Architecture Between Spectacle and Use

by Edited by Anthony Vidler; With essays by Mario Carpo, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Dorrian, Kurt W. Forster, Hal Foster, Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Mark Jarzombek, Felicity D. Scott, Terry Smith, Anthony Vidler, and Mark Wigley

• ISBN13: 9780300125542
• ISBN10: 0300125542
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-03-04
• Publisher: Clark Art Inst

Summary

With the recent international proliferation of architectural projects, expansions, and renovationsparticularly in the art and museum worldscritics have accused architecture of entering too fully into the "society of the spectacle," yielding to consumerist display, and trading its historical aims, ambitions, and obligations for celebrity and ostentation. This important and timely volumeexamines the current state of contemporary architecture worldwide and the ways in which it is caught between the art of display and the accommodation of use. Eleven distinguished scholars from the fields of architecture, art history, and architectural criticism explore the problems and possibilities of contemporary architecture in the light of the history of its modern reception, new approaches to design technologies, and philosophical issues about the "meaning" of architecture. They also consider whether the new buildings, projects, and ideas that have generated such excitement and public interest are a creative response to society's fundamental social, cultural, and economic needs.

Author Biography

Anthony Vidler is dean of the Cooper Union School of Architecture.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Questioning the Spectacle
Spectacle Architecture Before and After the Aftermath: Situating the Sydney Experience	p. 3
Their "Master's Voice": Notes on the Architecture of Hans Scharoun's and Frank Gehry's Concert Halls	p. 25
"The Way the World Sees London": Thoughts on a Millennial Urban Spectacle	p. 41
Media as Modern Architecture	p. 58
Histories and Genealogies
The (Trans)formations of Fame	p. 77
Monumentality in the Pictorial Still	p. 89
"Acid Visions"	p. 107
Redefining Spectacle
Nonstandard Morality: Digital Technology and Its Discontents	p. 127
Architecture's Expanded Field	p. 143
Toward a History of Quantity	p. 155
Image Building	p. 164
Contributors	p. 180
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