Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction - Softcover

Salingaros, Nikos A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3937954090 ISBN 13: 9783937954097

Publisher: ISI Distributed Titles, 2008

Synopsis

"The Emperor Has No Clothes" is an old adage, but, in the sad case of Deconstructivism, it is absolutely appropriate, as Deconstructivism is really nothing more than Modernism in a new guise. Modernists, notably the Bauhäusler, aimed for the clean slate, jettisoning everything that went before. Yet, at times, they claimed links with antecedents to give a spurious historical ancestry to their aims and creations. These questionable links and precedents are now being claimed for the works of Deconstructivists by sympathetic architects and their supporters. The second edition of this book is the beginning of a long-overdue counterattack. 

About this title

From the Author

This polemic book has sometimes drawn attention away from my scientific investigations into architecture and urbanism. Indeed, my harshest critics stubbornly pretend that it is the only thing I have ever written! For this reason, I feel that its message is more relevant today than ever before. The Fourth Edition of this book contains all the material from previous editions, and adds 48 new pages.

From the Back Cover

"In [this] series of learned and moving critical essays, Salingaros and various close associates argue that we understand life in architecture as the background to human community -- the preparation for our dwelling place... One day, perhaps, Salingaros will be required reading for architects. If that happens it could just be that a new orthodoxy will emerge, in which humility, order, and public spirit -- the virtues which have been chased from the discipline by the starchitects -- will be the norm." Roger Scruton.
"What are the ideas and aims of the current architectural elite? And what might explain why these flawed ideas have such a powerful hold on so many people? This is a stunning and deep book, as interesting for its analyses of psychology and politics as it is for its discussion of architecture." Ray Sawhill.

"This book should be required reading in every institution concerned with the teaching of architecture, planning, and all other aspects of the built environment. It should also be read by every person claiming to be an architect." James Stevens Curl.

"I have just finished reading this long-awaited book. It's worth reading, even if you do not need convincing that Decon is a fraud. The revelation is the depth and extent of the fraud." Andrés Duany.

"There are some serious thinkers today, such as Christopher Alexander and Nikos A. Salingaros, who believe we are due for -- or at least need to have -- a major paradigm shift in architecture, to save it. Unfortunately, architects on the whole are not very literate, so don't read theoretical books and critical articles by such thinkers. Mostly they look at pictures." Paul H. Malo.

"Salingaros reveals the truth hidden underneath the meandering rhetoric of deconstruction. He decodes the esoteric terminology and the unintelligible explanations used to justify deconstruction in general, and its architectonic offspring in particular." Isaac A. Meir.

"Nothing in recent years beats the latest from Nikos Salingaros, 'Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction' ... a remarkable book. Nikos writes architecture criticism of the highest order. His genius lies in his ability to build from the specific to the general, which is the opposite of the tendency of academic theorists of architecture. His commentary on Libeskind, on Tschumi, on Derrida, on Charles Jencks is definitive" Francis Morrone.

"Nikos Salingaros' books 'Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction', 'A Theory of Architecture', and 'Principles of Urban Structure' are three fundamental texts, among the most significant of the past few years." Vilma Torselli.

Edition details

• Publisher: ISI Distributed Titles
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 3937954090
• ISBN 13: 9783937954097
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 200