Introduction: Shifting Paradigms and Concerns Hilde Heynen and Gwendolyn Wright Architecture houses and holds human beings in an intimate way. enframing them in a manner not unlike clothing (although admittedly less intimately). It thereby mediates : between people and their wider environment, providing a membrane that protects bodies from intruders and climatic incursions such !as rain or cold, It also gives them a symbolic presence, at once internal and in terms of the outside: world, in which variations can have radically, divergent effects on individual psyches; No single person controls this com-pIex=mediation; it involves ongoing negotiations-about social, cultural, economic and political matters. This is how architecture is intertwined with articulations of power and difference. Power is relevant when discussing: the: privileged role of the architect, but also.when analysing presumptions about the individual and the public, including the client, .P&when investigating the social and environmental impact of buildings. Architectural and urban spaces can sustain, question or modify political: and social structures of power. Spatial patterns interact with existing cultural constructions of gender, class, race, geography and status, usually upholding established hierarchies with exciting new imagery, sometimes defying those norms. This introductory chapter explores how such issues have given rise to consecutive and overlapping strands of theoretical explorations. By doing so it frames and positions the next three chapters, which analyse some of these issues in greater depth. Theories about architecture entail self-conscious analyses about underlying systems, influences, intentions, conditions and changes over time. If Western theories have evolved and altered considerably since antiquity, the pace and passions of change during the second half of the twentieth century seem unprecedented. Moreover, whereas the centre of gravity in earlier periods was clearly Europe. American voices have become more prominent (Mallgrave 2005; Mallgrave and Contandrioupolos 2008). The intellectual horizons of architectural theory have also shifted. If in the decades before 1970 practising architects, focusing on aesthetics, set the tone (Ockman 1993), since then the advent of post-structuralist literary theory and the emancipatory goals of political/ social radicalism brought in other voices with concerns that were quite distinct from design processes as such. These new influences altered many fundamental conceptions about architecture and its effects. Some people have criticized this intellectual stance as too distant and abstract, too far removed from the actual practices of designing and 42 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING PARADIGMS AND CONCERNS 43 using buildings. Nonetheless, this more intellectualized mode lias reset the lane of architectural debate that emanates from publications, conferences and courses (Nesbitt 1996; Hays 1998). The intensity and the very nature of the issues have opened new directions in the last decades of the twentieth century, resulting in a fluid and diverse field of multiple, sometimes incommensurable theories. The new theorists looked beyond the themes of individual originality, harmonious composition and phenomenologicul resonance which had up until the 1960s defined architectural discourse. Concurrently, the figure of the theorist became increasingly detached from the practising architect, and architectural theory evolved into a full-fledged, full-time academic discipline. The shift began in the 1970s when neo-marxism provided a widespread critical perspective. Authors such as Alexander Tzonis (1972) and Manfredo Tafuri (1976) introduced a theoretical framework that confronted the link between architectural developments and their socio-political context. They questioned whether an architect's good intentions indeed translated into socio-political benefits, given that the demands of capitalism played a significant role in architecture's history - and its present (see also Aureli 2008). Michel FoucauH. especially in his writings on the hospital (1973) and the prison (1977), provided the next major influence, taken up by Tafuri in his later years and taken to heart by a whole series of architectural scholars in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Foucault explained how expert knowledge affects the social workings of power, and thus how certain architectural configurations (such as the famous panopticon) can play a role in disciplining people's minds and bodies. He opened the way for a series of studies that investigated how diverse buildings and social patterns interact. Most architectural theorists believed that spatial configurations could embody and reinforce human attitudes and interactions, albeit with diverse interpretations of the specific role. Whereas Foucault himself insisted that no architectural form could be inherently oppressive or liberating, ; since human actions were the critical factor ; (Wright 2005), not all his followers have ■ taken this point to heart. Post-structuralism, which challenged pre-vailing concepts of inherent qualities or >;; simple binary relationships, nourished in :: Paris from the late 1960s onwards, with, next ;i to Foucault, writers such as Julia Knsteva, J Jean-Francois Lyotard, Roland Barthes and (3 Jean Baudrillard. Deconstructive philosophy, í bused on the writings of Jacques Dernda, soon formed one particular strand that -emphasized the instability and defensive ■ self-regard in all forms of language. : Architectural theory absorbed these influences and applied them to visual languages. This absorption occurred with a bit of a time delay, since literary theory and criticism1}! mediated the impact of continental French : theory, especially on the American intellec- -iual scene (see Bloom 1979). At first it , seemed as if semiotics, the study of languages as systems of signs, would reinvigor- .", ate architectural theory at the wane ofS| modernism. Charles Jencks and George Baird'| (1969) explored the concept of meaning in?j architecture, followed by other authors wha tried to develop more systematic reflections^ on how architecture worked as a medium nf, communication (Eco 1972, Norberg-SchuU-j 1975). Miscommunication was a major theme in|f the critiques of technocracy and top-down^ planning during these same years. The semi-äl otic focus soon tied in with a criticism ofv. the theoretical foundations of architectural j modernism, leading Jencks to announce^ the 'Death of Modernism' - and hence tte| arrival of postmodernism (Jencks I977)e| Architectural postmodernism was not fullysf in line with postmodern philosophy «atjf described by Lyotard. since it relied upon-JM teleological understanding of architecture's., course, putting postmodernism ehronologi-s cally 'after' modernism which was at odtäSs with how Lyotard saw the relationship, between both paradigms (Lyotard 1992J. (( shared nevertheless with philosophical postmodernism a suspicion of presumptions about rationality and transparency. It became increasingly difficult to simply presume these were stable guiding principles in architecture (as they had seemed to be within the Modem Movement). Architects now had to confront the power relations inherent in all such language systems. Post-structuralism, postmodernism and deconstruction thus taught architectural theorists to question the logocentrism that is entrenched in Western thinking. The Purism, .....■essemialism and universalism that had dominated modernist architectural discourse for the better part of the twentieth century gave way to hybridity, constructionism and rela-:■ tivism. Feminist and postcolonial theories appropriated these concepts and gave them a more direct and activist meaning, emphasizing how difference is embodied and thereby used to separate people according to gender, class and ethnicity. A growing literature on architecture and gender raised fundamental questions about the literal and symbolic embodiment of architectural values and ' biases. Postcolonial critiques highlighted themes of difference in architecture's .