Architecture, Critique, Ideology: Writings on Architecture and Theory

447 Pages·2016·3.16 MB·English

by  Greta Linder

http://www.diva-portal.org

This is a published version of a book published by Axl Books.

Citation for the original published book:

Wallenstein, S.-O. (2016).
Architecture, Critique, Ideology: Writings on Architecture and Theory. Stockholm: Axl
Books.

N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published report.

Permanent link to this version:
http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-31186
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reframing critical theory in a con- wallenstein
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ISBN 978-91-86883-13-3 draw the line between concepts and
things, words and objects.
sven-olov wallenstein is pro-
fessor of philosophy at Södertörn
University.
Axl Books
www.axlbooks.com
Architecture, Critique, Ideology
© Copyright 2016 Sven-Olov Wallenstein and Axl Books.
Cover image: Tor Lindstrand, Proposal for Perth (Entertainment
Centre), (2012). © Copyright 2016.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro-
duced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any infor-
mation storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publisher.
Axl Books
www.axlbooks.com
[email protected]
ISBN 978-91-86883-13-3
Architecture, Critique, Ideology
Writings on Architecture and Theory
sven-olov wallenstein
axl books

Contents
Introduction: Architecture, Critique, Ideology vii
1. Tafuri and the End of Utopia 1
2. 1966: Thinking the City 71
3. The Pyramid and the Labyrinth 127
4. The Recent Past of Postmodern Architecture 173
5. Looping Ideology 255
6. Imagining Otherwise 297
7. Noopolitics, Life, Architecture 363

Introduction:
Architecture,
Critique,
Ideology
This book gathers together essays written over the course of the
last decade, all of which in one way or another deal with the tra-
dition of critical theory, and with the fate of such a theoretical
enterprise within architectural discourse. For some, this tradi-
tion has increasingly come to seem problematic, although the
criticisms are not all of a piece: on closer inspection, it is clear
that they are comprised of several contradictory and incompat-
ible strands, some of which involve the rejection of the idea of a
critical theory altogether, others of which call for a redefinition
and rethinking of some of its basic parameters and assumptions.
This book situates itself among those strands of thought that
defend the legacy of critical theory, although it also argues that
such a defense must remain open to contemporary challenges,
theoretical as well as practical.
The referent of the very term critical theory is by no means
obvious. Historically, the term generally refers to the Frankfurt
School, and the legacy of Adorno and Benjamin in particular; in
a larger timeframe it also denotes the philosophical tradition that
begins with Kant’s Critical Philosophy and continues—more like
a constantly broken and twisted line than a straight one—through
Hegel, Marx, and beyond. My proposal here involves understand-
ing the term as freely as possible, so that it also intersects with
vii
architecture, critique, ideology
the work of thinkers who in many ways stand opposed to the
philosophical tradition in which one would normally locate the
Frankfurt School. The rejection by many of these thinkers, such
as Deleuze and Foucault, of dialectics, as well as of certain models
of subjectivity, the reluctance of such thinkers to accept the di-
agnosis of late capitalism as involving an “administered world,”
and, most fundamentally, the role of theory as such, are issues
that render the unity of such a tradition difficult to uphold. When
confronting these different claims and orientations, my proposal
is not that we need to understand them better so as to make a
more informed choice between them, but instead that we must
explore the possibility of an interaction that will begin by render-
ing the differences more acute, and, in this, will also allow them
to infiltrate and transform each other. This I take to be crucial
for the development of that elusive entity called “theory,” which
sits uneasily between the practices and internal intellectual reflec-
tion of each of the arts (architecture being one of them—and they
all have specific problems that indeed resonate with those of the
others, but they cannot be simply mapped onto one another),
and, on the other hand, that seemingly abstract and forbidding
entity called “philosophy,” which is often understood as an in-
vestigation of concepts and universals (truth, mind, language,
even being as such) taken to be already presupposed in the other
disciplines and practices, although without these concepts being
reflected and thought through.
The relation between theory and practice—presuming that
they even can be fundamentally distinguished, which is doubt-
ful—is a highly contested one, as can be seen in the constantly
recurring claims that theory (and, by implication, even more so
philosophy, existing as it does on the distal side of theory) is use-
less or even harmful for practice, which in turn alternates with the
opposing claim that only a grand theory can save practice from
becoming blindly complicitous with social, economic, or other
viii