“FRAGMENTS OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY”
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thesis 2
thesis 3
Contemporary conventions would have us believe that the physical book is an outdated form of technology. New forms of media that transcend the limits of dissemination and challenge the hierarchy of the author-recipient relationship have been deemed more aptly suited for 21st-century pedagogy. Cognitive sciences aside, this thesis posits that physical books are irreplaceable not only for transmitting knowledge, but also as objects themselves that possess unique spatial-temporal qualities. This thesis attempts to devise new operations for referencing and archiving critical theory through a reinterpretation of Postmodern literary methods. Taking Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York as it structural model, this book embraces multiplicity, repetition, and confusion through fragmentary knowledge in order to challenge the neoliberal obsession with productivity in architecture.
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Fragments within the text focus on Koolhaas’ theory of Bigness, the culmination of several “architectural mutations”: The Architectural Lobotomy The Vertical Schism The Automonument Testing Grounds 73 and Dalí’s Paranoid Critical Method
synthesis 4
thesis 4
Mass media has irrevocably altered the way architecture and its subsequent theory are produced. Immediacy, constant consumption, and accessibility have allowed architecture and theory to manifest simultaneously. Knowledge remains a by-product of architecture, but the traditional format of the architecture book is not suited for the hyper-referentiality that has become the norm for contemporary culture. Fragments of Architectural Theory posits that the language of architecture must move towards non-exclusive, aesthetically determined modes that support contextualization by the public sphere. Rather than subverting digital forms of architectural discourse, the physical book remains the foundational medium for producing and consuming architectural knowledge. Perhaps the issue is not that the book as an object 103 is flawed, but that we are interacting with it as though we have not changed.
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antithesis 3 manifestation 68
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EDS 401: Fall 2018 Design Synthesis
Student: Christopher Landry Instructor: Nicholas Shekerjian