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Architecture Culture, 1943–1968: A Documentary

Anthology; Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture:
An Anthology of Architectural Theory, 1965–1995; and
Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory
a
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
a
Yale School of Architecture
Published online: 22 Aug 2013.

To cite this article: Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen (1998) Architecture Culture, 1943–1968: A Documentary Anthology; Theorizing a New
Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory, 1965–1995; and Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural
Theory, Journal of Architectural Education, 51:4, 266-268, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.1998.10734789

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10464883.1998.10734789

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 About one-third of the way through Ellin's collection, a short
photo essay by Julius Shulman suggests an array of "fears" associ-
ated with architecture (fear of structural failure ; fear of dirt, fear of
falling, fear of fashion, fear of trespass, fear of bodily harm, fear of
natural disaster, fear of heights, even fear of flying), leaving the
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reader unsure abo ut how to make sense of the list in the context of
the book as a whole. Like a city, a good anthology needs to be
imagable as more than the mere sum of its parts. Unfortunately,
Ellin's collection leaves the reader wanting in this regard. King's
volume is more satisfYing. Based on a 1992 symposium (perhaps
like cities, an thologies benefit from a bit of history?), the twelve
authors in Re-presenting the City not only present their own posi-
tions, but also situate themselves in an "interactive debate" with one
another. By allowing responses to develop across and between dif-
ferent voices, King has orchestrated a volume that is at once diverse
and coherent, demonstrating the many contexts that play into how
images of city and knowledge of the urban are construed.
ANDREA KAHN
Columbia University
Architecture Culture, 1943-1968: A Documentary Anthology
Edited by joan Ockman and Edward Eigen
Columbia Books of Archirecture/Rizzoli, 1993
464 pp. , 68 illustrations
$ 50.00 (cloth), $35.00 (paper)
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of
Architectural Theory, 1965-1995
Edited by Kate Nesbitt
Princeton Architectural Press, 1996
606 pp., 21 illustrations
$50.00 (cloth), $34 .95 (paper)
Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory
Edited by Neil Leach
Routledge, 1997
409 pp., no illustrations
$22.95 (paper)
As the millennium closes, interest in recent, post-Second World War
developments in architectural thought is increasing. The publication
of three anthologies, Architecture Culture, 1943- 1968: A Documen-
tary Anthology edited by Joan Ockman in collaboration with Edward
Eigen, Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology ofAr-
May 1998 JAE 51/4 266
chitectural Theory, 1965-1995 edited by Kate Nesbitt, and Rethink-
ing Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory edited by Neil Leach,
supports this interest by providing a necessary compendium of texts,
that have been formative for architectural discourse during the sec-
ond half of the twentieth century.
Ockman's title, Architecture Culture, recalls Bruno Zevi's plea for
the second generation of modern architects in 1957 to start a "criti-
cal revision" of modern architecture. His redefinition of architec-
ture was simple: "Architecture is environment, the stage on which
our lives unfold." 1 As such, architecture must be understood in a
wide sociohistorical context rather than merely as a formal notion
or a conceptual idea, in order to reinvent what Zevi called the "cul-
ture" of architecture.
The historical frame of Ockman' s book begins in 1943 dur-
ing the closing years of the Second World War; it ends in 1968, the
year of the worldwide student revolts. According to Ockman, this
period in "architecture culture" is dominated by historically specific
paradigms and problems: reconstruction, housing shortages, rapid
urbanization, and technological innovation. She must be credited
for emphasizing that "architecture culture" is not only a result of
architects' discussing architecture among themselves; texts written
by a political leader, sociologists, philosophers, and planning au-
thorities all reflect the vivid debate during one of the biggest build-
ing booms ever.
Ockman has chosen to organize the texts chronologically and
invites the reader to make interconnections among them. The sub-
title, A Documentary Anthology, suggests that the task of a historian
is, as Ockman points out, quoting Michel Foucault, to question the
document. Ockman argues that the importance of a particular text
can in most cases be defined only a posteriori when a text begins to
imply "a major constellation of discursive thought or practice" dur-
ing the given period; this, rather than irs immediate acceptance and
recognition, constitutes a seminal "document." In the introduc-
tions, Ockman herself settles perhaps too easily into the cognitive
mapping of opposing tendencies, such as modernism versus human-
ism, in order to underline the "major constellations." I would ar-
gue that, for example, the reduction of Gaston Bachelard's project
into a move from science to "poetry" undervalues the complexity of
his thesis based on complex dialectics between the two.
