Critical Architecture

Critical Architecture examines the relationship between critical practice in architecture and architectural criticism. Placing architecture in an interdisciplinary context, the book explores architectural criticism with reference to modes of criticism in other disciplines - specifically art criticism - and considers how critical practice in architecture operates through a number of different modes: buildings, drawings and texts.
With forty essays by an international cast of leading architectural academics, this accessible single source text on the topical subject of architectural criticism is ideal for undergraduate as well as post graduate study.

Jane Rendell is Professor of Architecture and Art and Director of Architectural Research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

Jonathan Hill is Professor of Architecture and Visual Theory and Director of the MPhil/PhD by Architectural Design programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture.

Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster in London.

Mark Dorrian is Reader in Architecture at the School of Arts, Culture and Environment, University of Edinburgh and co-director of Metis.

Introduction: ‘Critical Architecture: Between Criticism and Design’ Jane Rendell Part 1: Criticism/Negation/Action Introduction Mark Dorrian 1. ‘Criticality and Operativity’ Andrew Leach 2. ‘Unfinished Business: The Historical Project after Manfredo Tafuri’ Teresa Stoppani 3. ‘Architecture as Critical Knowledge’ David Cunningham 4. ‘Passing through Deconstruction’ Andrew Benjamin 5. ‘Utopia, Critique, and Contemporary Discourse’ Hilde Heynen 6. ‘Militant Architecture: Destabilising Architecture’s Disciplinarity’ Daniel Barber 7. ‘Architecture’s Critical Context: The Athens’ Activist Experiment’ Maria Theodorou 8. ‘Criticism ind/of Crisis’ Naomi Stead Part 2: Architecture-Writing Introduction Jane Rendell 1. ‘The DROWNING METHOD: On Giving an Account in Practice-Based Research’ Rolf Hughes 2. ‘The Poetics of Urban Inscription: From Metaphorical Cognition to Counter-Representation’ Laura Ruggeri 3. ‘Critical Action and Active Criticism’ Paul Shepheard 4. ‘Film as Spatial Critique’ Patrick Keiller 5. ‘Architectural History, Friendship and Filmed Conversations’ Igea Troiani 6. ‘Image, Text, Architecture: The Presence that "WAS HERE"’ Robin Wilson 7. ‘Fluttering Butterflies, a Dusty Road, and a Muddy Stone: Criticality in Distraction (Haga Park, Stockholm, 2004)’ Katja Grillner 8. ‘Memoirs: It will have already happened’ Sharon Kivland 9. ‘Site-Writing: Enigma and Embellishment’ Jane Rendell Part 3: Criticism by Design Introduction Jonathan Hill 1. ‘Centuries of Ambiguity: Sublime and Beautiful Weather at the Farnsworth House’ Jonathan Hill 2. ‘Immediate Architecture’ Phillipe Rahm 3. ‘Alvin Boyarsky’s Delicatessen’ Igor Marjanovic 4. ‘Out of the Salon – with Natalie Barney towards a Critically Queer Architecture’ Katarina Bonnevier 5. ‘Writing about Things and the Doing of Them’ Ben Nicholson 6. ‘Quilting Jakarta’ Stephen Cairns 7. ‘Where is the Project? Cedric Price on Architectural Action’ Tim Anstey 8. ‘The Fall: The Allegorical Architectural Project as a Critical Method’ Penelope Haralambidou 9. ‘On Drawing Forth, Designs and Ideas’ Victoria Watson Part 4: Cultural Context Introduction Murray Fraser 1. ‘I Mean to be Critical, But…’ Kim Dovey 2. ‘Critical Post-Critical: Problems of Effect, Experience and Immersion’ Charles Rice 3. ‘A Critical Architectural Icon and its Contextual Argumentation’ Elisabeth Tostrup 4. ‘Three Scenarios for a Critical Architecture of Desert Mobility’ Gini Lee 5. ‘The Responsive City’ Ana Betancour 6. ‘China as a Global Site: in a Critical Geography of Design’ Jianfei Zhu 7. ‘Critical Practice’ Sarah Wigglesworth 8.‘Architecture for an Active Edge: the Gateway, Derby’ Steve McAdam, Fluid 9. ‘Neuland: Disenchanted Utopias for Tel Aviv’ Alona Nitzan-Shiftan, Ganit Mayslits Kassif & Udi Kassif 10. ‘Beyond Koolhaas’ Murray Fraser