Welcome! This guide supports the CAED Theories of Architecture courses. This guide includes books, research tools, streaming media, and exhibition spaces. These resources serve as starting points rather than a comprehensive list.
Want to suggest a resource? Please contact the architecture librarian.
Electronic Reserves
Students enrolled in this class have access to additional film resources through ARES (Automated Reserves System). To access the the designated resources login to ARES with your Flashline credentials.
Print Reserves
Several print books have been placed on reserve for this course. To review the list, please visit the Course Reserves Search and enter "Architectural Discourses."
Aesthetic Theory by
A collection of pivotal ideas about beauty from throughout history, with an introduction and critical headnotes. This collection of writings on beauty includes selections from twenty key philosophers and theoreticians spanning two millennia: Plato * Aristotle * Vitruvius * Alberti * Kant * Burke * Fiedler * Nietzsche * Wilde * Bergson * Bell * Scott * Benjamin * Bataille * Sontag * Jameson * Scarry * Nehamas * Zangwill * Freedberg and Gallese With an introduction and critical headnotes explaining the importance of each text, Mark Foster Gage offers a framework for a provocative history of ideas about beauty as they relate to contemporary thinking on architecture and design. In a world increasingly defined by sumptuous visuality, the concepts of beauty and visual sensation are not mere intellectual exercises but standards that define the very nature of design practice across disciplines and that are essential to the emerging worlds of design and architecture in the twenty-first century.
Architectural Theory by
This second volume of the landmark Architectural Theory anthology surveys the development of architectural theory from the Franco-Prussian war of 1871 until the end of the twentieth century. The entire two volume anthology follows the full range of architectural literature from classical times to present transformations. An ambitious anthology bringing together over 300 classic and contemporary essays that survey the key developments and trends in architecture Spans the period from 1871 to 2005, from John Ruskin and the arts and crafts movement in Great Britain through to the development of Lingang New City, and the creation of a metropolis in the East China sea Organized thematically, featuring general and section introductions and headnotes to each essay written by a renowned expert on architectural theory Places the work of "starchitects" like Koolhaas, Eisenman, and Lyn alongside the work of prominent architectural critics, offering a balanced perspective on current debates Includes many hard-to-find texts and works never previously translated into English Alongside Volume I: An Anthology from Vitruvius to 1870, creates a stunning overview of architectural theory from early antiquity to the twenty-first century
Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by
Artificial intelligence is everywhere - from the apps on our phones to the algorithms of search engines. Without us noticing, the AI revolution has arrived. But what does this mean for the world of design? The first volume in a two-book series, Architecture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence introduces AI for designers and considers its positive potential for the future of architecture and design.Explaining what AI is and how it works, the book examines how different manifestations of AI will impact the discipline and profession of architecture. Highlighting current case-studies as well as near-future applications, it shows how AI is already being used as a powerful design tool, and how AI-driven information systems will soon transform the design of buildings and cities.Far-sighted, provocative and challenging, yet rooted in careful research and cautious speculation, this book, written by architect and theorist Neil Leach, is a must-read for all architects and designers - including students of architecture and all design professionals interested in keeping their practice at the cutting edge of technology.
The Architecture Reader by
Encompassing two thousand years of building history, these writings engage persistent concerns in architecture and design, including the role of the architect, and the relationships between architecture, nature, art and science.Intended to be at once accessible and thought-provoking, this volume is ideal for a general audience and beginning students of architecture. The carefully chosen texts provide a taste of the multiplicity that characterizes historical and contemporary views of architecture. Krista Sykes organizes the selections chronologically and introduces each with a helpful commentary, contextualizing the author and the salient issues covered in the piece. The excerpts appear in a variety of formats, including interviews, manifestos, lectures and treatises, and are representative of the varied--sometimes conflicting--approaches to building and design. In combination, they provide a fascinating overview of significant concepts within the field of architecture.The Architecture Reader will be a valuable companion for introductory surveys of architectural history, novice students of architecture, and anyone interested in formative ideas underlying contemporary conceptions of architecture.
