Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture | Director, Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University
For lecture dates and times visit the Kent State CAED Lecture Series page.
X-Ray Architecture by
This book explores the impact of medical discourse and diagnostic technologies on the formation, representation, and reception of modern architecture. It challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that the architecture of the early twentieth century was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray.If architectural discourse has from its beginning associated building and body, the body that it describes is the medical body, reconstructed by each new theory of health. Modern architects pre- sented their architecture as a kind of medical instrument for protecting and enhancing the body. X-ray technology and modern architecture were born around the same time and evolved in parallel. While the X-ray exposed the inside of the body to the public eye, the modern building unveiled its interior, inverting the relationship between private and public.Colomina suggests that if we want to talk about the state of the art in buildings, we should look to the dominant obsessions about illness and the latest techniques of imaging the body-and ask what effects they may have on the way we conceive architecture. AUTHOR: Beatriz Colomina is founding director of the program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University and Professor in the School of Architecture. She has written extensively on the inter- relationships between architecture, art, media, sexuality, and health. SELLING POINTS: *This book discusses a new, compelling theory in architecture that has not been widely discussed before. The author parallels the development of the X-ray with the development of modern architecture. *This book discusses architecture from the early twentieth century to today.
Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design by
'Are We Human?' rethinks the philosophy of design in a multi-dimensional exploration from the very first tools and ornaments to the constant buzz of social media. The average day involves the experience of thousands of layers of design that reach to outside space but also reach deep into our bodies and brains. Even the planet itself has been completely encrusted by design as a geological layer. There is no longer an outside to the world of design. Design has become the world. Design is what makes the human. It is the very basis of social life. But design also engineers inequalities and new forms of neglect, such as lawlessness, poverty, and the climate at the same time as the human genome and the weather are being actively redesigned. We can no longer reassure ourselves with the idea of "good design." Design itself needs to be redesigned. AUTHOR: Beatriz Colomina is Professor of Architecture and Founding Director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. She is the editor of "Sexuality and Space, " which was awarded the International Book Award by the American Institute of Architects. She is the coeditor of "Cold War Hot Houses: Inventing Postwar Culture from Cockpit to Playboy." Her most recent book is "Doble exposicion: Arquitectura a traves del arte." Mark Wigley is Professor of Architecture at Columbia University. SELLING POINTS: * Extensive historical exploration of the design system * Multi-dimensional redraft of our understanding of design Illustrations throughout
Philip Johnson by 
Domesticity at War by
When American architects, designers, and cultural institutions converted wartime strategies to new ends, the aggressive promotion of postwar domestic bliss became another kind of weapon. In the years immediately following World War II, America embraced modern architecture--not as something imported from Europe, but as an entirely new mode of operation, with original and captivating designs made in the USA. In Domesticity at War, Beatriz Colomina shows how postwar American architecture adapted the techniques and materials that were developed for military applications to domestic use. Just as manufacturers were turning wartime industry to peacetime productivity--going from missiles to washing machines--American architects and cultural institutions were, in Buckminster Fuller's words, turning "weaponry into livingry."This new form of domesticity itself turned out to be a powerful weapon. Images of American domestic bliss--suburban homes, manicured lawns, kitchen accessories--went around the world as an effective propaganda campaign. Cold War anxieties were masked by endlessly repeated images of a picture-perfect domestic environment. Even the popular conception of the architect became domesticated, changing from that of an austere modernist to a plaid-shirt wearing homebody. Colomina examines, with interlocking case studies and an army of images, the embattled and obsessive domesticity of postwar America. She reports on, among other things, MOMA's exhibition of a Dymaxion Deployment Unit (DDU), a corrugated steel house suitable for use as a bomb shelter, barracks, or housing; Charles and Ray Eames's vigorous domestic life and their idea of architecture as a flexible stage for the theatrical spectacle of everyday life; and the American lawn as patriotic site and inalienable right.Domesticity at War itself has a distinctive architecture. Housed within the case are two units: one book of text, and one book of illustrations--most of them in color, including advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles, architectural photographs, and more.
