into architecture must-and does-deal with a wide spectrum of concerns, all of which have the potential to impact directly on our lives today. Architecture and architects Architecture is perhaps most often thought of as being the product of architects-that is as the product of a single person or of small groups of people, and of their thoughts, designs and actions. One of the most important areas of architectural research is, therefore, into who these fi gures were in the past, and who they are now and in the future. Who is 'the architect' and what does he, she or they do? (Saint Andrew 1993; Hughes 1996; Kostof 1987). There are, of course, many important architects in the UK who have made a major contribution to our society and cities. From Christopher Wren in the seventeenth century and John Soane in the eighteenth century through to Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster today, architects have used their considerable artistic imagination, technical innovation and entrepreneurship to produce some of the most signifi cant and lasting constructions in the contemporary world. These are important fi gures to understand, not only in terms of themselves but also in terms of how their ideas and designs have reached out far beyond their own buildings and have had a pervasive infl uence throughout the world of art, design and the creative industries. Much of what we see and understand as 'architecture' in the world today is because of a relatively few number of architectural designers and thinkers, and, as a result, we need to record and explore this important historical and cultural legacy. The more detailed results of this research are, however, frequently quite surprising, for they tell us that 'the architect' is, very often, not a single kind of person at all. Such research reveals, instead, that an architect might be a builder, a developer or a technician, or that an architect might be an artist,

This text is the result of an interdisciplinary reflection that tends to lay the foundations for a new concept of architecture, a new architectural paradigm. In light of the transformations occurring at an increasingly rapid pace in the world of science, the sectors of classical knowledge must review their structure and role. In this context, to rediscover its role and cultural meaning, architecture must review its position within the process of transformation of knowledge for which it must somehow account. In other words, to do this, architecture must re-establish the basic assumptions and redefine its specific universe of discourse. Author Graduated in Architecture in the 1970s, he taught at the Italian faculties of Architecture in Rome (Chair of architectural composition, years 73-77) and Naples (Institute of architectural methodology, years 82-83 and 2004) as assistant-presenter of seminars, working on the themes of semiology, representation and design logic. He is currently an independent researcher and for many years has been involved in epistemological and cognitive research on architecture with investigations, currently under development, with fMRI techniques aimed at analyzing the response of the human brain towards architecture.

AMPS Conference 17.1: Education, Design and Practice – Understanding skills in a Complex World., 2019

This paper will examine the primary and essential function of architecture as an experiential and sensory form of art, through theories of industrialisation and intuition, as well as practice-based research we have conducted with students of architecture at Padmabhushan Dr. Vasantdada Patil College of Architecture, Pune in Design Studio since 2015. Our research has shown that the relationship between the fundamentals of architecture is interdependent, leading to a necessary synthesis, privileging an intuitive understanding over a purely analytical one. In the post-industrialisation era, the function of architecture has shifted from a sensory and emotional art form, engendering a sense of delight in its perceiver, to utilitarian and consumer-based. We attribute this to a reconfiguration of the interactions between the three essential players - the Space (Site), the Perceiver (User) and the Creator (Architect). This takes the form of an increasing gap in the tangible and intellectual space between the architect, the client and the site of creation, reflected in the reduction of space as the place to consume/a mere physical entity/a set of data; the perceiver to the client/stakeholder/user and the creator to problem solver. These reductions have not only shaped the practice of architecture but also the pedagogical discourses reflected through teaching methods. In-studio, our practice takes the form of sensory-led exercises that rely on and nurture a multidisciplinary skill set, encouraging students to respond to prompts (ex: seasons and not climate/weather), both tangibly (temperature, humidity, etc.) and intangibly, by creating a piece of non-architectural art in relation to their emotional response (a piece of writing, a painting, murals etc.). The art produced in the studio serves as an idea-model, as a way for the Creator to learn to provoke their own emotional responses in the Perceiver. We contend that this will impact and fundamentally change the modes of discourse and methodology of research surrounding architecture. Beyond treating it as a mere tool of problem-solving (and the architect as problem-solver), this method will bring with it a new vocabulary, associated with experience and delight, and restore the creativity of the architect as an essential cornerstone of architectural practice.