Architecture School by
The first comprehensive history of architecture education in North America, offering a chronological overview and a topical lexicon.Rooted in the British apprenticeship system, the French Beaux-Arts, and the German polytechnical schools, architecture education in North America has had a unique history spanning almost three hundred years. Although architects in the United States and Canada began to identify themselves as professionals by the late eighteenth century, it was not until nearly a century later that North American universities began to offer formal architectural training; the first program was established at MIT in 1865. Today most architects receive their training within an academic setting that draws on the humanities, fine arts, applied science, and public service for its philosophy and methodology. This book, published in conjunction with the centennial of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), provides the first comprehensive history of North American architecture education. Architecture School opens with six chronological essays, each devoted to a major period of development- before 1860; 1860-1920; 1920-1940; 1940-1968; 1968-1990; and 1990 to the present. This overview is followed by a "lexicon" containing shorter articles on more than two dozen topics that have figured centrally in archictecture education's history, from competitions and design pedagogy to research, structures, studio culture, and travel.
Architectures of spatial justice by
A field-defining work that demonstrates how architects are breaking with professional conventions to advance spatial justice and design more equitable buildings and cities. As state violence, the pandemic, and environmental collapse have exposed systemic inequities, architects and urbanists have been pushed to confront how their actions contribute to racism and climate crisis--and how they can effect change. Establishing an ethics of spatial justice to lead architecture forward, Dana Cuff shows why the discipline requires critical examination--in relation to not only buildings and the capital required to realize them but privilege, power, aesthetics, and sociality. That is, it requires a reevaluation of architecture's fundamental tenets. Organized around projects and topics, Architectures of Spatial Justice is a compelling blend of theory, history, and applied practice that focuses on two foundational conditions of architecture: its relation to the public and its dependence on capital. The book draws on studies of architectural projects from around the world, with instructive case studies from Chile, Mexico, Japan, and the United States that focus in particular on urban centers, where architecture is most directly engaged with social justice issues. Emerging from more than two decades of the author's own project-based research, Architectures of Spatial Justice examines ethically driven practices that break with professional conventions to correct long-standing inequities in the built environment, uncovering architecture's limits--and its potential.
Architecture Theory since 1968 by
In the discussion of architecture, there is a prevailing sentiment that, since 1968, cultural production in its traditional sense can no longer be understood to rise spontaneously, as a matter of social course, but must now be constructed through ever more self-conscious theoretical procedures.
Art in Theory, 1900-2000 by
This popular anthology of twentieth-century art theoretical texts has now been expanded to take account of new research, and to include significant contributions to art theory from the 1990s. New edition of this popular anthology of twentieth-century art-theoretical texts. Now updated to include the results of new research, together with significant contributions from the 1990s. Includes writings by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. The editors provide contextual introductions to 340 texts. Complements Art in Theory 1648-1815 and Art in Theory 1815-1900 to create a complete survey of the theories underpinning the development of art in the modern period.
Autonomy and Ideology by
This is the documentation -- transcripts, essays, and images -- of the proceedings of an influential conference held in honor of Philip Johnson. Hosted in New York City in February 1996 by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, together with the Columbia University School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and the Museum of Modern Art, the conference was organized by Phyllis Lambert and Peter Eisenman and convened by Robert Somol. The international roster of diverse participants included historians, theorists, critics, and architects who debated such themes as the critical dynamics between museums as institutions and the material they represent; the issue of "high" and "low" in art and architecture; and the potential to expand the concept of the avant-garde within the borders of the discipline. With the intention of developing a specifically architectural discourse of the modernist avant-garde from within and from without the discipline, the participants debated the extent to which the practitioners of the avant-garde in America were interested in the formal rather than the philosophical, political, and economic underpinnings of the European movement, which to date had remained unexamined. They discussed new ways of working and thinking through the problems of modernity as it began to be experienced at the start of the 1920s.