-geographical and cultural hierarchies - both cultural differences to respect and inequali-• .ties to expose. These volatile forces have constituted :,the most visible currents in architectural 'l.eorv in the past few decades. Although they . are by no means the only viable way to 'do' architectural theory - as will become clear in the other sections of this volume - they constitute pertinent challenges for architecture ■and architects. Hence we begin this volume :: With an extensive discussion of recent paradigms and concerns related to issues of power, difference and embodiment. ARCHITECTURE AND POWER Contemporary architectural theories often emphasize how buildings and physical settings reveal, accentuate or challenge various structures of power that are otherwise difficult to discern. This extends from a global realm of economies, ecologies and cultural dominance to the particularities of specific groups and even those of individual subjectivities. If the theoretical frameworks of neo-Marxism and post-structuralism first addressed the macro-scale of how societal relationships intersect with architectural movements and discourses, later approaches narrowed the scope to scrutinize specific building types or spatial configurations in circumscribed times and settings. An early example of this highly focused work can be found in Reinhard Bentmanti and Michael Miiller's study of the villa, published in Gentian in 1970 and translated only in 1992 as The Villa as Hegemonic Architecture (conspicuously without the chapter on the Israeli-kibbutz ideology). This Marxist study embedded the analysis of architectural sources (drawings, manuals, buildings) within a broader context that drew upon political, social and economic history, effectively showing how this building type has embodied particular power relationships that endure and others that change over time. Thomas A. Markus undertook a similar enterprise two decades later in his Buildings and Power (1993). which focused on new building types developed between roughly 1750 and 1850. notably schools, prisons, public libraries, museums and factories. Rather than appropriating an overtly Marxist or Foticauldian theoretical framework. Markus used Bill Hillier and Julienne Hanson's space syntax (19S4) as an overarching analytical instrument. Space syntax claims to be a specifically architectural theory, based on spatial/architectural parameters rather than importing philosophical or social theories from other disciplines. Its basic idea is that spatial configurations have an ordering impact on how social relationships unfold and that it is possible to unravel this connection by studying underlying spatial patterns, such as 'depth' (the number of 44 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING PARADIGM5 AND CONCERNS 45 thresholds to cross before reaching the innermost spate in a building) or 'axialily' (the presence of a long visual axis). The core users of space syntax - Hillier. Hanson and their students - have elaborated this model into computational software that is being applied in a variety of historical and geographical cases, albeit with mixed results. Space syntax tends to be used in an abstract, universalis! way that does not take account of cultural or social differences among people. Authors such as Markus or Kim Dovey (1999) couple a basic version of the space syntax toolkit with other tnterpretational frameworks - social history, art history, social theory, hermeneutics - which allows them to deploy it without overly reductive effects. These various studies have expanded the purview of architectural history and theory away from a few iconic monumental buildings towards a wide range of modest, indeed ordinary and commonly used structures. Few contemporary architectural scholars would agree with Nikolaus Pevsner's infamous dictum that 'a bicycle shed is a building, but Lincoln cathedral is a piece of architecture' (1957. 23). In traditional scholarship, us Markus correctly observed (1993, 26). researchers treated buildings as art, as material objects or as investments, but rarely as social objects. These earlier architectural historians tended to adopt methods and techniques from art history, relegating the study of technical or financial aspects to engineering and real estate. The emphasis on buildings as socially relevant objects, however, requires an interdisciplinary perspective, one that intertwines architectural analysis with methodologies developed in fields like anthropology, sociology, psychology or geography (Lawrence and Low 1990, 2003). Architectural theorists and historians have gradually integrated such parallels, becoming far more precise and refined in the process. Social and cultural geographies have had a major impact, often emphasizing the effects of imperialism and colonialism on urban space. Brenda Yeoh's book on colonial Singapore (2000) has been influential in showing how British and Asian conceptions of the city contributed to and clashed with one another, a tension that has affected' Singapore's present shape. Jane M. Jacobs'; study on postcolanialism and the city revealed) how different spatial interpretations lead tg volatile social geometries of power, signifii cation and contestation in every part of the world (1996). Blank: Architecture, Apartheid and After (Judin and Vkidislavic 1999) was one off the first books on architecture to fully inte-| grate a broad-based social perspective inloi discussions about contemporary architecture! without neglecting historical legacies. The| very layout of the book juxtaposes diverse! perspectives among South African architect*! activists and theorists, some of whom lam=a bast the spatial legacies of racism in cities! and townships, while others explore altema| live possibilities for reconciliation. In a simW lar manner, Eyal Weizman's Hollow Landi Israel's Architecture of Occupation (2007J? deftly interweaves military and political* history, astute three-dimensional mappings! a deconstruction of archeological discourses and a wry disquisition on the Israeli milkl tary's appropriation of Situationist theories.! Weizman uses the word 'architecture' in a| double sense, indicating both the built strop* tures that sustain the occupation (walls, f bridges, tunnels, settlements, checkpoints? and watchtowers) and a metaphor for the! constructed nature of political issues. .! To some extent the widened scope of whatj constitutes 'architecture' connects to a desireg to side with or at least stand up for the powerless that first emerged in the 1970s. Initially! united under the rubric of advocacy, some radical architects and planners had worked i closely with impoverished and disempow-"f ered groups in American cities, rural areas 8 and other sites throughout the world, such as I 'informal' urban settlements (barrios, bidon-8 villes, favelas, etc.) in the fast-growing Third.3 World cities. The ongoing interest in David Harvey, Manuel Castells and the legacy of John F.C. Turner reaffirms a vision of radical i ft lobat chanstes through specific local inter- ' (vnc Whereas these issues have had little ■ ,av aniong the most visible theorists (e.g. in jf,e so-called 'post-criticality' debate), they nevertheless taken up by several more polidcally oriented authors. Issues of citizens' rights have recently come to the fore, especially in terms of ri'lirs fo" tne Poor' l',e Povveriess and other rnarginalizetl groups in specific settings, both urban and rural. [See discussions in this section (Chapter 3) but also in Sections 5 (Chapter 24) and S (Chapter 38), as well as in Chapter 40 on housing.] Provocative recent debates have emphasized a spatial dimension «to citizenship. In principle, a nation-state defines citizens as those people who are born in and or live within its borders - thus privileging a space-bounded view on citizenship. Yet the fluidity of globalization encompasses transnational movements of people and inter-nal socio-economic disparities, both of which accentuate divergences from 'formal' and 'substantive' citizenship for those who seem to be 'outsiders'. Even long-time residents may not be able to claim the privileges thai supposedly go along with that status (hous- 1 ing, social security, etc.). Demands for these ■rights.in cities and rural areas have given rise to what Holston (1999) calls 'insurgent citizenship'. The inverse is also true in that wealthy foreign investors, producers and tourists often exercise considerable influence : over, the use, access and appearance of specific urban spaces, even when they are : .neither citizens nor residents. AH these explorations have brought representation to the fore. Key questions extend : from visual modalities to the subjectivity of ■userresponses and on to political metaphors. Section 5 will discuss the effects of computer drawings and models of future buildings. .: Here we are principally interested in representation as it relates to subjectivity and to .political issues. Recent cognitive and psychological theorists, notably Jacques Lacan, : relate representational images to conceptions .of subjectivity. Reflecting on such propositions might lead us to emphasize the role of representational spaces in subject formation -arguing for example that girly bedrooms help construct female subjectivities or that master bedrooms support heterosexuality as the norm. Given these interrelations, how might we best think about the subject that creates and the subjects that inhabit a space? Do certain representational techniques tend to reinforce norms, generate alternatives and/or sustain other critiques'? The early dominance of psychoanalytic theory has now extended from inquiries about the architect's individual creativity and a supposedly collective response of the public -both of which have multiple and competing dimensions. Some theorists have questioned the interactions between architectural innovations and various understandings of domesticity (Heynen and Baydar 2005) or the impact of urban renewal on people's sense of home (Porteous and Smith 2001). Others have focused on incentives for daring innovation or the individual's role in the rapid succession of transformations in generic types like housing or infrastructure (Bell 2004: Varnelis 2008). Still