This cognitive mapping has further consequences because
these dichotomies tend to emphasize the "making of history": Here
the period of modernism and positivism is followed by a period of
questioning and critique, triggered by the "crisis" of the Second
World War and ending with the second "crisis" of the student re-
 volts. "Historicity" takes over "spatiality," as Foucault discusses in
his "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias." Naming the
period a n " interregnum between modernism and what is now
called postmodernism" contributes to this emphasis, making post-
modernism sound like a complete break with post-Enlightenment
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thought.
The book makes a significant contribution by translating
material previously unavailable in English and by introducing
lesser-known figures. The introductions to different texts are thor-
oughly researched and provide excellent biographical and historical
information. The chronological approach makes the anthology easy
to use as the structure highlights the major events of each decade.
On the whole, the selection of texts, written by several major fig-
ures in the modern movement in their later phases (Le Corbusier,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, er al.) as well
as those from the younger generation of postwar architects (Peter
Cook, Fumihiko Maki, Aldo Rossi , Alison and Peter Smithson ,
Robert Venturi, et al.) makes Architecture Culture rhe long-awaited
sequel to Ulrich Conrads's Programs and Maniftstoes in Twentieth
Century Architecture.
Nesbitt's Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture is less specific in
irs hi storical frame; instead, the book loosely covers the period we
have co me to call postmodern . If Ockman makes the point about
the "traumatic events" of rhe Second World War as rhe source of
rhe intense questioning that faced modernist architecture, Nesbit
argues for the "crisis of meaning" as a reason for reorientation, giv-
ing architectural postmodernism an antimodern twist.
Nesbitt is less specific about the problem facing an editor of
diverse material than Ockman is: For Ockman, "diversity" is under-
stood as an operational field where intersecting levels of discourse
inform one another; for Nesbitt, it gains a different (posrmodern)
reading where " plurality" and "complexity" become somewhat
vague definitions for postmodernism. Nesbitt's project is ambitious
in irs attempt to construct a topography of postmodern architec-
tural discourse by organizing the book thematically around "archi-
tectural themes" and "theoretical paradigms. " The themes consist
of "history and historicism," "meaning," "place," "urban theory,"
"political and ethical agendas," and "the body." The paradigms are
" phenomenology," "aesthetic of rhe sublime, " "linguistic analogy,"
"Marxism ," and "feminism."
This organizational method poses a problem, as paradigms
and themes tend to detach themselves from their political and his-
torical context. Nesbitt is convinced that theory and history are dis-
tinct pursuits; the writing of history is "descriptive of past work,"
26 7
while theory cries to answer the "perennial" problems. Facing the
same question of the relationship between theory and history writ-
ing, rhe author and editor of A History ofArchitectural Theory from
Vitruvius to the Present, Han no- Walter Kruft, exercises more cau-
tion; I would argue with Kruft that "theory is a concept that does
not have a constancy of meaning" and that "historical analyses of
architecture are rarely unambiguous in respect of the theories that
lie behind them." 2
It might be useful to ask what theory is. Nesbitt understands
it as a form of speculative knowledge and opposes it to praxis, thus
aligning with idealist philosophy. One could usefully refer to the
Greek notion of theoria, which emphasizes the entering of so me-
thing into public discourse.·3 The latter is perhaps less prone to cat-
egorization and reducrivism than the former. Phenomenology gains
a particularly strange twist when understood as speculative knowl-
edge; against the Greek notion of theory Martin Heidegger's writ-
ings on technology could not be reduced categorically into an
antitechnological stance.
Nesbitt's explicit wish to leave our of the scope of her project
the larger question of what postmodernism means ignores some
questions: Is it an aesthetic project, a form of critical practice, or a
socioeconomic condition? I would argue that without an under-
standing of what Edward W. Soja calls "the epochal transition in
both critical thought and material life," which characterizes our era,
architectural theory will remain dominated by the duality of men-
tal constructs and formal problems insofar as it eliminates the so-
cial and historical dimension as their origin and context. 4 To my
mind, the scope ofNesbitt's introduction could have profited from
a critical evaluation of how postmodern architectural theory relates
to these larger epochal questions.
