Some architectural writers of the 20th century
In 1972, Nikolaus Pevsner published the book ‘Some architectural writers of the nineteenth century’. The current state of architectural theory, history and criticism asks for an update to his study: overspecialization in the architectural humanities has made combinations of historical research, critical judgments and theoretical speculation quite difficult. Nevertheless, only some decades ago many important ‘architectural writers’ were active in the architectural culture of the Western World. The aim of this monographic research is to define their intellectual projects, and to interpret their ideas on architecture before the fragmentation of its cultural and scientific field.
The fate of architectural singularity
In an essay from 1989, American writer John Updike asked himself if architecture can be criticized. ‘Isn’t one duty of architecture’, he wrote, ‘simply to be different to give us a sense of change and renewal in our lives?’ Updike as such unwittingly defined architecture as the production of ‘singular objects’, in for example the postmarxist vein of a philosopher like Jean Baudrillard, who declared, in a conversation with Jean Nouvel: ‘A work of architecture is a singularity, and all these singularities can create holes, interstices and voids in the metastatic fullness of culture. Given the worldwide – mostly visual – ‘success’ of architecture, this critical tradition has without a doubt come into affliction, not in the least because its roots in old and often premoderns traditions has remained unexposed.
1989: a year in the life and work of OMA
The year 1989 can be regarded as a turning point for contemporary Western architecture: after the fall of the Berlin Wall, its social power and pretensions were gradually replaced by a mere ‘cultural’ presence; instead of creating or defining urban environments, architects fell back on the construction of ‘merveilles’. One architectural firm embodied this shift emblematically: the Office for Metropolitan Architecture of Rem Koolhaas. A micro-historical inquiry into the projects of OMA from 1989 – such as the Très Grand Bibliothèque, the Sea Trade Center, the completion of the IJ-plein social housing project, but also the Villa dall’Ava – can help to circumscribe this historical, theoretical and critical evolution.
The Genesis of the Rotterdam Kunsthal
To this day, the reception of the architecture of OMA has been largely dominated by the ideological discourse of its co-founder, Rem Koolhaas. Following the example of Koolhaas’ various writings and statements, the discussion of his work still tends to the generic, tuning out those myriads of questions concerning form, inevitable in the process of designing and execution. By focusing on one of the office’s built projects—the Kunsthal in Rotterdam—this research intends to highlight the specificity of the single work of architecture and thus liberate it from the grasp of its author’s own reading. The building’s genesis—i.e. the process of its design and realization—is to be reconstructed. Thus providing the evidence of the “making” of the Kunsthal and form as its major concern, the investigation aims at opening new ways of seeing Koolhaas’ theoretical positions and the relationship between the “thinker” and the architect, whose interests are inevitably opposed to abstraction.
The reciprocal relation between architecture and philosophy: historical and contemporary moment of connection
There is an abundance of literature – architectural and philosophical, and especially post-modern – in which a relation between architecture and philosophy is at work, with one engaging the other directly, or simply in a marginal or implicit manner. Especially contemporary architectural discourse, be it by theoreticians, practitioners, or critics, frequently resorts to philosophical thought, themes, and references in order to discover, clarify, and express deeper dimensions of the architectural work – at least when not merely used as a legitimization tool which imports an aura of authority from the philosopher. Indeed, for architects, philosophy seems implicit to some point of architectural activity, and especially of its thought, while in philosophy it has grown from a sporadic marginal and/or metaphoric reference to a problematic part of aesthetics theories to an attractive mystery for multiple philosophical sub-disciplines, and one mode of their practical consequential engagement upon the world.
Despite this importance, any inquiry into this relation is immediately and surprisingly struck by the manifest lack of literature about the relation itself and its implications. Why does architecture resort to philosophy? How? What comes about? What does this say about architecture? What can it say about philosophy? And, venturing beyond description into prescription, should there be this relation, and if so how ought it be carried out? What are the recurring problems, what are the appealing promises, what are the unexplored potentials?
