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The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.1: A New Framework for Architecture
Order The Autopoiesis of Architecture (Hardcover or Paperback), Vol.1 on Amazon.co.uk:
Patrik Schumacher, The Autopoiesis of Architecture, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., London 2010
What is the aim of “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”?
The aim is a comprehensive theoretical system that offers itself to architecture as its comprehensive self-description describing architecture from within architecture, in its internal constitution, and in its relationship to its societal environment. The premise here is that architecture has always already constituted itself self-referentially, via its own autonomous, disciplinary discourse.
The theory proposed here, the theory of architectural autopoiesis, focuses on architectural communications and “observes” these communications to detect its typical patterns. The theory analyses how individual communications depend upon and reproduce communication structures like the key distinctions, concepts, values, styles, methods and media of the discipline.
The book thus presents a discourse analysis of discipline. But the theory of architectural autopoiesis is not conceived as a scientific theory about architecture, written from the outside. Rather, it is a theoretical intervention from within architecture, itself trying to intervene in the ongoing communicative trajectory of architecture by reflecting architecture’s evolving patterns of communication in relation to its societal task domain. The text - if it suceeds – could function as architecture’s self-description because it describes, critically evaluates, and enhances the discursive totality of architecture in from within the midst of the contemporary architectural discourse.
Why is it called “The Autopoiesis of Architecture”?
The introduction of the concept of autopoiesis reflects the premise that the discipline of architecture can be theorized as a distinct system of communications. Autopoiesis means self-production. The concept was first introduced within biology to describe the essential characteristic of life as a circular organization that reproduces all its most specific necessary components out of its own life-process. This idea of living systems as self-making autonomous unities was transposed into the theory of social systems understood as systems of communications that build up and reproduce all their necessary, specific communication structures within their own self-referentially closed process. It is this total network of architectural communications, a gigantic, self-referentially closed parallel process, that is referred to in the title of the book: the autopoiesis of architecture is this overall, evolving system of communications.
The central thesis of “The Autopoiesis of Architecture” is thus that the phenomenon of architecture be most adequately grasped if it is analyzed as autonomous network (autopoietic system) of communications. The communications of architecture comprise drawings, texts and built works. The built works of architecture constitute a special set of reference points within
the overall network of architectural communications, and serve society as communicative frames for social interaction.
This new approach offers an arsenal of general comparative concepts that allow architecture - understood as distinct communicative subsystem of society - to be analysed in elaborate detail while at the same time offering comparisons with other communicative subsystems of society like art, science and political discourse. On the basis of such comparisons the book insists on the necessity of disciplinary autonomy and argues for a sharp demarcation from both art and science. Design intelligence is an intelligence sui generis. Its logic, reach and limitations are the topic of this book.
Contents Volume1
- Preface
- 0. Introduction: Architecture as Autopoietic System