Cold War Hothouses by
The technological innovation and unprecedented physical growth of the cold war era permeated American life in every aspect and at every scale. From the creation of the military-industrial complex and the beginnings of suburban sprawl to the production of the ballpoint pen and the TV dinner, the artifacts of the period are a numerous and diverse as they are familiar. Over the past half-century, our awe at the advances of postwar society has softened to nostalgia, and our affection for its material culture has clouded our memories of the enormous spatial reorganizations and infrastructural transformations that changed American life forever. Cold War Hot Houses casts a clear, even playful, eye on this pivotal time in history, examining topics as diverse as the creation of the interstate highway system and the shopping center, and the domestication of the national parks as well as the production of such seemingly mundane products as the drive-in theater, aluminum foil, and the king-size bed. The result is a vivid snapshot of American culture that still resonates today. This beautifully illustrated collection of essays is based on a series of seminars focusing on the impact of the Cold War on the built environment, which was recently conducted at Princeton University by Beatriz Colomina. Colomina is editor of Sexuality and Space.
Privacy and Publicity by
Through a series of close readings of two major figures of the modern movement, Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, Beatriz Colomina argues that architecture only becomes modern in its engagement with the mass media, and that in so doing it radically displaces the traditional sense of space and subjectivity.
Sexuality and Space by
"Both timely and well worth the time."-Thomas Keenan, Newsline. aia Award Winner & Oculus Bestseller.
The Banham Lectures by 
Architecturally Speaking by 
Autonomy and Ideology by 
The Presence of Mies by 
Dan Graham by 
Learning from the Bilbao Guggenheim by 
This Is Not Architecture by 
Architecture and Design in Europe and America by 
Architecture Theory since 1968 by 
Anybody by 
Public Space, Media Space by | Selected Articles & Publications | Availability |
| Wilkinson, Tom. 2020. “Ada Louise Huxtable Prize - Beatriz Colomina : The Internationally Acclaimed Feminist Writer Shines a Spotlight on Sexual Prejudice and Representation in Architecture.” Architectural Review, no. 1469 (March): 108–11. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz, and Mark Wigley. “The Bacterial Clients of Modern Architecture.” Docomomo Journal, no. 62 (January 2020): 6–17. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Pyjama Party.” Architectural Review, no. 1459 (March 2019): 18–23. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Intimacy and Spectacle: The Interiors of Adolf Loos.” AA Files, no. 76 (June 2018): 5–15. | Print Only - Arch Library |
| Colomina, Beatriz, Shayari de Silva, Dante Furioso, and Samantha Jaff. “Interview with Beatriz Colomina 10.14.2017 Public Hotel, NYC.” Perspecta 51 (June 2018): 270–80. | Print Only - Arch Library |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Outrage.” Architectural Review 243, no. 1449 (March 1, 2018): 46–50. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “EDUCATION.” Architectural Review 240, no. 1437 (December 2016): 121–29. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz, Mark Wigley, and Samuel Medina. “Tangled up in Design.” Metropolis 36, no. 1 (July 1, 2016): 116–23. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “X-Ray Architecture: The Tuberculosis Effect.” Harvard Design Magazine, no. 40 (Spring/Summer 2015): 70–91. | Print Only - Main Library |
| Colomina, Beatriz, Nicole Kalms, and Ari Seligmann. “Paper Architecture [Interview with Beatriz Colomina].” Architecture Australia 102, no. 1 (January 1, 2013): 62–64. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “The Endless Museum: Le Corbusier and Mies van Der Rohe.” Log, no. 15 (January 1, 2009): 55–68. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “X-Ray Architecture: Illness as Metaphor.” Positions (1876-6390), no. 0 (October 15, 2008): 30–35. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Unbreathed Air 1956.” Grey Room 15 (Spring 2004): 28–59. doi:10.1162/1526381041165458. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Enclosed by Images: The Eameses’ Multimedia Architecture.” Grey Room 2 (Winter 2001): 6–29. doi:10.1162/152638101750172975. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Collaborations.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 58, no. 3 (September 1999): 462–71. doi:10.2307/991540. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz, and Blanca Lleó. “‘A Machine Was Its Heart’: House in Floirac [France].” Assemblage, no. 37 (December 1, 1998): 36-45. | Full Text |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “DDU at MoMA.” Any, no. 17 (January 1, 1997): 48-53. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz, and Greg Lynn. “At Home with His Parents.” Assemblage, no. 30 (August 1, 1996): 108–11. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “The Media House.” Assemblage, no. 27 (August 1, 1995): 55–66. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Domesticity at War.” Assemblage, no. 16 (December 1, 1991): 14-41. | Full Text - JSTOR |
| Colomina, Beatriz. “Le Corbusier and Photography.” Assemblage, no. 4 (October 1, 1987): 6-23. | Full Text - JSTOR |
This guide was created with resources available through Kent State University Libraries or freely online. They were compiled by the Joseph F Morbito Architectural Library in February 2022.
Today's Hours: 
Ask Us
My Library Account