An Architecture Manifesto

Critical Reason and Theories of a Failed Practice

De: Nadir Lahiji

Narrado por: Simon Shepherd

In this manifesto, the author takes a leap of faith. It is a faith in Lost Causes. He asserts that today, architectonic reason has fallen into ruins. As soon as architecture leaves the limits set to it by architectonic reason, no other path is open to it but the path to aestheticism. This is the wrong path contemporary architecture has taken. In its reduction to a pure aesthetic object, architecture negatively affects the human sensorium. Capitalist consumer society creates desires by generating "surplus-enjoyment" for capitalist profit and contemporary architecture has become an instrument in generating this "surplus-enjoyment", with fatal consequences.

This manifesto is thus both a critique and a work of theory. It is a siren, alarm, klaxon to the current status quo within architectural discourse and a timely response to the conditions of architecture today.

©2020 Taylor & Francis (P)2020 Routledge

Reseñas de la Crítica

"An Architecture Manifesto is a path-breaking call for reclaiming the emancipatory project of the Enlightenment in architecture. Rather than contenting himself with further deconstructing or historicizing the loftiest aims of architecture, Nadir Lahiji embraces them in this manifesto. Simultaneously an apologetic assertion of the importance of theory and an insistence on the universal importance of architecture, An Architecture Manifesto is a must-read for anyone concerned with the space in which we exist—which is to say, for everyone." - Todd McGowan, University of Vermont

"'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' This quote from Samuel Beckett is the guiding light for Nadir Lahiji’s passionate commitment to the practice of architecture. Adamant that the failure of the modernist emancipatory project does not constitute its death, he insists on the need to mine the 'Twentieth Century’s Architectural Project' for its unresolved but ever vital contradictions. Lahiji’s manifesto is unique for avoiding a projected view of the future and instead, a la Tafuri, insisting on the historical, philosophical, and psychoanalytic analysis of 20th century architecture to motivate the present. You won’t find a more committed critical theorist in our architectural ranks." - Peggy Deamer, Professor of Architecture, Yale University

"A philosophical primer from one of the keenest, most demanding writers on the Anglo-American architectural scene today. A profound and bold interrogation of architecture’s role and responsibilities in the age of capitalist absolutism." - Libero Andreotti, Emeritus Professor of Architecture, Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of Technology)