others have asked how physical spaces affect concepts of gender and sexuality; race and ethnicity; or class and status (Rendell et al. 1999; Wilkins 2007; Zukin 2009). This leads in turn to questions about the avant-garde concept of estrangement, hisoricaliy considered tiberatory. and the parallel disdain for familiarity, which seemed an inevitable constraint. Some theorists are now pointing out that certain forms of familiarity might be a necessary base for innovations and comparisons, as is the case with laboratory experiments (Picon and Ponte 2003). Established patterns may reinforce 'traditional' expectations but they also allow a platform for exploring alternatives, even transgressions of established norms, as in the sciences or indeed in legislation. Recent interest in the work of Pierre Bourdieu has brought new subtleties to the debate about cultural capital and discrimination that is fundamental to architectural judgement. Bourdieu's notion of the habitus also aligns the structure of architectural settings with 46 THE SA_c HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING PARADIGMS AND CONCERNS 47 that of more practical activities that effect the power of invention (Pinto 2002; Lipstadt 2003). Many recent theorists continue to explore the political implications of representation in the sense of representative democracies, community participation and the hierarchy of architecture firms. The 1960s to 1970s encompassed active political involvement along with critiques of good intentions by Manfredo Tafuri and Michel Foucauit. New strategies for 'participation' and public debate about architectural design - especially the need for choices - emerged in the 1980s. The 1990s then imported ideas about hybridity from Nestor Garcia Canclini and Homi Bhabha, criticizing purity as exclusionary. Several key questions have emerged. Does the public have a right to good architecture in addition to the architect's right to explore new ideas? To what extent and by what criteria do non-architects - clients, users and various members of the public, often competing with one another - judge architecture? How can we distinguish between differences based on culture or group preferences and others that constitute inequalities? If we acknowledge that architects can produce settings geared to rigid discipline and oppression, which may not be immediately visible, how might we conceive of an architecture of resistance (see also Chapter 5)? All these questions draw upon post-structuralist theory in that they refuse to acknowledge a privileged position for Western man as the subject of a teleological history, as centre and reference point for notions of progress and development. And yet, if the earlier concept of 'modern man' no longer holds, no adequate substitute has emerged. The individual 'self can be variously understood as a heroic author/architect, a narcissist or as a person who may want to resist or at least question what is imposed, however inarticulate or frustrated those reservations might be. Post-structuralist theory considers all these selves as 'agents' rather than 'subjects' since they are clearly conditioned by and responding to societal and spatial conditions which they can negotiate but cannot overcome. In a similar way. architects (and theorists) are agents whose ideas about creativity, reception and effects are likewise conditioned by their time and circumstances, although they too can choose to emphasize or ignore a particular topic or audience. Ole Fischer's chapter on criticality (Chapter 2) deals with many of these issues, focusing on a most interesting debate that unfolded during the years since 2000. In the wake of Tafuri's and Foucault's analyses of architecture's interconnection with po\ser. a dominant tendency within architecture and within architectural theory has espoused criticality: the desire to relate critically to hegemonic societal powers, either by exposing manipulative societal conditions through formal language - sometimes denouncing the very powers that brought a building into being - or by positioning planning and design interventions in such a way that they benefit or at least take the side of disadvantaged social groups. Both kinds of critical architecture have recently been taken to last for being too convoluted, too intellect utilized, too difficult and distanced or simply too boring. In unraveling the intricacies of these debates, Fischer points towards hidden geographies (notably Europe versus North Ami- . i Like other cohorts, he draws on Bruno Latour, especially his emphasis on 'connec- -lions' rather than static space and mi t ibk 'aggregates' with open borders and relatively fixed agents such as 'the architect' or 'architecture'. Fischer thus pleads for a more honest self-reflection in which architecture is . not just a matter of interest, but also a matter of concern (Latour and Wiebel 2005; Latour 2007; Graham and Marvin 200!). POWER AND DIFFERENCE Given that power has become a major issue in architectural theory over the last several decades, it stands to reason that difference aad-■■embodiment have come to the fore. These are the warp and woof of power relations: one might even state that some differences are 'produced' by uneven power relations. Patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism and economic dominance emphasize : particular characteristics to bolster inequalities between, respectively, men and women, West and East, colonizer and colonized, city and country. These differences do not exist in ah abstract way: they are embodied in real1 persons who can be subjected to real discrimination. Whereas the heroic generations of modernists believed they could wipe away all differences based upon class, ethnicity or oender - uniting all humanity under the banner of a shared belief in progress and emancipation - it has become clear that differences among people and places are profound and persistent. Likewise, assertions of a necessary break with local and regional geographies no longer hold up. Many contemporary theorists stress the importance "oficlimate and landscape as well as history and culture in people's relations with the built environment (see also Sections 4 and 7). A few postmodernists who criticized the modernist tabula rasa have recently moved towards 'ecological' notions of interconnection; a paradigm that extends from environ-. mental pragmatists to some of the pleas for ■ a 'new urbanism'. Landscapes are no longer presumed to be bucolic: they can be dangerous,: vulnerable, urban and even conceptual. Human interventions can take many forms. Debates about 'critical regionalism' that began with Tzonis and Lefaivre's analyses ::Ofpost-WWII Greek modernism in the 1970s then expanded with Kenneth Frampton's call for abstract expressions of local tectonic and climactic conditions. In contrast, explorations of the distinctive modernist idioms of Latin America. Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions now emphasize the .incorporation of 'traditional' climactic adaptations together with modern technological .innovations (see also Chapter 34). Here, too. those who araue for the essence or sienius loci of a place now encounter criticisms that they unintentionally encourage unequal hierarchies, eco-consumerism and tourism. In sum, it is no longer possible to claim that architectural practice or theory can bracket out the complex distinctions and interconnections, both global and local, at the core of environmental issues. Even without resorting to post-structuralist theories, therefore, the notion of difference has taken on a primary role in many architectural discourses. Engagement with the work of authors such as Derrida, Lyotard or Foucauit has given philosophical depth to these issues. For Derrida, differance - a play upon the French words for 'differing' and 'defering' - is an inescapable feature of language: language is built upon differences between words, the meanings of which can never be fixed but are always subject to further clarification. There is no ultimate guarantee that words mean what we want them to mean, since this chain of signification can never be anchored in a transcendent entity (such as 'God') accepted by all users of the language. Lyotard takes this idea one step further by exploring its social consequences. His book Different! (1989) investigates situations in which a conflict arises that cannot be resolved because there are no rules of judgement that both parties accept as applicable to the case. If parties do not agree about the rules of the game, the game cannot be played in a fair way. Lyotard argues convincingly that this situation often occurs because language produces different genres of discourses which are not always compatible with one another. Rather than ignore this differend -whether by subsuming everything under the same denominator of money (capitalism) or by playing one's own game as if it is the master game ruling all others (academia) -he insists that philosophy must bear witness to the differend. Lyotard's 'language games' resemble Foucault's 'discursive formations,' indicating a loose constellation of interconnected theories about what can be spoken and comprehended in a given historical context. Foucauit suggested that such 48 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING PARADIGMS AND CONCERN5 49 discursive formations may determine what kind of ideas can gain foothold, and hence which ones are closely related to regimes of power. Not incidentally, he insisted that power did not radiate out from one person or one centre (a king or a government); it is an ongoing process in which finely dispersed structural forces regulate everyone's behaviour, including those who exercise considerable power over others, in a continuous concatenation of actions and reactions. Post-colonial theories have used these ideas in order to unravel how colonialism used specialized or c:opert knowledge production and how colonized people negotiated, contested and twisted colonial spaces. Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) has been a major reference. Said argued that imperial practices were closely intertwined with modes of knowledge production that looked back to the Enlightenment project of modernity. Indeed, colonial discourse was intrinsic to European self-understanding since knowledge about foreign peoples and territories (two closely linked topics) allowed Europeans to position themselves as modern, civilized, superior, developed and progressive while local colonized populations supposedly possessed none of these qualities (Venn 2000). Said's Orientalism refered specifically to a body of scholarly knowledge and practices that characterized the Orient as the 'other' or antithesis of the Occident, roughly equating it with the mysterious, the exotic, the excessive, the irrational, the alien. This 'other" was seen as the negation of everything that Europe imagined or desired itself to be. Since Europe's 'modern' virtues would continue to progress, the differences would always remain intact. Historians such as Gwendolyn Wright (1991) or Zeynep gelik (1997b) have brought these topics to the fore in architectural history and theory. Yet even today few accounts of modernity and modernism acknowledge this crucial role of colonialism in the self-understanding of Western culture. Although some 'alternative modernities' have been introduced in recent years, the pivotal role of colonialism has been conveniently ignored in the conventional historiography of the Modern Movement. Jyoti Hosagrahar discusses these themes ■:■ in Chapter 3. She acknowledges that posl-colonial perspectives in architecture and urbanism do not comprise a well-defined body of knowledge, although they do shau an intellectual starting point in what she calls 'intellectual decolonization': the active rejection of spaces and discourses based in hegi-monic dualities (modern versus traditional, centre versus periphery, universal versus ,' local, Western versus non-Western). Posl colonial thinking explores multiplicities am hybrids, studying precisely those spaces am practices that cannot be qualified as eith< -'modern' or 'traditional' since they occupy a " position in between. Such an approach raises questions about the conventional categories and narratives in all aspects of architectural ' history. (Why is Europe almost always the focus of general histories of architecture'.' ' Why do we presume that innovations always "f. radiate outward from a vital centre to periph eral hinterlands that can only copy and, often as not, 'misinterpret' that modernity?) = Postcolonialism thus provides insights into ; the multiple ways that archiecture is implicated in the socio-political processes ol nation-building and the economic geopolitics ' of globalization, in the present as in the past How do we judge improvements that may benelit local populations, even as they endan- f ger environments and entrench dominant powers'? This dilemma, so conspicuous in | colonial and neo-coionial settings, undeilies every architectural intervention. We see that \ the history of architecture is also inscribed -in the trajectories of 'minor' architects who ; negotiate between the requirements of ■ i -erful political authorities on the one hand J. and the specific local realities of materials, skills and cultural traditions on the i This in turn calls attention to the challenges and accomplishments of contemporary architects and urbanists who 'design from I he ' margins', those who practise on the < of the places where avant-garde architectuial ; culture is produced and promoted, especially "ill those who work in and for places where the ioa!s of social responsibility, sustainabil-j,v "and multiplicity require new kinds of reflection and new forms of architectural creativity. . Difference is also a crucial term lor feminist theories, as Jane Rendell explains in Chapter 4. Feminist architects began to develop gendered critiques of architecture in the 1970s. This was at first inspired by an activist, political mood that aimed to break doWn the barriers for women in the architectural profession and. simultaneously, to expose and alleviate gender discrimination in the 'man-made' built environment. Feminist concerns gradually shifted towards a critique of conventional understandings of architecture based on monumental buildings and the master works of canonized male architects. Architectural historians began to study women architects and the role of female patrons in the production of architecture. Feminist architects developed new forms of interdisciplinary praxis that questioned the boundaries of architecture as a discipline. Difference and location became centra! concerns as these theorists insisted that knowledge is always situated, and so one must always consider the standpoint from which insights arebeing developed. Knowledge is not free-floating; it is embodied in persons, who are differently situated in terms of class, race, culture and gender. These circumstances are not incidental; they directly affect the kinds of knowledge that are produced and disseminated; Converging with postcolonial perspectives and other analyses of power, feminism and gender studies have radically altered the parameters of architectural theory. -These intellectual explorations have thus brought the stability of 'architecture' as a concept into question. Architecture is shown to be a contested territory, no longer the undisputed legacy of 'the canon' - whether this is the chronicle of 'masterworks' running from- the Egyptian pyramids to the Seattle Public Library or the privileged terrain of white males who have defined avant-garde culture. Diverse groups are asserting their right to make architecture productive and meaningful on their own terms. These terrains include feminist collectives working to protect women against male violence, subaltern practices seeking to redefine what constitutes heritage, 'minor'designers exploring the aesthetic terrains of specific regions, and writers mapping the intersections of autobiography, critical writing and poetic spatial practices. These diverse voices have not achieved a profound change in conventional practices and disciplinary boundaries, but they have had a significant impact on architectural theory, in that they show how conventional understandings of architecture are - wittingly or unwittingly - bound up with patriarchy and cultural hegemony. The language of these critical voices has become more precise and pointed since the 1960s as analysts have drawn upon broader intellectual tendencies. Recent theories have incorporated a revived environmentalist movement and new conceptions about cities as dynamic, heterogeneous ecologies (see also Sections 7 and 8) in questioning established canons, hagiographies and teleologies that had long been taken for granted. Architects' intentions are suddenly less important than other influences, both new and established, conscious and unintended. Even specific words have changed. Whereas early verbs asked how architecture and urban spaces reflect, support or modify political and social structures of difference, other more nuanced terms now ask how they intimidate, divide, buttress, enhance, challenge and destabilize - all of which can be positive or negative in different circumstances. The appropriation of languages outside of architecture has thus shifted considerably in the past 40 years. To some extent the discussion has touted the significance of architecture and spatial configurations, both urban and natural, not just within the discipline but in the world at large - including other academic disciplines from the sciences to the humanities. Architectural analogies of the 1960s continued to draw from the biological so THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY INTRODUCTION: SHIFTING PARADIGMS AND CONCERNS 51 and social sciences. Christopher Alexander initiated the use of computers to apply mathematical set theories, hoping to extrapolate a new language that could assure a building's •fit' in modern societies. The rise of the New Left then unleashed vehement critiques of the design professions, refuting promises of amelioration as empty metaphors, Architects and theorists alike evoked the people, the public, the social and the community in beginning to acknowledge diverse, even competing needs or desires. While an activist trajectory