After successful completion of the course, students are able to work with texts, develop independent conceptual ideas dialectically, in relation to the status quo re invariant topics in architecture, and write literary-scientific essays on an abstract topic but in dialog with current concerns in architectural theory. Students become familiar with the essay as a genre of academic work and exchange - in contrast to the writing of journalistic articles, which are often meant to be quickly and at once consumed - and they learn about the practice of close reading and networked thinking. They will be familiarized with a variety of tactics for developing a relaxed yet sophisticated relationship to their own speaking and writing, that can be practiced also autodidactically beyond the seminar.
Participants will be able to grasp, structure and organize a given topic they pick up from the existing discourse in such a way that it can be presented, conveyed and discussed in a literary-scientific manner. They learn to appreciate various stylistic forms of sophisticated academic reading and writing.
In addition, students gain a broader understanding of architecture, not only as a discipline that aims at the realization of buildings, but also as an instrument of architectural thinking that concerns and connects both material and immaterial areas of building practice and theory.
Architecture Words, Essayism as a Genre of Writing
"If we implicated texts in our writing,
we would see more works blossom." – Michel Serres
"Der Wert von Denkbruchstücken
ist umso entscheidender
je minder sie sich
unmittelbar an der Grundkonzeption
zu messen vermögen.
[...]
Vom Wert der Denkbruchstücke hängt der Glanz der Darstellung ab. So wie der des Mosaiks vom von der Qualität des Glasflusses, die Relation der mikrologischen Verarbeitung zum Maß des bildnerischen und des intellektuellen Ganzen.
[...]
Diese Relation spricht aus, wie der Wahrheitsgehalt nur bei genauster Versenkung in die Einzelheiten eines Sachgehalts sich fassen lässt.
[...]
Der Redende fügt in Stimme und Mienenspiel einzelne Gedankengänge (oft schwankend und vage) zusammen. So als entwerfe er eine grosse und andeutende Zeichnung in einem Zug. Die Schrift ist ähnlich. Auch ihr ist es eigen, mit jedem Satz von neuem einzuladen und anzuheben."
– Walter Benjamin
The essay is a genre of academic literary writing that always attests to a certain mastery on the part of the author: it is characterized by the fact that one finds an adequate form for what one wants to say so that what is said speaks for itself - and does not need the authority of the author to carry weight in the discourse. This presupposes that you bring what you want to talk about into dialog with that whereof others are talking as well.
This genre is particularly well established in architectural theory - but there is not often a methodical discourse that reflects and didactically conveys the characteristics of this way writing. In this seminar, we will familiarize ourselves with essayistic writing through specifically crafted weekly exercises.
These exercises also explicitly incorporate the content of the Architectural Theory 1 lecture course The Contrapposto Stance - From Pop to Canon and teach students what they can do with this material as architects. They are taught how the lecture material can help them to learn to think and write essays about and as part of their mastery as architects in a sophisticated way.
Each student will choose and work throughout the semester with one of five suggested books from the Architecture Words series published by the AA in London. As a final assignment, each student will write an essay on the themes of the book, in such a way that their own imagination can shine and bloom in the given motifs.
Reading of one of five books from the Essay Collection Architecture Words.
Weekly exercises and submissions on Tuwel, to be uploaded by the Mondays before the seminar on Wednesdays. The sessions will largely discuss student work so that they can learn as much as possible from their peers as well.
Active weekly participation is a prerequisite for joining and for successful completion of the seminar.
Primary Literature:
Lina Bo Bardi, Stones Against Diamonds, Architecture Words Book Series, Architectural Association 2014.
Jan Turnovsky, The Poetics of a Wall Projection / Poetik eines Mauervorsprungs [1985], Architecture Words Book Series, Architectural Association 2013.
Sylvia Lavin, Flash in the Pan, Architecture Words Book Series, Architectural Association 2015.
Alessandra Ponte, The House of Light and Entropy, Architecture Words Book Series, Architectural Association 2014.
Secondary Literature a.o.
Alberti, Leon Battista. Dinner Pieces. Translated by David Marsh. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, v. 45. Binghamton, N.Y: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies in conjuction with the Renaissance Society of America, 1987.
Benjamin, Walter, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels; Suhrkmap, 2020 [1928].
Brown. The I Tatti Renaissance Library 8. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Bodenheimer, Aron R. Warum?: Von der Obszönität des Fragens. Ditzingen: Reclam, Philipp, jun. GmbH, Verlag, 2011.
Bredekamp, Horst. Der Bildakt: Frankfurter Adorno-Vorlesungen 2007. Neufassung. Wagenbachs Taschenbuch 744. Berlin: Wagenbach, 2015.
Harrison, Thomas, Essayism: Conrad, Musil, Pirandello; John Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Harrison, Thomas, "The Architectural Word–Essay for Massimo Cacciari;" In Inquieto pensare. Scritti in onore di Massimo Cacciari, ed. Emanuele Severino and Vincenzo Vitiello (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2015): 271-282.
Hui, Yuk, and Pieter Lemmens, eds. Cosmotechnics: For a Renewed Concept of Technology in the Anthropocene. London; New York: Routledge, 2021.
Irigaray, Luce, Elemental Passions, Routledge 1999.
Lukacs, György, Soul & Form, ed. by John T. Sanders and Katie Terezakis, trans. by Anna Bostock, Columbia UP, 2010.
Steiner, George. Language and Silence: Essays on Language, Literature, and the Inhuman. New York, NY: Atheneum, 1977.
Woolf, Virginia, A Room of One's Own, 1929.