- 0.1 Architecture as System of Communications
- 02. The Theory of Architectural Autopoiesis as Unified Theory of Architecture
- 03. Functional vs. Causal Explanations
- 04. The Quest for Comprehensiveness
- 05. The Premises Imported from Social Systems Theory
- 06. Architecture’s Place within Society
- 1. Architectural Theory
- 1.1 The Unity of Architecture
- 1.1.1 Architectural System-formation and Self-regulation
- 1.2. The Evolution of Architecture
- 1.2.1 Architectural Theory as Mechanism of Selection
- 1. 3 The Necessity of Theory
- 1.3.1 The Function of Architectural Theory
- 1.3.2 Types of Theories
- 1.3.3 The Necessity to Reflect Architecture’s Societal Raison d’être
- 1.3.4 Super-theories
- 1.3.5 The Theory of Architectural Autopoiesis as Domain-specific Super-theory
- 1.3.6 From Deconstruction to the Programme of Critical Theory
- 2. The Historical Emergence of Architecture
- 2.1 The Emergence of Architecture as Self-referential System
- 2.1.1 Inside-descriptions vs. Outside-descriptions
- 2.1.2 Function Systems
- 2.1.3 The Historical Crystallization of Architecture
- 2.2 Foundation and Refoundation of Architecture
- 2.2.1 Autonomization: The Origin of the Discipline in the Italian Renaissance
- 2.2.2 The Re-foundation of the Discipline as Modern Architecture
- 2.2.3 The Exclusive Competency and Universal Scope of Modern Architecture
- 2.2.4 The Liberation from Traditional Formal Constraints
- 2.2.5 The Switch from Edifice to Space
- 2.3 Avant-garde vs. Mainstream
- 2.3.1 A prerequisite for Evolution
- 2.3.2 The Autonomy of the Avant-garde
- 2.3.3 Communications between Avant-garde and Mainstream
- 2.3.4 The Reciprocal Dependency between Avant-garde and Mainstream
- 2.3.5 The Time-structure of the Avant-garde Process: Cumulative vs. Revolutionary Periods
- 2.3.6 Concrete Exemplars vs. Abstract Principles
- 2.3.7 Revolution and Philosophy
- 2.3.8 Latent Utopias vs. the Utopian Ambitions of the Historical Avant-garde
- 2.3.9 Retro-active Manifestos
- 2.4. Architectural Research
- 2.4.1 Architectural Research as Avant-garde Design Research
- 2.4.2 Architecture Schools as Laboratories
- 2.5 The Necessity of Demarcation
- 2.5.1 The Differentiation of Art and Architecture
- 2.5.2 The Differentiation of Science and Architecture
- 2.5.3 The Differentiation of Architecture and Engineering
- 2.5.4 The Rationality of Demarcation
- 2.5.5 The Specificity of Architecture within the Design Disciplines
- 3. Architecture as Autopoietic System – Operations, Structures and Processes
- 3.1 Architectural Autopoiesis within Functionally Differentiated Society
- 3.1.1 Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Modern Society
- 3.1.2 Third Order Observation
- 3.1.3 Codes and Media
- 3.1.4 The Concept of Social Autopoiesis
- 3.2 The Autonomy of Architecture
- 3.2.1 Openness through Closure
- 3.2.2 Irritations
- 3.2.3 Communication Structures
- 3.3 The Elemental Operation of Architecture
- 3.3.1 Design Decisions
- 3.3.2 Network-dependency of Elemental Operations
- 3.3.3 Design Decisions and External Demands
- 3.4 The Lead-distinction within Architecture and the Design Disciplines
- 3.4.1 The Primacy of Distinctions
- 3.4.2 Form vs. Function as the Lead-distinction within the Design Disciplines
- 3.4.3 The Double Reference of the Design Disciplines
- 3.5 The Codification of Architecture
- 3.5.1 Binary Codes
- 3.5.2 Utility and Beauty as the Double Code of Architecture
- 3.5.3 Polycontexturality
- 3.5.4 The Unique Double Code of Architecture as Demarcation Device
- 3.5.5 The Double Code of Architecture and the Triple Code of Avant-garde Architecture
- 3.5.6 Discursive Oscillation: Coping with an Expanding Universe of Possibility
- 3.5.7 Abstraction and Openness
- 3.6 Architectural Styles
- 3.6.1 The Concept of Style(s)
- 3.6.2 The Rationality of the Phenomenon/Concept of Style(s)
- 3.6.3 Styles as the Necessary Programmes of Architecture
- 3.6.4 Styles Regulate Form and Function
- 3.6.5 Reluctant Styles
- 3.6.6 The Inescapability of the Formal A Priori
- 3.6.7 The Double Contingency of Style Formation
