Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction - Softcover

Salingaros, Nikos A

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3937954082 ISBN 13: 9783937954080

Publisher: Umbau Verlag, 2007

Synopsis

"The Emperor Has No Clothes" is an old adage, but, in the sad case of Deconstructivism, it is absolutely appropriate, as Deconstructivism is really nothing more than Modernism in a new guise.  Modernists, notably the BauhÄusler, aimed for the clean slate, jettisoning everything that went before.  Yet, at times, they claimed links with antecedents to give a spurious historical ancestry to their aims and creations.  These questionable links and precedents are now being claimed for the works of Deconstructivists by sympathetic architects and their supporters.  The second edition of this book is the beginning of a long-overdue counterattack.

About this title

Review

""Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction" should ruffle lots of feathers in the building and design world. But I suspect it'll also fascinate many who aren't generally architecture and urbanism fanatics... This is a stunning and deep book, as interesting for its analyses of psychology and politics as it is for its discussions of architecture. It's guaranteed to get the brain buzzing; what a treat too that it's a real reading pleasure, written in a voice that's both urbane and forceful."
Michael Blowhard, Author and Filmmaker
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"Less than twenty pages of text is enough to deprive Deconstruction of the complex scientific arguments that offer its exponents scientific authority and social approval. It is astonishing that while architecture abandons the principles that made civilizations reach the highest building achievements, at the same time scientific knowledge that results from a drastically improved understanding of Nature rediscovers the quality of those traditional principles. Whereas the most celebrated architects abuse the latest technological gadgets in order to produce caricatures of science, mathematicians such as Nikos Salingaros and Christopher Alexander use science to reveal the ability of traditional architectural principles to innovate by creating humane urban environments. The clarity of vision that characterizes books such as Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction shows that such a future may not be so far away after all."
--N. Karydis, architect and author, London and Athens
"Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction should ruffle lots of feathers in the building and design world. But I suspect it'll also fascinate many who aren't generally architecture and urbanism fanatics... This is a stunning and deep book, as interesting for its analyses of psychology and politics as it is for its discussions of architecture. It's guaranteed to get the brain buzzing; what a treat too that it's a real reading pleasure, written in a voice that's both urbane and forceful."
--Michael Blowhard, Author and Filmmaker
"Salingaros focuses on the question of why, even in societies that often embrace the silly and the stupid, the public still mostly prefers traditional architechture."
--David Brussat, The Providence Journal

Edition details

• Publisher: Umbau Verlag
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 3937954082
• ISBN 13: 9783937954080
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 210