Constructing a New Agenda by
Critical architectural theory has, over the past decade and a half, undergone significant transformation. The urgency of the 1990s propractice movement, with its mandate to focus on the realities of building, has shifted architectural theory away from utopian ideals and heavy-handed cultural critiques toward the realities of architecture and building. This transition renders theory's immediate history particularly relevant to contemporary thought and practice. Constructing a New Agenda offers an overview of the myriad approaches and attitudes adopted by architects and architectural theorists during this era. In this long-awaited follow-up to our critically acclaimed and best-selling anthologyTheorizing a New Agenda, editor A. Krista Sykes collects twenty-eight essays that address architectural theory from the mid-1990s, where the first volume left off, through the present. Multiple themes--including the impact of digital technologies on processes of architectural design, production, materiality, and representation; the implications of globalization and networks of information; the growing emphasis on sustainable and green architecture; and the phenomenon of the "starchitect" and iconic architecture--overlap to address the contemporary situation as a whole. By providing, in one place, the keytheoretical texts of the past fifteen years,Constructing a New Agenda becomes a foundation for ongoing discussions surrounding contemporary architectural thought and practice. Contributions by distinguished thinkers and makers such as Stan Allen, Deborah Berke, Michael Braungart, Rem Koolhaas, Sanford Kwinter, Greg Lynn, Reinhold Martin, William McDonough, William Mitchell, Samuel Mockbee, Glenn Murcutt, Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto, Michael Speaks and Anthony Vidler are preceded by brief introductions that establish each essay's particular historical context and significance. An afterword by preeminent architectural theorist K. Michael Hays reflects on where architectural theory is today and where it's headed in the future.
A Critic Writes by
Few twentieth-century writers on architecture and design have enjoyed the renown of Reyner Banham. Born and trained in England and a U.S. resident starting in 1976, Banham wrote incisively about American and European buildings and culture. Now readers can enjoy a chronological cross-section of essays, polemics, and reviews drawn from more than three decades of Banham's writings. The volume, which includes discussions of Italian Futurism, Adolf Loos, Paul Scheerbart, and the Bauhaus as well as explorations of contemporary architecture by Frank Gehry, James Stirling, and Norman Foster, conveys the full range of Banham's belief in industrial and technological development as the motor of architectural evolution. Banham's interests and passions ranged from architecture and the culture of pop art to urban and industrial design. In brilliant analyses of automobile styling, mobile homes, science fiction films, and the American predilection for gadgets, he anticipated many of the preoccupations of contemporary cultural studies. Los Angeles, the city that Banham commemorated in a book and a film, receives extensive attention in essays on the Santa Monica Pier, the Getty Museum, Forest Lawn cemetery, and the ubiquitous freeway system. Eminently readable, provocative, and entertaining, this book is certain to consolidate Banham's reputation among architects and students of contemporary culture. For those acquainted with his writing, it offers welcome surprises as well as familiar delights. For those encountering Banham for the first time, it comprises the perfect introduction.
The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992 - 2012 by
Now almost 20 years old, the digital turn in architecture has already gone through several stages and phases. Architectural Design (AD) has captured them all - from folding to cyberspace, nonlinearity and hypersurfaces, from versioning to scripting, emergence, information modelling and parametricism. It has recorded and interpreted the spirit of the times with vivid documentary precision, fostering and often anticipating crucial architectural and theoretical developments. This anthology of AD's most salient articles is chronologically and thematically arranged to provide a complete historical timeline of the recent rise to pre-eminence of computer-based design and production. Mario Carpo provides an astute overview of the recent history of digital design in his comprehensive introductory essay and in his leaders to each original text. A much needed pedagogical and research tool for students and scholars, this synopsis also relates the present state of digitality in architecture to the history and theory of its recent development and trends, and raises issues of crucial importance for the contemporary practice of the design professions. A comprehensive anthology on digital architecture edited by one of its most eminent scholars in this field, Mario Carpo. Includes seminal texts by Bernard Cache, Peter Eisenman, John Frazer, Charles Jencks, Greg Lynn, Achim Menges and Patrik Schumacher. Features key works by FOA, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Ali Rahim, Lars Spuybroek/NOX, Kas Oosterhuis and SHoP.
