What is Architecture?
Kaaba, Mecca
Marco Vitruvio Pollione
De Architectura
30-15 B.C.
Charles-Dominique-Joseph Eisen
Frontispiece of Marc-Antoine Laugier’s
Essai sur l'Architecture
1755
Giovanni Antonio Belmondo
Frontispiece of Bernardo Antonio
Vittone’s Istruzioni Elementari pe’
l’indirizzo dei giovani allo studio
dell’Architettura Civile
1760
Hans Hollein
Everything is architecture
BAU #1/2, 1968
8 definitions of architecture
Antonio Monestiroli
La Metopa e il Triglifo
2002
28 definitions of architecture
Nicola Braghieri and Monica Bruzzone
Laboratorio di Fondamenti della Progettazione Architettonica 1, Università di Genova
2007
70 definitions of architecture
Julie Marthe Hoffmann, Luca De Giorgi, Olaf
H Grawert
What is Architecture?
www.whatisarchitecture.cc
121 definitions of architecture
Becky Quintal
121 definitions of architecture
Archdaily, 17 October 2016
The definition of architecture makes visible the value that is given to it in the
moment in which it is formulated.
Antonio Monestiroli
La Metopa e il Triglifo
2002
What is Architecture?
What is the system of phenomena and discourses that I am interested in bringing back to
the idea of architecture in this precise historical moment, given that my knowledge and
taste are limited by a specific frame of experiences and that I have specific
intentions as researcher and teacher?
What are the architectures I like?
Frontispiece to Thomas Huxley’s Evidence
as to man's place in Nature
1863
Piit-Rivers
Examples of evolutionary series
of technical objects
1862
Friedrich Kiesler
Morphology-Chart of Three Types of Technological Products
1939
Evolutionary tree
Charles Jencks
Evolutionary tree of
architecture
1970s-2010s
Adrian Meyer
Architecture – A Synoptic Vision
2008
Alejandro Zaera-Polo & Guillermo Fernandez Abascal
Architecture's Political Compass
2016
Rem Koolhaas, Madelon Vriesendorp
The City of the Captive Globe Project
1972
Richard Dawkins
The Selfish Gene
1976
Luca Silenzi
Know your [archi-]meme
2012
Luca Silenzi
Know your [archi-]meme
2012
Osman Kahn
How music travels
2011
Tree VS Rhizome
Simon Raper
Graphing the history of philosophy
2012
Social Media Research Foundation
Graph representing a network of
3,758 Twitter users whose tweets
in the requested range contained
"futureofwork", or who were
replied to or mentioned in those
tweets. The network was obtained
from the NodeXL Graph Server on
Tuesday, 30 May 2017 at 11:34
UTC.
LinkedIn network visualization
2. What do the architects I like do?
“SABR”
Peter Zumthor
Bruder Klaus chapel
2007
ElasticoSPA
1301iNN
2013
Gabinete de
Arquitectura
Quincho Tía
Coral
2015
Edward F. Cline & Buster Keaton
One week
1920
Lacaton & Vassal
Nantes Architecture
School
2009
Santiago Cirugeda
Kuvas S.C.
1997
Toni Gironès
Archaeological Museum in Serò
2012
Marcel Duchamp
Fountain
1917
Office for Political Innovation
12 Actions to make Peter Eisenman
Transparent
2002
Rotor Deconstruction
Salvaging floor tiles from Val-Benoît, Liège
Forensic Architecture
Pro-Government strikes on
M2 hospital, Aleppo, Syria
June-December 2016
Once the normative place of beauty is destroyed there is no obvious way to logically
isolate aesthetic judgement. Hence the "concept" of art can change depending on the
social agreements under which art develops.
To make art is at the same time to define art.
Because history remains open to the future, the future meanings of art cannot be
determined in advance. The present therefore is fundamentally open to the risk of new
praxis and meaning.
(John Roberts, Revolutionary Time and the Avant-Garde, 2016)
3. What do the architectures I like deal with?
Media
SUBJECT MEDIA OBJECT
SUBJECT MEDIA OBJECT
Leon Battista Alberti
De Re Aedificatoria
I a.C.
Le Corbusier & Amédée Ozenfant
L’Esprit Nouveau
1920-25
Sergei Eisenstein
Sequences diagram for Battleship Potemkin
1924
---
Le Corbusier
Villa Meyer
1925
Archigram
Archigram Magazine #5
1964
Radical Design
Casabella #367
1972
Every NYT front page since 1852
Erik Kessels
24HRS in photos
2011
DOMO
Data never sleeps 4.0
2015
Philipp Schaerer
Bildbauten
2007-2009
Andrew Kovacs
Archive of
Affinities
Andrew Kovacs
Plan for a 9 Square Grid
2012
Davide Trabucco
Confórmi
Davide Trabucco
VS
2016
Luca Galofaro
Unfolding Pavilion
2016
Beniamino Servino
Pennata con addizione nerviana/Pennata housing with external profusion
2013
Carmelo Baglivo
Untitled
2014
Aby Warburg
Atlas Mnemosyne
1924-29
Fala Atelier
Public library
2013
LGSMA
New Cyprus Museum
2016
Bureau Spectacular
The Pool House
2015
Capital
SUPERSTRUCTURE / IDEOLOGY
BASE / ECONOMY
Art
Family
Culture
Religion
Philosphy
Education
Science
Politics
Media
Law
...
