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.
Reviews
"Kaminer has deftly identified the dilemma of the contemporary student of architecture and Architecture, Crisis and Resuscitation throws down the pedagogical gauntlet, inviting architectural educators, and by extension the discipline of architecture, to address this quandary."
Amy Kulper, Architectural Theory Review, December 2011
"Tahl Kaminer's work stands out among recent publications… a fine, heterogeneous, and complex weave of relationships whose internal dynamics nonetheless depend on external economic processes and transformations."
Ana Jeinic, GAM Architecture Magazine 08
Contents
Foreword Hilde Heynen Introduction 1. Drawing 2. Discipline 3. Methodological Considerations Part 1: Crisis and Withdrawal 4. The Void 5. Economic and Social Crisis 6. Modernism in Retreat 7. Radical Architecture 8. Alternatives to Modernism 9. Meaning 10. Historicism 11. Collage 12. Context 13. Freedom 14. Postmodernist Architecture 15. The Invisible Horizon Part 2: Autonomy and the Resuscitation of the Discipline 16. The Birth of Autonomy 17. Architectural Autonomy 18. The Commodity 19. The Artefact 20. Paper Architecture and Autonomy 21. The Neo-Avant-Garde 22. Autonomous Deconstruction 23. The Integration of Autonomy Part 3: The Real 24. The Revolution of Everyday Life 25. The Architecture of ELife 26. The Rise of Monetarism 27. Towards the Architectural Real 28. Critique of Planning 29. The End of the Crisis 30. Koolhaas and Freedom 31. The SuperDutch Era 32. The Return of Anxiety Epilogue: From the Ideal to the Simulacra and Back
Author Bio
Tahl Kaminer is a researcher and lecturer at the Delft School of Design, TU Delft. He co-edited the volumes Urban Asymmetries (2011), Critical Tools (2011), and Houses in Transformation (2008), and is a founding member of the academic journal Footprint.
