This Thing Called Theory

<p>In the age of post-digital architecture and digital materiality, <i>This Thing Called Theory</i> explores current practices of architectural theory, their critical and productive role. The book is organized in sections which explore theory as an open issue in architecture, as it relates to and borrows from other disciplines, thus opening up architecture itself and showing how architecture is inextricably connected to other social and theoretical practices.</p><p>The sections move gradually from the specifics of architectural thought – its history, theory, and criticism – and their ongoing relation with philosophy, to the critical positions formulated through architecture’s specific forms of expression, and onto more recent forms of architecture’s engagement and self-definition. The book’s thematic sessions are concluded by and interspersed with a series of shorter critical position texts, which, together, propose a new vision of the contemporary role of theory in architecture. What emerges, overall, is a critical and productive role for theory in architecture today: theory as a proposition, theory as task and as a ‘risk’ of architecture.</p> <p>1. This Thing Called Theory <i>Teresa Stoppani, Giorgio Ponzo, George Themistokleous </i><b>Part 1: Theories and Histories </b>2. Manfredo Tafuri and the Death of Architecture <i>Marco De Michelis </i>3. Theories and History of Architecture (museums) <i>Sergio M. Figueiredo </i>4. Architecture In/Out of the Boudoir? The autonomy of architecture and the architecture of autonomy <i>Ole W. Fischer </i>5. Repositioning – Before Theory <i>Kyle Miller </i><b>Part 2: Between History and Philosophy </b>6. Which "Humanism"? On the Italian Theory of Architecture, 1951-1969 <i>Amir Djalali </i>7. Philosophical Thinking as Political Praxis: Giorgio Agamben and inoperative architecture <i>Camillo Boano </i><i> </i>8. Affective Encounters Amidst Feminist Futures in Architecture? <i>Hélène Frichot</i><i> </i>9. <b>Repositioning</b> – The After(s) and the End(s) of Theory <i>Deborah Hauptmann </i><b>Part 3: Beyond the Image </b>10. Drawing Jerusalem. Notes on Hans Bol’s <i>Jerusalem, with Christ and the Good Shepherd</i> (1575) <i>Andrew Benjamin </i>11. Architectural Drawing: architecture’s speculative visual history <i>Desley Luscombe</i><i> </i>12. God’s Eye View <i>Adam Jasper</i><i> </i><b>Part 4: Critical Displays </b>13. <i>Aktion 507</i>: Politics Become Theory Become Praxis <i>Florian Kossak </i>14. Architecture and the Neo-avant-garde <i>Michael Chapman </i>15. Exhibits That Matter: Material Gestures with Theoretical Stakes <i>Maarten Liefooghe </i>16. Repositioning – This Think Called Crit … <i>Brian Hatton </i><b>Part 5: Theories of Things </b>17. Ready, Steady, Cook with Bergson, Plato and Gordon Matta-Clark <i>Stephen Walker </i>18. Pragmatics: Towards a Theory of Things <i>Gerry Adler </i>19. Expendability of Life and Technology: Architecture’s Thing and the Thingness of Theory <i>Ivana Wingham </i><b>Part 6: The Transactions of Architecture </b>20. Architecture and the Promise of Post-capitalism <i>Anthony Burke </i>21. Domestic, Production, Debt: For a Theory of the Informal <i>Platon Issaias </i>22. White, Wide, and Scattered: Picturing (her) Housing Career <i>Helen Runting and Hélène Frichot </i>23. Toward a Theory of Interior <i>Ross Exo Adams </i>24. Repositioning – Theory Now. Don’t excavate, change reality! <i>Roemer Van Toorn </i><b>Part 7: Forms of Engagement </b>25. (Un)political <i>Pippo Ciorra </i>26. Prince Complex: Narcissism and Reproduction of the Architectural Mirror <i>Camilo Amaral </i>27. Less than Enough: a critique of Aureli’s project <i>Douglas Spencer </i>28. Repositioning – Having Ideas <i>Mario Carpo </i>29. ‘But that is not enough’ <i>Teresa Stoppani </i>Index</p>