2004

This paper will proceed, via a brief discussion of Hans-Georg Gadamer's anti-aesthetics of architecture, to outline why the architectural metaphor in philosophy is never simply a metaphor, using as a guide the critique of origins and sources contained in Jacques Derrida's essay Qual Quelle. The question will be raised as to whether the tools and structures of philosophy, such as the difference between materiality and non-materiality, abstract thought and practice, are entirely adequate to architectural debate; and whether, in questioning these structures, it is possible to address Bataille's critique of architecture (as interpreted in Denis Hollier's Against Architecture) as the expression of pre-existing social order and power. Tim Gough MA(Cantab) DipArch The Paper Itself What is going to happen between us? Is this paper-which has just begun-a textual object to be communicated to you, a receptive subject? Is this "textual object" an expression of the thoughts of another "subject", namely the one who reads it to you now? Is the receptive subject one, or are they many; and if the latter, what of the communication between them? Or shall we regard what happens between us in a different light-taking a different tack? Could we say instead that the avowedly metaphysical presupposition of subject and object, communication and expression, are simply abstractions from a primary reality-a reality which has an entirely different character? Accepting that the conceptual apparatus of subject and object has its place and use, we would nonetheless question-indeed challenge-a philosophy or theory which would give it pride of place or-what's worse-leave it unquestioned.

The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2011

JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS, 2018

JOURNAL OF THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS showcasing the changes which human race has faced. Since, decade architecture is relatively ignored by philosophers and is largely unsuccessful to draw persistent, detailed attention when compared with other art forms such as film or comic. Even today, principally ancient art forms are livelier and have philosophers focus them rather than architecture. Further, some philosophers have even dabbled in architectural projects: Dewey worked on the Chicago Laboratory School, Wittgenstein took part in designing a house for his sister, and Bentham sketched the Panoptic on design as a plan for prison reform. Architecture has existed since the recognition of civilization with its language analogy being as old as Vitruvius has flourished through the stages of development of human ABSTRACT : Architecture has existed since the recognition of civilization and its language analogy is at least as old as Vitruvius. Architecture and the human sciences such as philosophy, psychology, sociology etc. have always shared common interfaces leaving significant impersonation on each other. Architecture is not just an art but it is the reflection of social and cultural values of a society. Thus, through architecture philosophy is represented whereas philosophy is adopted by architecture for creating an edifice which showcases the prevailing human nature and need. This article offers an overview of concerns in the philosophy of architecture. Essential issues include introductory matters regarding the nature of architecture i.e. a. What kinds of objects are architectural, and what is it defined domain. b. Three Aspects-Beauty, structure and utility defining architecture and further dimensions may include space, sustainability, psychological or social features. Through this article, architectural status of various civilisations is discussed keeping in mind the philosophy and vocabulary of architecture. Renaissance enhanced the status of man in society and introduced Anthropometry in architecture. The Industrial Revolution was another of those extraordinary jumps which aid in erecting the high rise steel structure by using new building materials like cast iron, steel, glass, etc. Further, in the late of 1950s, boredom in architectural structure and look provokes distortion of regular architectural elements and objects calling this style deconstructivism. 'Mankind living and interacting with our environment in a way that can continue' lead to the evolution of a new but established thought viewed as Sustainable Architecture. In short, the paper is an approach to discuss about the philosophy and terms used by architects through their expedition from prehistoric times to the sustainability era.

This, I promise, is the final thesis handed into Cambridge for the MSt in Interdisciplinary Design of the Built Environment. Rather than abstract its content I elected to include a preamble in the document to explain my approach. I have been told one of my examiners is Daniel Cardoso Llach. His first published book is called Builders of the Vision: Software and the imagination of design. Its focus being on ..the increasingly complex socio-techninal systems that go into the imagining and building of our...cities. If Daniels approach to the current problematic in design praxis is ethnographic, then my counterpoint is cerebral and somewhat more philosophical. But in defense of my argument by and large we are more or less saying the same thing. Only from two opposite sides. Should be interesting.