Journal Articles
2023
Patronage as Collaboration. Dante Bini’s Villas in Sardinia
Dimensions. Journal of Architectural Knowledge. 2023-12-04. Vol. 3, num. No. 5/2023: Collaborations: Rethinking Architectural Design, p. 179-204. DOI : 10.14361/dak-2023-0511.Rogue and Trickster. Luigi Moretti, Real Estate and the Villa Triptych
Burning.Farm. 2023-12-13. Vol. 2, num. 2, p. 1-14.The City of Janus: A Close Reading of Hannes Meyer’s Freidorf
Burning Farm. A Journal on Architecture and Domestic Space. 2023-10-10.2022
The Depot Effect
Log. 2022. num. 55, p. 38-47.2021
An unnatural exception. Profile: Piet Oudolf
De Groene Amsterdammer. 2021-08-26. Vol. 34.Soziale Kondensatoren. Kommunehaus, Arbeiterklub, Hybrid und Co.: Architektur als Medium soziokultureller Gestaltung
werk, bauen + wohnen. 2021. num. 11, p. 13-18.A Large, Finite Permutation of Specific, Discrete Variants: Dan Graham’s Children’s Pavilion at Chambres d’Amis (1986)
Konsthistorisk Tidskrift. 2021-06-23. Vol. 90, num. 3, p. 159-187. DOI : 10.1080/00233609.2021.1942978.Laugh(ing) of(f) the lyre
Drawing Matter. 2021-03-22.Signature
Drawing Matter. 2021-02-15.Construire l’utopie en miroir. Entretien avec Jean-Louis Cohen
Tracés. 2021-02-08. num. 2, p. 26-28.2020
Nous en savons désormais trop. Déchiffrer la lecture de Penser
Matières. 2020. num. 16, p. 228-237. DOI : 10.5169/seals-984520.We know too much. Reading Pevsner Reading
AA Files. 2020. num. 77, p. 145-151.Conference Papers
2023
Villa: Type or Model? Framing a Contradiction in the Context of Post-war Italy
2023-06-19. The Fifth Typology. A Symposium on Type and Architecture, Lausanne, Switzerland, April 4-5, 2023.2022
One Critic, One Architect: The Birth of the Reader
2022. European Architectural History Network, 7th International Conference, Madrid, 15.07.2022-18.07.2022.Rem raconte
2022-11-17. L’architecture au moyen de la fiction. Histoire, théorie et projet, Paris, France, November 17-18, 2021.2021
Obliged to be Honourable. The Transgressions of OMA/Rem Koolhaas
2021-11-18. Transgression: A New paradigm?, Online, November 17-19, 2021.The ideal critic
2021-11-26. Kunstkritiek door de ogen van een schrijvers, Brussels, Belgium, November 26, 2021.Truth Content: SANAA’s Rolex Learning Center at EPFL
2021. International Conference on Architectural Criticism “On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism”, Online, October 9-17, 2021.Reviews
2023
Broadway im Hinterhof. Théâtre de Carouge von Pont 12
werk, bauen + wohnen. 2023. num. 1/2.2022
Struggling with Gravity. Province Headquarters by XDGA
A+. 2022. num. 293, p. 114-121.Back to Brick: Bovenbouw & Sergison Bates
A+. 2022. num. 294, p. 34-38.2021
Struggling with gravity. XDGA’s Province Headquarter
A+. 2021.Built Upon Love. Francesca Torzo’s Z33
Journal of Civic Architecture. 2021-12-01. Vol. 8.Mourir, c’est un art
A+. 2021-06-28.Beim Wort genommen
werk, bauen + wohnen. 2021. num. 9, p. 49-50.2020
Ettore Sottsass & Andrea Branzi
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 208.Tauba Auerbach. S v Z
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 207.Matt Mullican. Representing the Work
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 207.Francesca Torzo, Z33
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 207.Philippe Van Snick. Territorium
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 206.Pierre Huyghe
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 205.Bernd Lohaus. Im Sein Bei
