Architecture’s Appeal
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This volume, Architecture’s Appeal, is a collection of essays from a diverse group of well-known scholars that examines an assorted but interrelated set of issues. Though not a strict history or account of the architectural tradition of phenomenological hermeneutics, this book asks innovative and related questions. For example, given the recent fascination with all things digital and novel, what is the role of history and theory in contemporary architectural praxis? From Greek temples to Buddhist stupas to Gothic cathedrals, architecture has traditionally reconciled the order of the world through built form. Lacking a common worldview, is such reconciliation still possible? We are continually made aware of imminent global crises, environmental and otherwise. Often these are the result of human interaction and underscored by our technological enframing of the world. While avoiding a nostalgic return to nature, is authentic meaning possible in a technological environment that is so global and interconnected? In the same vein, what is the nature and role of the architect in this modern world? How might the questions asked inform a new model of architectural praxis? The collection serves a secondary purpose as well, namely, to honor the teaching and scholarship of Alberto Pérez-Gómez whose work over the past thirty years has asked similar questions to those asked above and significantly contributed to the discourse architectural history and theory. |