Means
Relations
Commodities
...
Ricardo Bofill
Dior Perfume Bottles
1983
MIPIM Cannes
2016
A supermarket
Vanity Height
Elenberg Fraser Architects
Premier Tower, Melbourne
2016
Zaha Hadid Architects
CityLife residential complex
2014
Hangzhou
2013
BIG
The Spiral
2016
Battersea Power Station ad
Frank Gehry
Louis Vuitton Iconoclast bag
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Bosco Verticale
2014
STEFANO	BOERI	ARCHITETTI,	Renovation	of	No.501	Jiujing	Rd,	Shanghai,	2015
Stefano Boeri Architetti
Vertical forests
Bubble
Wall Street crash
2008
The Big Short
2015
The Big Short
2015
The Big Short
2015
Vallecas
Seseña
Simona Rota
Instant Village I:
Tenerife
2011
Simona Rota
Instant Village II:
Fuerteventura
2011
Julia Schulz-Dornburg
Ruinas Modernas
2012
Julia Schulz-Dornburg
Ruinas Modernas
2012
Cadelasverdes
Spanish Dreams
2013
Cadelasverdes
Spanish Dreams
2013
Carlos Quintáns, Iñaqui Carnicero
Unfinished / Spanish Pavilion at Biennale di Venezia
2016
Basurama, Ecologistas en
acción, Medit_Urban, Nación
Rotonda, Neo-Ruinas
Ruinas contemporaneas - Real
Estate Corpses
2016
Bubblescapes
2010-2016
Bubblescapes
2010-2016
Bubblescapes
2010-2016
Bubblescapes
2010-2016
Bubblescapes
2010-2016
Studio Albori
Domestication of an eco-monster
2008
Aldo Rossi, Gianni Braghieri
Extension of San Cristoforo Station
1983-1991
Studio Albori
Domestication of an eco-monster
2008
Studio Albori
Domestication of an eco-monster
2008
Le Corbusier
Maison Dom-Ino
1915
Le Corbusier
Unité d'Habitation Prefabricated Cell
1947
Frei Otto
Ökohaus
1982-87
Scarcity
Graffiti in Norwich
2012
Solano Benitez’s housemaid broom-fumigator
Although austerity and scarcity are inevitably intertwined — the regimes of austerity
induce real scarcities — austerity is not the same as scarcity. Austerity is the
outcome of the ideologies of neo-liberalism, whereas scarcity is a higher-level
condition that both drives those ideologies and also threatens them.
Jeremy Till
Scarcity contra Austerity
2012
Austerity
Elemental
Quinta Monroy
2003
Scarcity
Lacaton & Vassal
Mulhouse Social Housing
2005
Lacaton & Vassal
Palais de Tokyo
2001-2012
Lacaton & Vassal
Palais de Tokyo
2001-2012
Lacaton & Vassal
Palais de Tokyo
2001-2012
Lacaton & Vassal
Palais de Tokyo
2001-2012
Lacaton & Vassal
Palais de Tokyo
2001-2012
Gabinete de Arquitectura
Esmeraldina house
2000
Arturo Franco
Nave 8B
2009
H Arquitectes
Casa 712
2011
Destruction
Minoru Yamasaki
Prutt-Igoe Complex
1954-1972
Minoru Yamasaki
World Trade Center
1973-2001
The Ring at Blackfriars
1783-1940
Orbit House
1960s-1998
Will Alsop
Palestra
2006
Gordon Matta-Clark
Conical Intersect
1975
Gordon Matta-Clark
Conical Intersect
1975
OMA / AMO
Hermitage Museum
2003-2005
De Vylder Vinck Taillieu
Twiggy
2011
Eduardo Souto de Moura
Music School at former Carandà Market
1984-2011
ARCHITECTURE
REPRESENTATIONS
OBJECTS MEDIA
DISCOURSES
Texts
Images
Audios
Videos
...
Historical
Theoretical
Critical
Promotional
...
Books
Magazines
Websites
Social media
...
Manufacts
Places
Individuals
Society
...
REPRESENTATIONS
OBJECTS MEDIA
DISCOURSES
Texts
Images
Audios
Videos
...
Historical
Theoretical
Critical
Promotional
...
Books
Magazines
Websites
Social media
...
Manufacts
Places
Individuals
Society
...
Economy
Technology
Power
Culture
A thousand architectures
A thousand fronts

A thousand fronts: on the architectures I like