Mass Identity Architecture Architectural Writings of Jean Baudrillard

by Proto, Francesco

• ISBN13: 9780470027158
• ISBN10: 0470027150
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-11
• Publisher: Academy Press

Summary

This new edition further explores the connection between the cultural analysis provided by the contemporary philosopher Jean Baudrillard and the new 'star' of global culture - architecture. In a world in which images have become a substitute for reality - i.e. simulacra capable of both stimulating and satisfying collective needs - the question arises as to whether architecture could be seen as a 'super-fetish', capable of both mirroring and shaping western society's culture and identity. The aim of this book is thus to provide new methodologies and to suggest new meanings for the comprehension and development of contemporary architecture. In Baudrillard's terms, architecture could be seen as the supreme medium of contemporary visual culture, especially in its potential to influence the individual's perception of reality as a component of the mass-media system. This kind of cultural analysis of the built environment and its effect on everyday life is still a relatively new phenomenon - both in the fields of critical theory and even more so in mainstream architectural criticism. This book, which forms a significant resource on the work of an immensely important writer, should appeal to a wide range of readers. Through highly evocative writing, it provides a theoretical, illuminating pathway for everyone who, either directly or indirectly, is involved or interested in architecture, urbanism and related subjects.

Author Biography

FRANCESCO PROTO, architect, is currently teaching at the postgraduate School of Critical Theory and the School of the Built Environment at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Consuming Signs	ix
Mike Gane
Introduction: Philosophy as a Commodity: Mode d'Emploi	xi
Francesco Proto
The Aesthetics and the Machine	1	(18)
Francesco Proto
Cheese-(beau)burger
Post-orgasmic chill
Pop-nography
The Prozac effect
Disneyland: one-way ticket
The emperor's new clothes
Absolute Architecture	19	(18)
The Singular Objects of Architecture
Radicality
Singular objects in architecture
Illusion. Virtuality. Reality
A destabilized area
Concept. Irresolution. Vertigo
Values of functionalism
New York or Utopia
Architecture: between nostalgia and anticipation
(Always) seduction
Provocation. Secrets
The aesthetics of modernity
A heroic architectural act?
Art, architecture and postmodernity
Visual disappointment
Intellectual disappointment
The aesthetics of disappearance
Cool Cities	37	(34)
America
Salt Lake City
New York
Santa Barbara
Venice and Porterville
Disneyland
The Bonaventure Hotel
The realized utopia
Cool Memories I (1980--85)
Urbino. Gubbio. Mantua
Trieste
Palermo
Pompeii
Montreal
Tower blocks
Velizy
Velizy 2
Versailles. St Peter
The Pompidou Centre
Urban monsters
Paris
Berlin
Rome in December
Night on the cities
Dunkirk
Ideal City
Fifth Avenue
Suburban comfort
Cool Memories II (1987--90)
American towns
Rio
Buenos Aires
Puerto Stroessner
Sites of fascination
Venice (California)
Los Angeles
Marilyn's grave
Salt Lake City
Las Vegas Disneyworld
Beyond Las Vegas
Venice (California)
New York. Lisbon
Shop windows
Shop windows 2
Arche de la Defense
Coupole
Sao Paulo
Copacabana
Cool Memories III (1992--95)
Venice
Puerto Vallarta
Bern. Zurich
Brasilia
Brasilia's satellites
Free zones' farce
American campuses
Pointe du Raz
Copacabana Montreal. Rio
Pompeii
Luxembourg Gardens
Cool Memories IV (1995--2002)
New York
Tierra del Fuego
New York
Naples
Pompeii
Disney Company
Future Cities
St Petersburg
Bogota
Buenos Aires
Palacio Itamarati
California
Villa Palagonia (Palermo)
Villa Palagonia II
The Indifference of Space	71	(10)
Le Parc de la Villette
Urbanism and architecture
The Code and the Eye	81	(14)
Simulations
Hyperreal and imaginary [Disneyland]
The stucco angel [Baroque Architecture]
The tactile and the digital [World Trade Center]
Trompe l'Oeil or enchanted simulation [Duke of Urbino's and Federico da Montefeltro's studiolos]
Ecstasy and inertia [Pompeii]
The Rise of the Object: the End of Culture	95	(28)
The Formal Liturgy of the Object
The consumer society
Profusion and display
The drugstore
Parly 2
Hypermarket and Hypercommodity
Absolute Advertising, Ground Zero Advertising
Mass (Sociology of)
Mass languages
A structure of modernity
An operational language
Beyond truth and falsehood
The internal logic of this neo-language
The ideology of Technique	123	(28)
Technique as social practice
The organization, as myth, of technique
Conclusion: `technique totally in the service of everyday life?'
Ephemeral and Durable
The Irony of Technology
The Beaubourg Effect: Implosion or Deterrence?
The Aesthetic Suicide	151	(38)
Questions of Strategy
Truth or Radicality: The Future of Architecture
The Homeopathic Disappearance of Architecture: an interview with Jean Baudrillard	175	(6)
Aesthetics and design
The lost language of seduction
Success in architecture
Duchamp in architecture
The object as a sign
Space as a thought
Baudrillard, Perspective and the Void of Architecture	181	(8)
Keith Broadfoot
Rex Butler
Essential Bibliography	189	(2)
Further Reading	191