Architects & Mimetic Rivalry - Hardcover

Rene Girard, Leon Krier, Samir Younes, Kent Bloomer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1906506337 ISBN 13: 9781906506339

Publisher: Papadakis, 2012

Synopsis

It is what architects have in common rather than what separates them that is at the root of their legendary quarrels. Architectural identities are shaped by imitating preferred architectural forms and by imitating the identities of their makers. But although imitation (mimesis) is both essential and useful, it has another side, one that makes it a cause for rivalry, something Rene Girard has called 'mimetic rivalry'. Mimetic rivalry occurs because of competition for what is commonly shared, for what is commonly desired. Architects usually explain their rivalry as the result of personal and ideological differences, unaware that the desire to imitate a master becomes the desire to obtain the same forms, the same status. For the first time in architectural literature, this book introduces and explains the idea of mimetic rivalry that many architects experience without understanding its source.

About this title

Review

Any group of essays by the likes of Krier, Bloomer, Girard and Younés holds real promise... The discussions herein about mimetic rivalry are a a kind of kindergarten chat if you will, among clear-headed people who find themselves at a time of architectural confusion in a virtual forest of brambles from which they seek a way out, to cleared ground, where appropriate criteria for evaluation can be restored. --Jaquelin T. Robertson

This unpretentious book of essays blows up the grandiose pretense that architecture can only be performed by supernatural genius-wizards trafficking in self-referential occult metaphysics. It is a compass pointing the direction out of the dark forest of cultural narcissism where so many lost souls wander. --James Howard Kunstler, author of Too Much Magic

About the Author

Architect and urbanist Leon Krier has taught at the Architectural Association, the Royal College of Arts, the University of Virginia, and Princeton and Yale Universities and has been an architectural consultant to the Prince of Wales since 1988. He is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture and Jefferson Memorial Gold Medal. He is the author of the award-winning "Architecture: Choice or Fate" and other books.

Edition details

• Publisher: Papadakis
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1906506337
• ISBN 13: 9781906506339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 104
• Editor: Samir Younes