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 204.Buren. Kijken kijken kijken
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 204.The Last Judgment Sculpture. Anthony Caro
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 203.Mondo Mendini
De Witte Raaf. 2020. num. 203.Books
2022
matières 17: Barres
Lausanne: EPFL Press, 2022.Elegir arquitectura
Barcelona: Puente Editores, 2022.2021
Savoir supérieur : Le Rolex Learning Center de SANAA à EPFL depuis 2010
Lausanne: EPFL Press, 2021.Higher knowledge : SANAA’s Rolex Learning Center at EPFL since 2010
Lausanne: EPFL Press, 2021.OASE 108. Ups & Downs. Reception Histories in Architecture
Rotterdam: nai010, 2021.Theses
2021
Inventory of Problems: The Genesis of the Rotterdam Kunsthal by OMA/Rem Koolhaas, 1987-1992
Lausanne, EPFL, 2021.Book Chapters
2023
May 2021
Unearthing Traces. Dismantling imperialist entanglements of archives, landscapes, and the built environment; EPFL Press; Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, 2023.2022
Transparency and obstacle in architecture, from Le Corbusier to Rem Koolhaas
The Limits of Transparency; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2022.November 24, 2020
Seven Questions; Berlin: Ruby Press, 2022.Truth Content: SANAA’s Rolex Learning Center
On the Duty and Power of Architectural Criticism; Zürich: Park Books, 2022.Loosely Fluttering in Space
Olivier Goethals: Play Sincerely; Amsterdam: ROMA, 2022.Transparency and Obstacle in Architecture. From Le Corbusier to Koolhaas
This Obscure Thing Called Transparency. Politics and Aesthetics of a Contemporary Metaphor; Leuven University Press, 2022. p. 280.2021
Against Rationalism
Grand dessein du rationalisme; Brussels: Accattone, 2021. p. 66.2020
Seven aims and claims of the architectural model
Isle of Models. Architecture and Scale; Zürich: Triest Verlag, 2020.‘Luc Deleu says farewell to architecture’, ‘The Red House’
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. Office: Future Plans 1970-2020; Antwerp: Flanders Architecture Institute, 2020.Talks
2023
Some Houses Are Worth Reading Twice. The Greenhouse Effects Of The House Latapie, 30 Years After
Course “Theory and Architectural Culture”, Lausanne, Switzerland, April 6, 2023.Villas through Press. The Endorsement of the Escape by Hoepli and Görlich in Postwar Italy
Doc.days EDAR, Lausanne, Switzerland, April 24, 2023.“Red Delight in Green Silence.” Hannes Meyer and the Ideal City of Freidorf (1919-1924)
The Fifth Typology. A Symposium on Type and Architecture, EPFL, April 4 and 5, 2023.‘How To Build a Villa By The Sea’ The Implicit Project of Villa-mania in Post-war Italy (1948-1973)
Doc Talks Lightining, Zurich / Zoom, January 24, 2023.Constructing the Dream Villas on Display in Italy in 1933 & 1964
Studying Architecture Exhibitions Doctoral Workshops, Gent, Belgium, January 19, 2023.“A Modernist Marriage of Consumption and Art.” Hannes Meyer in Ghent (1924)
Studying Architecture Exhibitions, Ghent University, Belgium, January 19, 2023.2021
Slow Learners
Re-Worlding Lecture, Hasselt, Belgium, November 25, 2021.Everyone Civil Servant! the social organization of the settlement cooperative ‘Freidorf’
Last supper: a roundtable on cooperatives, social condensers, labor of love, EPFL, Superstudio with Roberto Gargiani, November 3, 2021.Hannes Meyer: Between Mass Propaganda and Social Critique
5th Rencontres of EDAR: Digital Minds, EPFL (online), June 11, 2021.Two or Three Projects I Know on Cooperative Living