continued, taking new paths, architectural theory in the 1970s often converted politics into more abstract intellectual concerns, as explored by Ole Fischer in Chapter 2. The idea of an oppositional strategy of negation emphasized words like difference, rupture, fragmentation and radical heterogeneity as ways to sustain alternative Utopian possibilities. Familiar architectural analogies were scrutinized, especially terms like structure or stability, although clever language games sometimes became facile. Recent interests have shifted to theories about translation/bilinguaiism and vernacular or local languages for everyday life. Through these debates the term discourse often replaced that of language, again encompassing various meanings from a distinctive internal 'jargon' (as Adorno used the term) to Foucaulfs ideas about culture/ power, Lyotard's fascination with discursive genres and Habermas's theories about conversation. Gradually the modernist idea of utopia as a brave new world underwent significant changes. Whereas architects such as Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright had no qualms in depicting idealized versions of the future (Fishman 1977). the Utopian impulse bore itself out in the 1960s, giving way to dystopian scenarios that saw the future in terms of loss and catastrophe - or at least as a much more ambivalent place to be than the Radiant or Broadacre City. Stiperstudio. Archizoom or OMA used architectural tools (drawings, models, mappings) to investigate the liberatory but also oppressive forces of spatial configurations (Van Schaik and c Macei 2005). A fascination with technology-'-; gave rise to multiple experiments that inv tigated the possibilities of megastrucltire-,, 7. inflatables, domes, spaceships, underwatj-worlds and desert cities. If these experi- ^ ments barely touched upon mainstream -architectural culture and remained political!-ineffective (Scott 2007), they help explain • the simultaneous neo-colonial export of • high-tech infrastructure and manufactured-housing systems that would supposedly '-; transform and 'solve' the problems of I Third World. By the 1980s and 1990s, the very idea of -f Utopia seemed compromised beyond ret lion. Postmodernism presented itself as a down-to-earth architectural strategy that w more interested in salvaging elements of Ills past than in discovering possibilities for the j. future (Jencks 1977; Klotz 1984; Jami 1989; Ghirardo 1996). 'Post-humanist' rists repositioned the architectural a\ suit- _-' garde, deriding efforts to improve conditions 'f as naive and futile. Yet here and there, ut re-emerged, often bound up with the ni i of difference itself: something different hud to be possible, something more than just a f repetition of what already existed, somi that harboured a promise that could no be articulated. One group of authors came ' * up with the term Embodied Utopias as a J* way to think the future - or re-configure the J past - not in an abstract, spiritual i but rather as social and corporeal prai recognizing the importance of bodies thai ethnically, sexually, culturally and socially' * inscribed (Bingaman et al. 2002). EMBODIED DIFFERENCES Architecture's engagement with the body be traced back to antiquity. Western cl; cism envisaged the orders as emulatini human body. Recent architectural th< have reconfigured the body as a modi rhythm and proportions, as a reference pi for discussions of scale, as a vulnerable body in need of physical ;in .1.- ■ tecture' based on the autonomy of arch n--ture and the enhancement of the stal theory. While this mode of criticism to analyse, interpret, explain and pos: subvert human sign systems (hence ing cultural artifacts), socio-philoso 'critical theory', on the other hand,. : ' to accomplish a self-reflective analy 'societal totality', hence a criticism preconditions of science, culture and p in capitalist society in order to change it as a whole The core presumption of ■critical theory' is the failure - in consideration of l5ie totalitarian ideologies of Fascism and Stalinism - of bourgeois enlightenment, whose promises of knowledge, self-determination, and rational analysis of nature and myth are said to have dialectically transformed into 'instrumental reason', into an economic-technological system of rule in which the irrationality of the myth returns as 'positivis-tic' affirmation of the existing (Adorno and Horkheimer 1972). Nevertheless there is much common ground between socio-political 'critical theory' and 'critical' literature/ language theory, ranging from the choice of : topics to mutual borrowing of methods, texts arid authors who may be counted among both groups. Manfredo Tafuri, the Marxist architectural i historian from the 'School of Venice', played ! a major role in the construction, in this i:double; sense, of a 'critical' architecture/ theory in the 1970s. On the basis of the cultural criticism of the Frankfurt School, par-< ticularly Benjamin and Adorno. he defines i the history of architecture as part of a broader : materialist historiography as much as architectural theory as a critique of ideology, which; is not limited to the formal analysis ofindividual objects or designs but rather discusses architecture as the obfuscation of social conditions. At the same time, however. , he avails himself of linguistic and structuralist methods that go back initially to Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Eco and Foucault, from where he proceeded to Lacan, Derrida and Deleuze. His.eclectic meta-criticism that passes from the level of aesthetic form to the level of language of architecture (that is. semantics, structure and typology), and on to the level of language about architecture, coincides with the theoretical approaches of the New York Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (1AUS) co-founded by Emilio Ambasz and peter Eisenman. For them. Tafuri's analytical critique of language, his negative dialectics of modernity and his philosophical scepticism towards given societal realities and Utopias seemed eminently suitable as a theoretical legitimization of 'critical' architecture, disseminated by the IAUS magazine Oppositions (Hays 1999) and pursued in the projects of the New York Five (Drexler et al. 1972). Tafuri's interest in the concept of autonomy met with that of architects like Aldo Rossi, Oswald Mathias Lingers and Peter Eisenman. albeit from a different perspective: these representatives of 'critical' architecture/theory consider autonomy on the level of form and structure, as a challenge to the function, meaning, construction, visuality and mediation of architecture. They framed architecture linguistically as an 'autonomous language'or as a culturally 'given' artifact independent of the author's intentions. Tafuri uses autonomy against the background of the Italian 'atttono-mia' movement of anarchic communists and actionistic groups of the 1960s as a demand for socio-political engagement and economic, cultural and political participation, in opposition to the ruling capitalist system outside the established (and thus already compromised) institutions, such as the state, political parties or trade unions - indeed as an extension of class struggle. Ultimately, 'autonomic:' meant literally the self-organization of tenants in building cooperatives and the direct action of do-it-yourself and urban squatting, in short, the strive for 'architecture without architects' (Rtidofsky 1964). For Tafuri, with reference to Horkheimer and Adorno, any kind of production within the capitalist order is always already contingent, collaborative and instrumentalized, which is why he insists on the autonomy of architectural history/ theory from design practice (and thus constraints of justification) and on the critic's detachment from the object - very unlike the 'operative' theory of the 'critical' architect or the 'post-critical' version of 'engaged' criticism. The misunderstanding between formal linguistic self-criticism of 'critical' architecture, and Tafuri"s critique of ideology founded on economic, political and cultural arguments, could not be greater. The fact that Tafuri, who diagnoses the historical failure of modern architecture to enter into a critical relation with capitalism, has been used to THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY ARCHITECTURE, CAPITALISM AND CRITICALITY 63 legitimize American 'critical' architecture/ theory seems to be one of history's ironies, as Diane Ghirardo (2002) has already observed. And yet the protagonists of 'critical' architecture even hijacked Tafuri's resigned assessment regarding the 'end of architecture', using it to justify the autonomous, abstract, absolute operations with the drained architectural elements, finally proclaiming with Derrida the 'end of the end' (Eisenman I9S4). Still, in the early 1970s Tafuri had made a full-scale attempt to clarify the role of criticism (and language) in architecture on the IAUS platform Oppositions (1974): there he distinguished, firstly, between language as technical neutrality (functional-ism) and, secondly, the emptiness of signs after the dissolution of meanings (Rossi), and, thirdly, an architecture that sees