Focusing on six leading contemporary architects: Peter Eisenman; Frank Gehry; Bernard Tschumi; Zaha Hadid; Rem Koolhaas and Steven Holl; this book puts forward a unique and insightful analysis of "neo-avant-garde" architecture. It discusses the spectacle and excess which permeates contemporary architecture in reference to the present aesthetic tendency for image making; but does so by applying the tectonic of theatricality discussed by the 19th-century German architect Gottfried Semper. In doing so; it breaks new ground by opening up a dialogue between the study of the past and the design of the present. The work of each discussed architect is seen as addressing a historiographical problem. To this end; and this is the second important aspect of this book; the chosen buildings are discussed in terms of the thematic of the culture of building (the tectonic of column and wall for example) rather the formal; and this through a discussion that is informed by the latest available theories. Having set the aesthetic implication of the processes of the digitalization of architecture; the books conclusion highlights "strategies" by which architecture might postpone the full consequences of digitalization; and thus the becoming of architecture as ornament on its own right.
#3456295 in eBooks 2016-12-05 2016-12-05File Name: B01NAFWIBN
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