What is Architecture?

Architecture can influence the way we feel, and can help us along as we go about our lives, or sabotage our habitual ways of doing things. The essays collected here challenge, and help to define a view of architecture which ranges from the minimal domesticity of Diogenes' barrel, to the exuberant experiments of the contemporary avant-garde. There are essays by philosophers, architects and art historians, including Roger Scruton, Bernard Tschumi, Demetri Pophyrios, Kenneth Frampton, Diane Ghirardo and David Goldblatt. Introduction. The Nest and the Pillar of Fire. Architectural Principles in an Age of Nihilism. The Architecture of Deceit. Spatial Stories. The Dark Side of the Domus. The Metaphysics of Housework. "Hi Honey, I'm Home": Weary (Neurasthenic) Businessmen and the Formulation of a Serenely Modern Aesthetic. From Techne to Tectonics. Rappel a l'Ordre: the Case for the Tectonic. The Dislocation of the Architectural Self. The Pleasures of Architecture.