Stephen Parcell

Alberto Pérez-Gómez

A diverse collection of essays in the history and philosophy of architecture.

Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture

Chora 7

In this second volume in the Chora series, contributing authors take an interdisciplinary approach to architecture and other cultural concerns, challenging readers to consider alternatives to conventional aesthetic and technological reductions.

Chora 2

Alberto Pérez Gómez

Contributors to this volume strive to uncover architectural alternatives to simplistic models based on concepts of aesthetics, technology, or sociology. Seventeen essays explore historical topics ranging from antiquity, with a study of the Roman Colosseum; through early Renaissance subjects, such as the treatises of Luca Pacioli on architecture; through to the modern era and explorations on topics ranging from seventeenth-century Amsterdam to architectural insights that can be found in the works of the poet and mathematician Lewis Carroll. Authors examining contemporary issues seek to explicate the spatial poetics of architecture by invoking other artistic disciplines. Essays in this group include a discussion of the accomplishments of Gordon Matta-Clark, a reading of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and an analysis of the implications of ethical/formal questions in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein for architecture. Contributors include Caroline Dionne (Université de Québec à Montréal), Mark Dorrian (University of Edinburgh), Michael Emerson (University of New South Wales), Marc Glaudemans (University of Technology), George Hersey (emeritus, Yale University), Robert Kirkbride (design director, Studiolo), Joanna Merwood (doctoral dissertation, Princeton University), Michel Moussette (Ph.D. at the Université de Montréal), Juhani Pallasmaa (architect, Finland, emeritus Washington University in St. Louis), Alberto Pérez-Gómez (McGill University), David Theodore (McGill University), and Dorian Yurchuk (architect, New York City).

Chora

The thirteen essays in this collection include historical subjects as well as speculative theoretical "projects" that blur conventional boundaries between history and fiction. Ricardo Castro provides an original reading of the Kogi culture in Colombia; Maria Karvouni explores philological and architectonic connections between the Greek demas (the political individual) and domus (the house); Mark Rozahegy speculates on relationships between architecture and memory; Myriam Blais discusses technical inventions by sixteenth-century French architect Philibert de l'Orme; Alberto Pérez-Gómez examines the late sixteenth-century reconstruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Juan Bautista Villalpando; Janine Debanné offers a new perspective on Guarino Guarini's Chapel of the Holy Shroud in Turin; Katja Grillner examines the early seventeenth-century writings of Salomon de Caus and his built work in Heidelberg; David Winterton reflects on Charles-François Viel's "Letters"; Franca Trubiano looks at Jean-Jacques Lequeu's controversial Civil Architecture; Henrik Reeh considers the work of Sigfried Kracauer, a disciple of Walter Benjamin; Irena ðantovská Murray reflects on work by artist Jana Sterbak; artist Ellen Zweig presents a textual project that demonstrates the charged poetic space created by film makers such as Antonioni and Hitchcock; and Swedish writer and architect Sören Thurell asks a riddle about architecture and its mimetic origins. The essays in this volume demonstrate a reconciliatory architecture that respects cultural differences, acknowledges the globalization of technological culture, and points to a referent other than itself.

Chora 3

Karsten Harries provides a new and long-overdue reading of Martin Heidegger's well-known essay "Building Dwelling Thinking." Donald Kunze and Stephen Parcell consider possibilities of meaningful architectural space for a visual culture, continuing themes they addressed in Chora 1. Further reflections on the spaces of literature, cinema, and architecture include an interview with French writer and film maker Alain Robbe-Grillet and articles by Dagmar Motycka Weston on the surrealist city, Tracey Eve Winton on the museum as a paradigmatic modern building, and Terrance Galvin on spiritual space in the works of Jean Cocteau. Jean-Pierre Chupin and Bram Ratner explore historical themes in their essays on French Renaissance architect Philibert de l'Orme and the Jewish myth of the Golem. Gregory Caicco addresses ethical questions in his essay on the Greek agora and the death of Socrates, as does Lily Chi in her meditation on the critical issue of use in architectural works. A concern with architectural representation and generative strategies for the making of architecture is present throughout, especially in the essay by Joanna Merwood on the provocative House by British artist Rachel Whiteread.

Where does architecture belong in the larger scheme of things? Is it a liberal art? Is it related to painting, music, medicine, or horse training? Is it timeless, or does it have a beginning? To pursue such questions, Stephen Parcell investigates four historical definitions of Western architecture: as a techné in ancient Greece, a mechanical art in medieval Europe, an art of disegno in Renaissance Italy, and a fine art in eighteenth-century Europe. These definitions situated architecture within larger classifications of knowledge, establishing alliances between architecture and other disciplines. They also influenced elements of architectural practice that we now associate with three characters (designer, builder, and dweller) and three things (material, drawing, and building). Guided by current architectural questions, Parcell examines writings in these historical periods and focuses on practical implications of texts by Hugh of St Victor, Leon Battista Alberti, and Etienne-Louis Boullée. Four Historical Definitions of Architecture shows how the concept of architecture and elements of architectural practice have evolved over time. Even the word "architecture" has ambiguous roots.

Stephen Parcell

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