The Anaesthetics Of Architecture (The MIT Press)

The Anaesthetics of Architecture (The MIT Press)

About the AuthorNeil Leach is an architect and theorist who has taught at a number of institutions worldwide, including the Architectural Association in London, the Dessau Institute Dessau, Germany, and Columbia University. He is the author, editor, or translator of more than a dozen books, including Rethinking Architecture, The Anaesthetics of Architecture (MIT Press, 1999), and Alberti's On the Art of Building in Ten Books (MIT Press 1991).In this short, intentionally polemical book, Neil Leach draws on theideas of philosophers and cultural theorists such as Walter Benjaminand Jean Baudrillard to develop a novel and highly incisive critiqueof the consequences of the growing preoccupation with images andimage-making in contemporary architectural culture.In this short, intentionally polemical book, Neil Leach draws on the ideas of philosophers and cultural theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Jean Baudrillard to develop a novel and highly incisive critique of the consequences of the growing preoccupation with images and image-making in contemporary architectural culture. The problem with this preoccupation, Leach argues, is that it can induce a sort of numbness, as the saturation of images floods the senses and obscures deeper concerns. This problem is particularly acute for a discipline such as architecture, which relies heavily on visual representation. As a result, architects can become anaesthetized from the social and political realities of everyday life. In the intoxicating world of the image, the aesthetics of architecture threaten to become the anaesthetics of architecture. In this culture of aesthetic consumption, this "culture of the cocktail," meaningful discourse gives way to strategies of seduction, and architectural design is reduced to the superficial play of empty, seductive forms.From Library JournalMore like expanded essays than exhaustive studies, these brief pieces are take radically different approaches to the perception and experience of buildings. Hildebrand (architecture/art history, Univ. of Washington), author of The Wright Space: Pattern and Meaning in Frank Lloyd Wright's Houses (Univ. of Washington, 1991), applies his considerable descriptive skills to examples from the history of architecture before and after the domestic work of Wright. Examining the spatial rhythms of his selections with evident pleasure and helpful clarity, Hildebrand applies the intriguing classifications of refuge and prospectAromantic enclosure vs. classical opennessAto describe interior space. More illustrations would help concretize the original and important observations here. To the degree that Hildebrand's volume explores the materiality of his examples, Leach (architecture, Univ. of Nottingham) focuses on the abstract and philosophical implications of his choices. The editor of Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (Routledge, 1997), Leach discusses the sometimes difficult theories of Walter Benjamin, Jean Baudrillard, and Guy Debord, among others, to make the point that the architectural preference for imagemaking, along with the sensory overload of our society, devalues, or anaesthetizes, our experience of their work. Leach expresses sharp indignation toward theories of post-Modernism; the writings of Robert Venturi, Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour; and the tendency in the style to dissociate form from content, though the offense he takes at a recruiting advertisement by the London firm of T.P. Bennett Associates seems insufficiently explained and remains puzzling. General academic collections will benefit from the addition of Hildebrand's study, while only highly specialized collections will require Leach's as well.APaul Glassman, New York Sch. of Interior Design Lib.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.