The Four Elements of Architecture and Other Writings by
Gottfied Semper was the most important German theorist of the nineteenth century. From his first published essay on Greek polychromy in 1834 to his final lecture on the origin of architectural styles in 1869, Semper persistently endeavoured to fashion a comprehensive architectural theory explaining the meaning and transformational nature of architectural form. The breadth and richness of his ideas, both applauded and opposed at the turn of the twentieth century, proved enormously influential in the development of modern theory. Originally published in 1989, this book provides an English translation of a number of Semper's published writings. The introduction seeks to trace the course of Semper's theoretical development over thirty-five years. Semper's ideas, like those of his contemporaries, John Ruskin and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, had enormous influence on the genesis of modern architectural theory and will appeal to both architectural historians and architects.
Is There an Object Oriented Architecture? by
Bringing Graham Harman's philosophy into direct confrontation with contemporary architectural theory in new and creative ways, Is There an Object-Oriented Architecture? provides a dialogue between Harman and six of the world's leading architectural thinkers, Adam Sharr, Lorens Holm, Jonathan Hale, Peg Rawes, Patrick Lynch and Peter Carl. Harman's object-oriented philosophy is one that sees the universe as a carnival of equal "objects" with no hierarchy between humans and nonhumans. In his model, unicorns, triangles, bicycles, neutrons, and humans are all things with enduring essences that outlast their partial transformations. It is a strikingly democratic vision of the universe that knocks humans off their ontological pedestal as arbiters of what is real. It also radically challenges the very precepts of architectural theory, the structure of which remains stubbornly human-centric as it seeks to give form to the human being's place at the centre of the cosmos. In this new book, each thinker develops the implications of Harman's philosophy for the future of architecture by entering into a direct exchange with the philosopher and his thinking, both questioning him and questioning with him.
Metapolis Dictionary Advanced Architecture by
In the format of a selective dictionary of cross-referenced terms, Metapolis identifies a new architectural will within the contemporary social and cultural panorama. It contributes to a global vision of the emerging new architectural action that participates in "advanced culture" and visual art disciplines and technology. The book speaks of an architecture inscribed in the information society and influenced by the new technologies, the new economy, environmental concerns and individual interests. The diversity of authors and works is invaluable for the generational intersections in theory discourse. Featuring Manuel Gausa, Vicente Guallart, Willy Müller, Federico Soriano, José Morales, Fernando Porras, Iñaki Ábalos y Juan Herreros, José Alfonso Ballesteros, Xavier Costa, Enric Ruiz-Geli, Alejandro Zaera Polo.
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.
Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture by
The present volume offers eloquent testimony that many of the master builders of this century have held passionate convictions regarding the philosophic and social basis of their art. Nearly every important development in the modern architectural movement began with the proclamation of these convictions in the form of a program or manifesto. The most influential of these are collected here in chronological order from 1903 to 1963. Taken together, they constitute a subjective history of modern architecture; compared with one another, their great diversity of style reveals in many cases the basic differences of attitude and temperament that produced a corresponding divergence in architectural style. In point of view, the book covers the aesthetic spectrum from right to left; from programs that rigidly generate designs down to the smallest detail to revolutionary manifestoes that call for anarchy in building form and town plan. The documents, placed in context by the editor, are also international in their range- among them are the seminal and prophetic statements of Henry van de Velde, Adolf Loos, and Bruno Taut from the early years of the century; Frank Lloyd Wright's 1910 annunciation of Organic Architecture; Gropius's original program for the Bauhaus, founded in Weimar in 1919; "Towards a New Architecture, Guiding Principles" by Le Corbusier; the formulation by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner of the basic principles of Constructivism; and articles by R. Buckminster Fuller on universal architecture and the architect as world planner. Other pronouncements, some in flamboyant style, including those of Erich Mendelsohn, Hannes Meyer, Theo van Doesburg, Oskar Schlemmer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, El Lissitzky, and Louis I. Kahn. There are also a number of collective or group statements, issued in the name of movements such as CIAM, De Stijl, ABC, the Situationists, and GEAM. Since the dramatic effectiveness of the manifesto form is usually heightened by brevity and conciseness, it has been possible to reproduce most of the documents in their entirety; only a few have been excerpted.