itself 'critically', ironically or as a mass medium reduced purely to 'information' - and this category encompasses the projects of Stirling, Venturi and the New York Five, which he criticizes as subjective experimentalism, cynicism, or hermetic 'language games'. The fourth position espoused by Tafuri claims the interchangeability and futility of positions one to three, as 'criticism' remains inside the 'language of architecture', merely endlessly reproducing what has been said and what already exists2 instead of analysing and realizing the underlying principles and possibilities of architectural and critical 'production' within the existing societal structures. To him, it is the task of architecture to change the reality of society with the 'plan' (urbanistic as well as political) to reorganize the production and distribution of labour and capital, which at the same time, however, implies that the architect must cooperate with public decision-makers and integrate into economic-political and administrative processes as an 'engineer' or 'producer' (in compliance with Benjamin's 1934 formula of 'the author as producer'). In a way, it is the European developments in architecture of the 1990s, as outlined above, that confirms the path of political, economic, administrative and technical integration predicted by Tafuri, albeit under: contrary political circumstances of globaliza-/-tion. And whereas in the early 1970s Tafuri prophesized the imminent end of architectural avant-gardes as a result of the disillusioning effect of 'critical theory' - with the impossibility of a 'critical' project having been proven (Tafuri 1980, 91) - today an end of (critical) theory would appear imminent as: a result of an operative practice that, ironically or ignorantly, embraces progress and technology, pursues instrumentali/auon through marketing and mass media, and flirts with its status as a commodity, spectacle or fashion - giving up in the end any attempt to criticize capitalism. Despite his utter resignation, even Tafuri betrays signs of admiring the discreet charm of omnipresent, adaptable and excessive capitalist production. But the decline of a culturally and politic."!1"-critical consciousness in architecture is not caused by the 'temptations of the market' alone but also by the historical evolutiim oľ 'critical" architecture/theory: besides archi-, tectural formalism, post-structuralism < hal lenged neo-Marxist 'critical theory' as one out of numerous political ideologies and demystified the autonomy of the critic vis-ä-vis social conditions as a theoretical construction. What remains is a postn: ■. jt relativity of 'everything goes' and also the dominance of the linguistic analogy in the academia of the 1980s and 1990s, whose degree of abstraction is responsible for the loss of sensorial, material, atmospheric, temporal, aesthetic, emotional and performative qualities that are today being re-addrcs-.M >> 'post-critical' authors. AUTONOMY, CONTIGUITY AND NEGATION ■ ■-8II1J1- George Baird (1995) has argued for acki.i-" I edging a more parallel and continuous (level- k opment of modern, postmodern, struct and post-structuralist tendencies in I tectural theory, rather than framing it as IIP revolutionary process of paradigm shifts, Ext':r.pi-i:y for this complexity and ambigu-" jty mi"ht be the position ol'Aldo Rossi. Seen from a European perspective, he is a left intellectual - a member of the Partito C'0'"-l:,-S'a I|aUan° US We" aS 0I1e °^ me Pro~ fessors of Politecnico di Milano dismissed for his support of the student revolt of T968/1970 - and father figure of neo-classical postmodernism. From a North American ■perspective, he belongs to the neo-avant-':''■abide of the 1970s together with Eisenman, ■"Hejduk and Tscliumi. Rossi himself, how-even believed in the continuation of the "modern project, and with the Architecture of the City (1984) he wanted to reconstruct the discipline by proving its foundations in enlightenment rationalism, combining an ideological critique of history with a typo-logicalcritique of architectural forms of the citv that he considered as its fundamental -reality. Therefore Rossi insisted on the autonomy til architecture - in the double sense of first a pre-existing historic fact of monumental-permanent primary elements and struc-. antral residential areas of the city detached from funcliona;. technological, societal or economic determination, and second, a specificity of architecture as such, as a form of scientific knowledge. This self-reflection of ^architecture on its own history, formal logic ;and typological ideas enabled a revision and reassessment of Italian rationalism of the 1930s that implied the purging of its Fascist political content, especially with regard to iGiuseppe Tenragni, an interest Rossi shared with Eisenman (Eisenman 1998). Rossi's autonomy project seeks to re-contextualize the architectural object within the (European) city and the 'collective memory' of its citizens, but at the same time : de-contextualize it from political, economic and societal reality, even from contemporaneity, as Rafael Moneo noted, who went on, with reference to Tafuri, to sketch out the danger for architecture to be reduced to inoperative parameters' and 'pure game' (Moneo 1976, 18). But Rossi's attempt to take architecture away from the heated political discourse of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which risked the discipline dissolving into social work, functionalist technological positivism or technocratic instrumentalization, is driven by the melancholic insight that the critical alternatives of the modern movement are no longer available. Neither the Utopian project of the radical avant-garde nor the emancipatory social reformist practice seem an option because both have been proven to be either ineffective or complicit with capitalist instrumental access to world, labour and humans. From this dystopian perspective of the impossibility for architecture to picture or produce an alternative reality within the existing societal relations, the Rossian project of autonomy - as a process of disciplinary separation, typological abstraction and archaic reduction - opens a fallback position of architectural practice evading social reality, a reality that forcefully returns back into these formal manipulations and poetic analogies, as Rossi's work demonstrates,3 but an evasive position that aligns with the philosophical concept of negation, as introduced by the Frankfurt School 'critical theory' and transferred to architecture by Tafuri: 'This [simple} truth is, that just as there cannot exist a class political economy, but only a class criticism of political economy, so too there cannot be founded a class aesthetic, art, or architecture, but only a class criticism of the aesthetic, of art, of architecture, of the city itself (Tafuri 1976, 179). Within the capitalist regime Tafuri (1980) denies any possibility of envisaging the 'architecture for a liberated society' or maintaining a critical stance within design, but he emphasizes the negative aspect of ideological critique for the history and theory of architecture. This is a clear reference to the Negative Dialectics of Adorno (1973), who conceptualized the task of philosophy as to unmask societal contradictions and to situate these as historic products in notional mediation, though with the important difference that Adorno concedes for art an autonomous space beyond the instrumental rationality THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY ARCHITECTURE, CAPITALISM AND CRITICALITY of capitalist production (Adorno 1984). Art gains autonomy through its negation of operational 'use' or 'function' as well as its distance from societal reality, yet at the same time art remains for Adorno a social practice or a product of societal labour and therefore determined by history, production process, techniques, influence, context, etc. Because of a historic split between signs and images, they have become operational in modern society, but Adorno proposes a reconstruction of their independence with the dialectical concept of mimesis. The resemblance of art to itself evades the identity thinking of linguistic categories and enables genuine experience of 'otherness' within modern instrumenralized society - what makes art 'critical'. On the other hand, art relates mimetically to society and recognizes societal reality - what makes art similar to the criticized. While the similarity is necessary to enable involvement by the observer, it is die formal autonomy that exposes the concealed social reality (repression, exploitation, estrangement, etc.) and puts art in opposition to and in negation of society (Heynen 1999, 174-192). This dialectic renders modern art abstract, dissonant, discomforting and anti-utopian; to picture a positive image of society (like socialist realism) has grounds in false premises just as much as 'committed' art, since the representation as much as the 'message' demand complicity with the audience. Adorno excludes affirmative, contingent, tangible art from his aesthetics, for without the distance of autonomy they turn into reified, popular, conformist commodities of 'culture industry' that reproduce the manipulative contexts of delusion. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory (1984) implies a selection of specific genres capable of autonomy and negation, such as serious music, dramatic literature and abstract visual art (in short: elitisthigh culture). Architecture, however, functional, contingent or operative, hardly ever conforms to these conditions, even if it retreats to formal abstraction and 'post-functionalism' (Eisenman 1976). Yet Walter Benjamin - as much as Adorno a point of reference for Tafuri - scrutinizes the' concept of autonomy as a relict of prehistoric? magic ritual that survived in the bourgeois* cult of the singular, crafted, auratic work of art - determined by restricted access, private ownership and authorial authenticity - and he contrasts it with the simultaneous collective reception of reproduced artifacts such as: photo, film and architecture. In his famous' 1936 essay on 'The Work of Art", Benjamin substitutes the contemplative immersion of the individual observer into the work of ait of idealistic aesthetics with the dispersion of reproductions amongst the urban masses, ■ where reception takes place in the slale of-distraction (Benjamin 2008). It is precisely the contingency by use and function that, qualifies architecture for Benjamin iu the 'prototype* of 'tactile' - in contrast to 'optical' - reception of the (new) mediated art of the masses. The daily, habitual, casual experience of reproduced art - or architect- ■ ture - replaces 'cult value' with 'exhibition value', hence transforming art from a commodity fetish to an ubiquitous exercise lor human perception that is able to reconstitute the historic unity of critical stance -rcT delight. Whilst Adorno concentrates hi critical role of the work of art, as promising a different societal reality, Benjamin's hope resides in art's cognitive role as an experimental Field for new forms of (aesthetic) demand, since he conceptualizes art received in distraction as an unconscious training tor new skills of 'apperception' by the masses that precede the change in societal relations. And if Adorno excluded the economy o . i from his theoretic reflection in order to emphasize its distance from reification and instrumental adjustment of the world, then Benjamin located a revolutionary asf ■ t the process of technological (reproduction, distribution and mass consumption of art that constitutes a collective audience, reconciles art and science, and restructures human perception, imagination and consciousness, T'W is: he differentiated the dialectical relations between technology, arts and politics aire.. Ij laid out by historic materialism. ■If WITHIN THE INTERIOR SPACE OF CAPITAL Adorno and Benjamin presented two alternatives for a critical artistic practice within capitalist society: on one hand there is the notion of resistance embedded in the autono-nious work, and on the other hand there is the search for concepts to stimulate opposition from contiguous factors of production, programme or use. From a Marxist point of view, architecture is as much a part of society's productive forces (hence its economic base) as its cultural superstructure 1 (hence its reproduction of capitalist hegemony). This dialectic was explored by the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre (1991, 26). :i,vho;considered '(social) space as a (social) product' resulting from productive forces, modes of production and relations of produc-; don (that is. from human labour and its organization, from the instruments of labour respective technology and from resources). Following the theory of materialist dialectics, he defined the production of space as a historical process where different societies and therefore modes of production crystallize in different historical spaces: at the same time he aimed at a 'unitary theory' of space that covers physical, mental as well as social aspects. Since he regarded space not only as a product 'secreted' by society but also as a prodt:e:n e. force of capitalism that reproduces social relations, he differentiated between three interrelated levels: first, 'spa-Ma!-practices' of production and reproduction: secoad. 'representations of space', that ;jSithe conceptualized, codified, mental space i/jnahifested in signs contiguous to power and border; and third, 'representational space', .Which, contains the life of inhabitants and users (Lefebvre 1991, 33). In this scheme, architecture belongs to the second category, which minimizes its critical potential, but opposition and subversion re-enter with everyday practice - the individual, imaginary Wl.historic dimension of 'representational space'. This reflection on everyday life was augmented by Michel de Certeau (1984), who pursued the 'productive' side of consumer culture existent in the individual practice of bricolnge. deviance and ruses. Yet, in contrast to Lefebvre, de Certeau understands 'practice' primarily as linguistic termini in the sense of 'pragmatics* and 'performance', and, following the speech act theory based on de Saussure. he differentiates between the system of written language (langue) as hegemonic, institutional and strategic, and the individual use of spoken language (parole) as temporal, trickery and tactical."1 De Certeau denies, with reference to Foucault (1977), the possibility of an autonomous position within the strategic system of power, but he concedes the tactical use of space to create individual freedom operating within the structure set by strategy. Exemplary for the transfer from speech act to spatial practice is the pedestrian walking in the street as 'enunciation of the city' (de Certeau 1984, 97), subverting with the individual choice of path the dominant order imposed by planning, though the same example demonstrates the problematic equation of practising language (or everyday activities) with economic production and political participation - not unlike the mix-up of formal and political autonomy in 'critical' architecture. This reflection on everyday life, space and practice is part of the sociological critique against post-war functionalism and modernist planning methods of the 1960s, which parallels Lefebvre with Jane Jacobs (1961) or Alexander Mitscherlich (1965). However, Lefebvre was not recognized in the English-speaking architectural debate until the 1990s, when he was called upon by authors, such as Margaret Crawford (1999) or Mary McLeod (1997), who distanced themselves from paternalistic New Urbanism and formalist avant-gardes (of postmodern, neo-modern or deconstructivist fashion). Sceptical of the dominant linguistic theories in academia that reduce architecture to questions of signification and form finding, this sociological critique calls for a return to 'the real' of lived experience without being patronizing, to an 66 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY ARCHITECTURE, CAPITALISM AND CRITICALITY 67 examination of popular culture without being populist, and for taking action under existing social conditions without selling out. Sharing the optimistic assessment of everyday life by Lefebvre and de Certeau as rich, complex and transformative, this architectural and urban practice addresses ordinary programmes (housing, retail, conversions, street furniture) and small-scale interventions that question normative understandings of space and place, of private and public, of politics, participation and citizenship. Still, there remains a crucial gap between this informal urbanism, pragmatic realism and micro-political activism and the dialectics of Lefebvre, who introduced the concept of the everyday as a complementary vector of modernity in order to project a fundamental change in hegemonic societal relations. The persistence of a Utopian perspective, even a nondeterministic one full of tensions and contradictions, also separates Lefebvre from de Cerieau, as much as their contrary understanding of 'place': de Certeau favours space (espace) as operative, actualized, oriented, over the notion of place (lieu) as stable, ordered and defined, with the first comparable to spoken narration and the second to written text, while Lefebvre defends the 'differential space' of place, history and individuality against the 'abstract space' of capitalist society, which he describes as universal, instrumental and homogenous - the space of commodities and power, administered by consensus and disintegrating traditional locality, relations and practices. This critique of the spatial homog-enization was taken up, though with reference to de Certeau, by Marc Augé (1995), who developed the oppositional model of 'place' versus 'non-place', with which he distinguishes between the construction of identity by individuals interacting with each other in authentic places defined by history, centrality and recognition versus the non-personal, homogenized, generic environments of supermarkets, airports and hotel lobbies - the deterritorialized, transitional spaces of consumption and traffic.5 Yet whilst Lefebvre associated 'differential space' with instability and social change, it was already de Certeau who returned m a phenomenological notion of identity and authenticity in the