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture documents the
Anglo-American architectural discourse centered around the Insti-
tute of Architecture and Urban Studies in New York during the
seventies and early eighties. The book offers a wide selection of texts
written by several prominent figures of contemporary architecture
(Peter Eisenman, Kenneth Frampton, Rem Koolhaas, and Bernard
Tschumi). One wonders how it might have differed had the writ-
ings of some lesser-known, younger writers been included .
Whereas the main body of texts in both Ockman's and Nesbitt's
anthologies consists of essays by practicing architects and people
involved with architectural education, Neil Leach's Rethinking Ar-
chitectu re: A Reader in Cultu ral Theory brings together texts con-
cerning the built environment written by this century's most
important thinkers (Walter Benj amin, Michel Foucault, Jacques
book reviews
 Derrida, Martin Heidegger, et al.), of whom all but one (Siegfried
Kracauer) lack a formal architectural education. Leach hints that
perhaps the most interesting discussions might take place outside
the mainstream architectural discourse and argues for the necessity
of such "external critiques" in order to provide architecture with
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"tools of self-criticism." This "opening up to impulses from other
disciplines" has, in fact, led to a "metamorphosis" of"architectural
discipline" during the recent years. The book functions as a critique
of twentieth-century architectural theory by providing commentary
on some of the most important texts and by revealing the limita-
tions of how differing strains of theoretical discourses have been
applied to mainstream architectural theory.
Like Nesbitt's book, Rethinking Architecture is organized the-
matically, with "modernism," "phenomenology," "structuralism,"
"postmodernism," and "poststructuralism" forming the "categories"
around which the anthology is structured and the "tools" for "re-
thinking." This privileging of theoretical categories in both books
raises the question of their limitations. As Roger Chartier has noted ,
"Such retrospective and classifYing terms are bearers of contradic-
tions, and they are not faithful to the lived psychological and intel-
lectual experience of the time."'
So, what is being rethought? Nothing less than the very foun-
dations of modern society and with it those of the architectural dis-
cipline. It is exactly this conviction of the need to think and to
rethink that makes Leach's book so worthwhile . Leach quotes
Derrida: "To go after [architecture]: not in order to attack, destroy
or deroute it, to criticise or disqualifY it. Rather, in order to think
it in fact, to detach itself sufficiently to apprehend it in a thought
which goes beyond the theorem-and becomes a work in its turn ."
One must note that this emphasis on rethinking is very different
from the compulsory need to justifY form, that seems to dominate
the "mainstream" architectural discourse today. Luckily, the nature
of Leach's book allows him to stay away from such reductionism.
Are these three anthologies the final word on the state of ar-
chitectural discourse as the millennium approaches? Together, the
MayJ998JAE5l/4 268
three books provide an excellent coverage of texts that everybody
should read, but there is still ground to cover. The relationship be-
tween art and architecture has been especially vivid in the United
States since the late sixties, and texts written and work done by art-
ists such as Dan Graham, Robert Morris, and Robert Smithson, just
to name a few, have been widely influential to architectural dis-
course. An area that also deserves more exposure is urban theory. A
reader, edited by Susan Fainstein and Scott Campbell, already ex-
ists. Texts by urban geographers like Mike Davis, David Harvey,
and Edward W. Soja show how phenomenology, feminism, marxist
critical theory, economics, body thematics, placeness, and geogra-
phy inform one another against the postmodern "epochal shift."
There is a lot to learn from these urban theorists: If, in the commu-
nity of architectural theorists, being a marxist, a poststructuralist, or
a feminist seems to be a prerequisite for a license to think, these
urban geographers have left these all too limiting categories behind
in order to focus, refreshingly, on real life.
EEVA-LIISA P ELKONF N
Yale School ojArchitecture
Notes
I. Bruno Zev i, Architecturt• m Space: Ho w to Look ttt Architature (New York:
Horizon Press, 1974) , p. 32 .
2. Han no-Walter Kruft, A History o{Architertumllheoryfrorn Vitruvius to
the l'resfnl (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), p. 13.
3. See Wlad Godzich 's introduction to Paul de Man's Resistance to Theory
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), pp. xiii-xv.
4. Edwa rd W. Soja. Postmodan Geogmphies: Tlu· Reassertion ofSpttct• in
Critiml Socitt! Theory (London: Verso, 1989), p. 5.
5. Roger Chartier. "Intellectual History or Sociocultural History? ·rhe
French Tra jecto ries," in Modern European Intellectual Hist01y: Reappraisal.< and New
Perspeuivl'J, ed. Dominick LaCapra and Steven L. Kaplan {Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1982).