Race and modern architecture : a critical history from the enlightenment to the present by
Although race—a concept of human difference that establishes hierarchies of power and domination—has played a critical role in the development of modern architectural discourse and practice since the Enlightenment, its influence on the discipline remains largely underexplored. This volume offers a welcome and long-awaited intervention for the field by shining a spotlight on constructions of race and their impact on architecture and theory in Europe and North America and across various global contexts since the eighteenth century. Challenging us to write race back into architectural history, contributors confront how racial thinking has intimately shaped some of the key concepts of modern architecture and culture over time, including freedom, revolution, character, national and indigenous style, progress, hybridity, climate, representation, and radicalism. By analyzing how architecture has intersected with histories of slavery, colonialism, and inequality—from eighteenth-century neoclassical governmental buildings to present-day housing projects for immigrants—Race and Modern Architecture challenges, complicates, and revises the standard association of modern architecture with a universal project of emancipation and progress.
Rethinking Architecture by
Brought together for the first time - the seminal writing on architecture by key philosophers and cultural theorist of the twentieth century. Issues around the built environment are increasingly central to the study of the social sciences and humanities. The essays offer a refreshing take on the question of architecture and provocatively rethink many of the accepted tenets of architecture theory from a broader cultural perspective. The book represents a careful selection of the very best theoretical writings on the ideas which have shaped our cities and our experiences of architecture. As such,nbsp;Rethinkingnbsp;Architecture provides invaluable core source material for students on a range of courses.
Supermodernism by
Almost four years since its initial appearance, Hans Ibelings' essay on the new tendency towards abstract, neutral architecture has lost none of its relevance. His identification and examination of the last word in modern architecture of the post-war International Style stands strong in projects by OMA, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Herzog & de Meuron, and Toyo Ito, and is well understood in relation to one of the dominant forces of the present time: globalization. This enlarged edition of Supermodernism includes a new final chapter in which Ibelings charts the latest examples of supermodernism, as well as a revised introduction and conclusion in which he responds to the numerous reactions his provocative stance has triggered.
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture by
Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory collects in a single volume the most significant essays on architectural theory of the last thirty years. A dynamic period of reexamination of the discipline, the postmodern era produced widely divergent and radical viewpoints on issues of making, meaning, history, and the city. Among the paradigms presented are architectural postmodernism, phenomenology, semiotics, poststructuralism, deconstruction, and feminism. By gathering these influential articles from a vast array of books and journals into a comprehensive anthology, Kate Nesbitt has created a resource of great value. Indispensable to professors and students of architecture and architectural theory,Theorizing a New Agenda also serves practitioners and the general public, as Nesbitt provides an overview, a thematic structure, and a critical introduction to each essay. The list of authors inTheorizing a New Agenda reads like a "Who's Who" of contemporary architectural thought: Tadao Ando, Giulio Carlo Argan, Alan Colquhoun, Jacques Derrida, Peter Eisenman, Marco Frascari, Kenneth Frampton, Diane Ghirardo, Vittorio Gregotti, Karsten Harries, Rem Koolhaas, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Aldo Rossi, Colin Rowe, Thomas Schumacher, Ignasi de Sol-Morales Rubi, Bernard Tschumi, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Anthony Vidler. A bibliography and notes on all the contributors are also included.
Words and Buildings by
The words we use when we talk and write about architecture describe more than just bricks and mortar - they direct the ways we think of and live with buildings. This groundbreaking book is the first thorough examination of the complex relationship between architecture and language as intricate social practices. Words and Buildings is a wholly original study that will change and enrich the way we think and talk about architecture. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with architecture and culture in the modern era. Rigorously argued chapters investigate the language of modernism, language and drawing, 'masculine and feminine' architecture, language metaphors, science in architecture and the social properties of architecture. A vocabulary of key words such as 'Character', 'Form', 'History' and 'Space', locates each word's modern meaning within a historical and theoretical framework, and clearly sets out its development and relevance for architects, historians, philosophers, critics and the users of buildings themselves.
Today's Hours: 
Ask Us
My Library Account
