Architecture in the Age of Pornography

<p>Architecture, and its pedagogy in the academy, is dominated by the technology of image production that veils the ‘naked power’ behind its operation. It conforms to the principles of cultural logic of the society of the spectacle, consistent with neoliberal capitalism. The problem with this dominant pedagogy is that it violates the fundamental ethical imperative, putting architecture in direct contradiction with the ‘common good’. In addition, it has let architecture enter the brothel of pornographic capitalism which turns every object into an object of obscene gratification of the senses.</p><p>In this book, Nadir Lahiji adopts Alain Badiou’s thesis from <em>The Pornographic Age</em> to demonstrate that contemporary architecture is in absolute complicity with the pornographic present. The traits that Badiou identifies in this age are manifestly visible in architectural surfaces which are subordinated to the same ‘regime of images’. Similarly to Badiou’s political indictments of the society which has given rise to the pornographic present, the book condemns the architecture that has lent its service to the same society with a license to consummate its transgression to better cater to the imperative of the ‘regime of images’.</p><p>Transposing the conceptual categories in Badiou’s analysis to the critique of architecture’s pornographic turn in contemporary society, the book constructs a conceptual framework by which to demonstrate the specific manifestations of pornography in building. The book is aimed at architecture students at higher graduate and post-graduate levels.</p> <p><strong>PART I: PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHTS ON PORNOGRAPHY </strong>1. Visibility of the invisible: Pornography and utilitarianism 2. Profanation and pornography 3. The society of pornography 4. Pornography and the society of spectacle <b>PART II: BADIOU AND THE PORNOGRAPHIC PRESENT </b>5. The fetish of democracy 6. The reign of the image and the phallic fetish of our time 7. The brothel and the Chief of Police <b>PART III: THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE PORNOGRAPHIC AGE </b>8. Appearance and <i>Schein </i>9. Building between nudity and clothing 10. Digital tattooists, or, the new criminals 11. The obscene surplus of drapery 12. Veiling and unveiling 13. Pornography and exhibition-value <b>PART IV: ARCHITECTURE AND POLITICAL TRUTH: CRITIQUE OF PORNOGRAPHIC CAPITALISM </b>14. Utilitarianism, happiness, and the use of pleasure 15. Philosophy and happiness 16. Political truth, ideology, and the camera obscura 17. Architecture, capitalism, and the pornographic apparatus</p>