Built upon Love Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics

by Perez-Gomez, Alberto

• ISBN13: 9780262662055
• ISBN10: 0262662051
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-15
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

In Built upon LovePérez-Gómez uncovers the relationship between love and architecture in order to find the points of contact between poetics and ethics--between the architect's wish to design a beautiful world and architecture's imperative to provide a better place for society. The forced polarity between form and function in considerations of architecture--opposing art to social interests, ethics to poetic expression--obscures the deep connections between ethical and poetical values in architectural tradition. Architecture has been, and must continue to be, writes Alberto Pérez-Gómez, built upon love. Modernity has rightly rejected past architectural excesses, but, Pérez-Gómez argues, the materialistic and technological alternatives it proposes do not answer satisfactorily the complex desire that defines humanity. True architecture is concerned with far more than fashionable form, affordable homes, and sustainable development; it responds to a desire for an eloquent place to dwell--one that lovingly provides a sense of order resonant with our dreams. Eros, as first imagined by the early lyric poets of classical Greece, is the invisible force at the root of our capacity to create and comprehend the poetic image. Pérez-Gómez examines the nature of architectural form in the light of eros, seduction, and the tradition of the poetic image in Western architecture. He charts the ethical dimension of architecture, tracing the connections between philia--the love of friends that entails mutual responsibility among equals--and architectural program. He explores the position of architecture at the limits of language and discusses the analogical language of philiain modernist architectural theory. Finally, he uncovers connections between ethics and poetics, describing a contemporary practice of architecture under the sign of love, incorporating both erosand philia.

Author Biography

Alberto Pérez Gómez directs the History and Theory of Architecture Program at McGill University, where he is Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture. He is the author of Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (both published by the MIT Press), and other books.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Opening conversation	p. 1
Introduction: Architecture and Human Desire	p. 3
Historical origins of eros and philia	p. 7
Eros, Seduction, and the Poetic Image in Architecture: Form	p. 9
Eros and Creation	p. 11
Opening conversation	p. 11
Primordial Eros	p. 12
Eros as creative power in classical philosophy	p. 14
Renaissance incorporations	p. 16
Modern transformations	p. 20
Orphic Eros in late modernity	p. 25
Inspiration in contemporary praxis	p. 28
Eros and Limits	p. 31
Opening conversation	p. 31
Eros, spacing, and joints	p. 32
Erotic space and the origins of Western culture	p. 36
Erotic architectural space in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili	p. 39
Chora as erotic space	p. 44
Renaissance incorporations	p. 51
Modern transformations	p. 56
Eros and time	p. 65
Eros and the Poetic Image	p. 69
Opening conversation	p. 69
Origins	p. 71
Marsilio Ficino and the poetic image in the Renaissance	p. 73
The poetic image in Renaissance theory	p. 79
Modern transformations	p. 81
The poetic image in modernity	p. 94
From Lequeu to Duchamp	p. 101
Frederick Kiesler's endless architecture	p. 104
Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum	p. 105
The poetic image in the contemporary world	p. 107
Interlude: Eros, Philia, and Agape	p. 111
Eros and recognition	p. 111
Philia, ethics, and communion	p. 118
Philia, eros, and agape	p. 120
Philia, Compassion, and the Ethical Dimension of Architecture: Program	p. 123
Opening conversation	p. 123
Philia, Ritual, and Decorum	p. 125
Origins	p. 125
From decorum to character	p. 133
Architecture at the Limits of Language	p. 137
Opening conversation	p. 137
Language and architecture	p. 139
Architecture as language	p. 143
The Language of Philia in Architectural Theory	p. 147
Vitruvian theory	p. 147
The sequel	p. 153
A Tale of Two Brothers: Jean-Louis and Charles-Francois Viel	p. 167
The poetic architecture of Jean-Louis Viel	p. 168
The political architecture of Charles-Francois Viel	p. 173
Interweavings	p. 184
Poetry and Meaning from within a (Western) Architectural Tradition	p. 187
Opening conversation	p. 187
Architecture from within	p. 187
Architecture as poetic writing	p. 192
Architecture as critical poem	p. 196
The Ethical Image in Architecture	p. 203
Opening conversation	p. 203
Hermeneutics and ethical intentions	p. 204
On endless desire	p. 211
Notes	p. 215
Index	p. 243
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