Daniela Puga 62 c Oakley Square London WC1 1NJ
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7th November 2014 Publisher 36 Bedford Square London WC1B 3ES
!Dear Publisher, ! I strongly believe that you will find of your interest the following book proposal. ! [TITLE] The Political Façade !
[SUMMARY] The Façade, as a political artefact that confronts the social and economical conflicts of a space, brings together five essays around a central thesis established by Pier Vittorio Aureli in the review of a London based architectural office“ As a physical artefact the wall is the only moment in which the social and economic forces that produce the city acquire the consistency of a tangible edge.”
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This is my excuse to walk. Starting with a meandering through the streets of contemporary London I develop a fragmented and non chronological realistic fiction of the physiognomy of the façade, condensing its history through the modern historical narratives I attempt to identify its deeper, more fundamental characteristics. I start, comfortably in “the midst of the masses” and the feeling of deep cold marble, dwell in the uniformity, regularity and never expanding terraced houses of Bloomsbury, hide from the rain, retreating into the picturesque pubs of London. I continue, concentrate, stare and then see through the building getting lost between the outskirts of the green extensions of a semiabandoned welfare state. Suddenly I stop in front of the Victorian & Albert Childhood Museum and engage with its potential of communication, turning to look back while I leave.
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This book traces relevant moments in modern discourses from architects, philosophers and historians of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century such as Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Adolf Loos, Colin Rowe & Caruso St. John, revealing the façade as the last element in crisis through the process. It aims for an understanding of the theory through the physicality of the artefact.
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[PUBLIC] It is written for the undergraduate student with a previous understanding on architectural theory of the period described, or a walking audience.
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[FORMAT] Every essay would start with a quote allusive to the subject, followed by the story. I propose a format similar to the ipad in its dimension (200 x 134,7 mm), allowing a common design between the physical and virtual version of the book. There will be no pictures except for a fictitious map of London in the inside of a resistant cover.
! ! ! Sincerely, ! Daniela Puga !
Architect & Student MA History and Critical Thinking
Architectural Association
! [ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY] ! 1.
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Lewis, Carol. (1992) Alice in Wonderland / Lewis Carroll ; authoritative texts of Alice's adventures in Wonderland, Through the looking-glass, The hunting of the snark, backgrounds, essays in criticism ; edited by Donald J. Gray. 2nd ed. New York : W.W. Norton & Co. Vittorio, Aureli. (2013) 'The Thickness of the Façade', El Croquis, 166 Heyden, Hilde (1999) Architecture and Modernity: A Critique. The MIT Press Loos, Adolf.(2002) On architecture / Adolf Loos ; selected and introduced by Adolf and Daniel Opel ; translated by Michael Mitchell. Riverside. Calif. : Ariadne Press Benjamin, Walter. (1999) Arcades project / Walter Benjamin ; translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin ; prepared on the basis of the German volume edited by Rolf Tiedemann. Cambridge, MA : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Rowe, C. and Slutzky. R. Transparency, Phenomenal and Literal. Birkhauser Publications, Basel 1997 Evans, Robin. (1997) Translations from drawing to building and other essays. Reprinted in 2003 from the 1997 Edition. London: Architectural Association.
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