Perspecta 54: Atopia

ISBN 10: 0262543818 / ISBN 13: 9780262543811

Published by The MIT Press, 2022

LIKE NEW!!! Has a red or black remainder mark on bottom/exterior edge of pages. Seller Inventory # mon0000034627

Synopsis:

Atopia as both the site of architecture's critical confrontation with hegemonic systems and the theoretical space in which its own processes can be challenged.
<p/>A literal no-place, atopia represents the spatial end-product of a society seemingly flattened by supra-territorial flows of information and material. It expresses both a physical artifact and condition of mass culture, and like the global systems of production and consumption from which it is conceived, atopia is both nowhere and everywhere at once. For the contributors of Perspecta 54, the ephemeral conditions of atopia are also an invitation to an equally unconstrained critical practice. Blurred boundaries--geopolitical, virtual, technical, disciplinary--offer sites for transgressive speculation and critique from beyond the limits of traditional design agency. <p/>What results is a form of design practice that ambiguously straddles impossibility and hyperreality. Atopia rejects both the escapist fantasy of utopia and the nihilism of dystopia, favoring instead a conceptual middle ground from which real-world conditions can be productively engaged and challenged. Architecture's traditional objectives of critical inquiry--particularly the location of modes of complicity, agency, and resistance within larger structures--are mediated and reframed through nontraditional strategies of speculative design and fiction. For a profession that is routinely asked to navigate extreme complexity with limited tools, this approach suggests an expanded operational domain and possibilities for reinvigorated creative thought. From urban crises and climate emergencies to border disputes and geopolitics, Perspecta 54 examines atopia as both the site of architecture's critical confrontation with hegemonic systems and the theoretical space in which its own processes can be challenged.

About the Author: Melinda Agron, Timon Covelli, Alexis Kandel, and David Langdon are all graduates of Yale School of Architecture.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Perspecta 54: Atopia
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication Date: 2022
Binding: paperback
Condition: Fine