- 3.6.8 Stylistic Awareness as Second Order Observation
- 3.6.9 Progress as Progression of Styles
- 3.7 Styles as Research Programmes
- 3.7.1 The Creativity of Styles/Research Programmes
- 3.7.2 The Tenacity of Styles/Research Programmes
- 3.7.3 The Structure of Styles/Research Programmes: Autonomy, Hard Core, Heuristics
- 3.7.4 The Great Historical Styles: Hard Core and Heuristics
- 3.7.5 Problem Domain and Solution Space as Sources of Stylistic Innovation
- 3.7.6 Paradigmatic Mainline and Speculative Extrapolation
- 3.7.7 Progressive vs. Degenerate Styles/Research Programmes
- 3.7.8 Methodological Tolerance
- 3.8 The Rationality of Aesthetic Values
- 3.8.1 The Historical Transformation of Aesthetic Values
- 3.8.2 Aesthetic Values and the Code of Beauty
- 3.8.3 The Mystery of Beauty
- 3.8.4 Formal A Priori, Idiom, and Aesthetic Values
- 3.8.5 The Necessity of Aesthetic Revolutions
- 3.8.6 Aesthetic Values: Designers vs. Users
- 3.9 The Double-nexus of Architectural Communications: Themes vs. Projects
- 3.9.1 The Unity of the Difference between Themes and Projects
- 3.9.2 The Difference between Themes and Projects
- 3.9.3 The Interaction between Themes and Projects
- 4. The Medium of Architecture
- 4.1 Medium and Form
- 4.1.1 Symbolically Generalized Media of Communication
- 4.1.2 The Medium as Revealing and Concealing
- 4.1.3 The Medium as Universe of Possibilities
- 4.1.4 Medium and Manner
- 4.1.5 The Standard Medium of Architecture
- 4.1.6 Recursive Self-reference
- 4.2 The Medium and the Time Structure of the Design Process
- 4.2.1 Différance: The Productive Vagueness of the Medium
- 4.2.2 The Diagram
- 4.2.3 Specious vs. Point-like Time: The Time Structure of the Architectural Project
- 5. The Societal Function of Architecture
- 5.1 Architecture as Societal Function System
- 5.1.1 Function vs. Service
- 5.1.2 Functions Systems and the Functional Exigencies of Society
- 5.1.3 Framing as Societal Function of Architecture
- 5.1.4 The Definition of the Situation as Precondition of Social Interaction
- 5.1.5 Framing Double Contingency
- 5.1.6 Double Contingency Radicalized
- 5.1.7 Relationship between Art and Architecture in terms of their Societal Function
- 5.2 Innovation as Crucial Aspect of Architecture’s Societal Function
- 5.2.1 The Burden and Risk of Permanent Innovation
- 5.2.2 The Innovative Capacity of Architecture’s Operations and Structures
- 5.2.3 Variation, Redundancy, and Adaptive Pertinence
- 5.3 Strategies and Techniques of Innovation
- 5.3.1 The Power of Abstraction
- 5.3.2 History of Architectural Innovations
- 5.3.3 Conceptual Maneuvers
- 5.4 Key Innovations: Place, Space, Field
- 5.4.1 The Emergence of Architectural Space
- 5.4.2 The Hegemony of Architectural Space
- 5.4.3 The Transcendence of Architectural Space
- 5.4.4 From Space to Field
- Appendix 1: Theses 1 - 24
- Appendix 2: Comparative Matrix of Societal Function Systems
- References
- Index
- List of Images
The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Vol.2: A New Agenda for Architecture
Volume 2 builds upon the theoretical groundwork of Volume 1. While volume 1 theorizes architecture’s societal function in general, volume 2 addresses the specific, contemporary challenges that architecture faces and formulates the tasks that are posed to contemporary architecture. The task that architecture faces might be summarized as the task to organize and articulate the complexity of post-fordist network society. The theory of architecture’s task is followed by a theory of the architectural design process. The question is being addressed how contemporary architecture can upgrade its design methodology in the face of its increasingly demanding task environment characterized by both complexity and novelty. Architecture’s specific role within contemporary society is explicated and its relationship to politics is clarified. Finally, the emerging new style of Parametricism is introduced and theoretically grounded.
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