DocTalks, ETH Zurich (online), November 23, 2021.Hannes Meyer, Arieh Sharon und die gemeinnützigen Organisationen (1919-1948)
Kolloquium ‘Geschichte der Arbeitswelten und der Gewerkschaften’, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Bonn (online), December 17, 2021.2020
Jean et Jean face-à-face: le dialogue entre l’architecture et la philosophie à travers Baudrillard et Nouvel
Séminaire HEPIA: Penser et Habiter le Monde, Geneva, Switzerland, December 14-18, 2020.Reading Rem Koolhaas
100 Day Studio, Architecture Foundation London, England, July 28, 2020.02/09/23
Constructing the Dream : Villas on Display in Italy in 1933 and 1964
DHS Student Forum 2023 – ‘Displaying Design’, London, 02/09/23.Student Projects
2023
L’usine imaginaire. Transformation d’un monument industriel en centre de création dans le vieux Port de Rio de Janeiro
2023.Repair! Reclaiming Berlin’s Workers’ Housing through Collaborative Transformation
2023.« Domesticolare »: éclectique de l’espace domestique
2023.Yanaka – Vers un renouvellement urbain socialement durable
2023.La Halte: un quai pour l’inclusion et la réinsertion sans tabous
2023.Paris, Transit: plate-forme alimentaire du dernier kilomètre
2023.Les mécanismes cinématographiques: un ballet entropique dans les entrailles d’un parking
2023.Dialectique de la répétition. Logements étudiants à Londres
2023.2022
L’État dans la ville. Campus pour la fonction publique à Québec
2022.Janus. Revalorisation d’un quartier lausannois de la fin du XIXe siècle
2022.Rénovation à la carte – une réhabilitation personnalisée du bloc communiste, Bucarest
2022.De l’habitant au passant. Stratégie d’habitat pour la coexistence (Kreuzberg, Berlin)
2022.Le Clos Fleuri. Étude de transformation d’un bâti rural dans une zone périurbaine
2022.rePanser Noailles: réhabilitation d’immeubles anciens à Marseille
2022.Séquences pour un centre-ville sensible, social et identitaire à Nyon
2022.Université libérée d’architecture de Berne. Università liberata di architettura di BernaBefreite Universität der Architektur in Bern
2022.Frames. Stratégies de cohabitation urbaine à Lugano
2022.D.A.T.A 225
2022.Après l’apocalypse. Un commerce dans l’ère digitale
2022.CMPS45: architecture pionnière pour en finir avec le campus de l’EPFL
2022.Centre d’art contemporain des Coulisses
2022.Voix d’habitantes, le bâti d’une maison des femmes à Genève
2022.Minimum Transgressif. Festival temporaire à Choindez
2022.Le Town Hall Virtuel, une architecture pour l’internet immersif
2022.Jardins de Sarkandaugava. Un sentier à travers l’inachevé en Lettonie
2022.2021
Une Maison sans drame : infrastructure pour la prostitution de rue
2021.
[Dé]dramatisation d’une corrala du Quartier de Lavapiés, Madrid
2021.
“The New Tempelhof Experience”, transformation d’un aéroport nazi en un lieu de vie expérimental et alternatif pour les Berlinois
2021.
Engager l’architecture: la Maison-Matrice somme site d’expérimentation d’un processus contributif
2021.
Le Vent d’Est – Centre pour « Commuters »
2021.
Saint Louis, les stratégies du « blight »
2021.
« Cargo »: une figure de pierre au cœur de la zone ferroviaire de Renens
2021.Teaching Resources
2022
Hannes Meyer and ‘Freidorf’ (1919-1925): a project for a settlement cooperative
2022.2021
Co-opérative de colonisation ‘Freidorf’ à Muttenz (1919-1924)
2021.2020
The panopticon, an architectural-philosophical object
2020-12-01.Media
2020
Conversation avec Rem Koolhaas
2020.