discourse on 'place' (Heidegger 1994, Norberg-Schulz 1980). which became the dominant paradigm in the anthropology of Auge, as his call lor an 'organic social' demonstrates. Even if Auge does not blame conlempn-rary architecture alone for the witherinsr away of place, his dirge on the loss of cultural differentiation and locality meets 11 the concept of 'critical regionalism' in architecture. The term, originally coined by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre (J985). was propagated by Kenneth Frampion. (1983) - an early member of the IAI S i New York - as an answer to universali;\s i-and 'scenography' of consumerist semioiie postmodernism, significantly introduced by a passage from Paul Ricoeur. With a detour to Benjamin's concept of 'aura', the authors suggested slowing down the process of visual commodification by working with local materials, techniques and typologies and by referring to context, history and season -altogether features that have to be experienced on site and that are difficult to reproduce in images. In contrast to earlier regionalism or (postmodern) vernacular tendencies, here the 'critical' denotes first a reflexive under- ' standing of local inspiration and the notion of place, a dialectic of technological 'civilization' versus 'culture' exemplified in tlie work of Alvar Aalto or Alvaro Siza, Carried., by Habermas' belief in modernity as an unfinishedproject of emancipation (Haberm as 1983), Frampton asks how to reconcile regional diversity and specificity wilh the , universal progress of reason (Frampton 1983). A second notion of the 'critical' becaiiW more prominent in the last revision of Modern . Architecture (Frampton 2007, 344-389) where Frampton argues for the reconstruction of 'civic form' and 'public appearance' in the sense of Hannah Arendt (195S . ■ a sphere of direct encounter and inter.ictiun of citizens like the ancient Greek i l. ■■ ■''"('■ ealso Baird 1995) against depolittcized r.ie-lir.'^'" anc' tornrn°diiication of the con-iemPDrary (DU'"-) environment. Yet regional-■ sq|-:::as well as organicist tendencies are as 'niuch a product of rigorous modernization as ;,: they" can7 an anti'urDan' anti-technological and anti-pluralistic undercurrent that sets an ideal oneness of community and culture 'anainst the experience of estrangement, frag-;:;frtentation and loss in society, what makes ,|..,.n ;.n ideological construct in need of a dialectical analysis as much as the enlightenment project they stem from (Dal Co 1979). already Marx had hoped to overcome cap: ^■^■r£jj^jjjon 0f labour and estrangement with free, self-fulfilling production, and gave Srise^tb^ an anti-technological resentment hexpbsed in the Arts and Crafts movement and ■slater:;: through expressionism, organicism, r^bnolism and contemporary consumer-spfqeiucer models. Apart from its cynicism, Kcolhans' counter- attack on the identity, authenticity and historicity of the (European) "cityshas its merit in pointing out the liberat-iag eflVcts of thinking architecture beyond memory and place or utopist planning theo-1neSi;(i994); In contrast to Benjamin, how-:;eVer,:;who conceptualized the emancipatory potential of technical reproduction and the prbati culture of the everyday, Koolhaas does ijtlpt Joffer a critical project - such as the 'politicizatior. of art' - any longer. OUTLOOK: WHAT IS LEFTIH ARCHITECTURE? ;ijEw:;cah architecture be resistant to the fWhjpresence of global capitalism and con-sumeri.-.t culture? Since crisis is an existential :. part of the process of capitalism, critical ges-Juresare internalized, recycled and exploited us f&rnal novelty and comment ('recupera-tion':),:such as urban guerilla tactics for product placement and branding (Von Berries 2(104), or situationist experiments for staging -Urbanity and creating events. However, if Utopian planning, even in actually existing socialism, has not been able to project an architectural and urban alternative to imperialist representations of power and capitalist consumer culture, but instead has reproduced totalitarian environments, does this mean that a critical practice in architecture is as much 'falsified' as scientific Marxism (Popper 1945)? What about El Lisitzky's experimental Cloud Iron, exploring an architecture that articulates communal ownership of the ground and the new economic base of society? Or the examples listed by Tai'uri: the 'Siedlungen" of the German Weimar Republic, the housing blocks of Red Vienna, the park and urban redevelopments of Olmsted, all taking a social stance within the system? If it is rather the social content of architecture than the formal autonomy that constitutes a 'critical' project within the discipline, then even the 'projective' could become part of the continuation and legacy of modernity as an unfinished project, as Hilde Heynen suggests.6 If critical thought is still to play a role and be possible in architecture, and critical practice is to be possible at all, criticism -and above all critics - must become aware of the mechanisms, conditions and dependencies of critical thought and critical production, make lucid its objectives and instruments, and understand how these questions are connected with each other and with the socio-economic, cultural and political whole, all of which go far beyond the current hefty academic exchange of 'critical' and 'post-critical' arguments. One example is the self-criticism of Bruno Latour (2004) who examined the crisis of critique against the background of the aggravated rhetoric of war (against terrorism) in 2003. With some concern, he notes the instrumentalization of criticism by political opinion-makers and controlled media, who have appropriated arguments and strategies of critical theory in order to use them for manipulative purposes, having understood that its analytical force promotes suspicion of any kind of argumentation, even if it goes against the interests of the enlightened public itself. 68 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY Precisely because the critical theory of the past three decades has challenged the legitimization of classical concepts of enlightenment such as 'truth', 'scientific method' or 'reality', unmasking them as social constructions, it contributes to the relativization and construction of 'realities' that have led to the perversion of the emancipatory goals of criticism, to a loss of meaningfulness, perspicuity and reality, and to anti-Empiricism instead of a renewal of empirical thought. But if criticism turns into a critical gesture or. worse, into arbitrariness, relativity and conspiracy theories (that is, into an instrument of disinformation political manipulation of public opinion and a product of media consumption) criticism must review its attitude, instruments and methods in order to adjust them once again to its original topics and objectives: instead of abstraction, deconstruction and subtraction of 'matters of fact'. Latour demands realism, construction and addition -a critical theory that 'takes care of things' (2004, 233). Architecture has yet to take stock of the 'critical arsenal' in Latour's sense. Even if we look sceptically at this martial metaphor, critical theory and practice as potential, enrichment, participation and discourse - as 'gathering' in a political, spatial and disciplinary sense that interprets the contiguity of architecture with society, culture, media, technology, economy and production as a gift and not as a handicap, in order to progress out of this condition to arrive at specific architectural interventions and theoretical concepts - thus displays starting points that must be further pursued. We will then explore how the theory of architecture must be fundamentally re-formulated to move beyond the loop of the established academic machine of the 'critical', 'post-critical', 'post-theoretical' or, quite simply, cynical, affirmative camps and towards constructive criticism. In the redefinition of a critical agenda, the distinction between an operative criticism that examines the mode of handling the architectural material (that is, the architectural project, object, questions of form, structure, programme, construction, materialization, image, effect, atmosphere, etc.) and a content-based criticism that reflects on architecture as an exemplification of cultural, political and economic societal conditions has to be resolved. Instead of going on to separate meaning (or aesthetics) from performance (or politics) and mistake one for the other, -a new critical theory in architecture will involve reflective and projective modes, contemplative critique and active interv ■■ -n The difference between theory and piacticc will not play such a major role as mainiaincd by Tafuri, for a theoretical text is just as much a design and a cultural product, is as involved in interactions and dependencies, and is as much a part of a market as an architectural project. Such a conception of criticism will gather, and focus precisely these different factors, levels, and discourses of architecture so that the naturally ensuing interaction, tru i-r and conflicts, arrive at emergent realilies instead of settling for monolithic discourse systems and firmly codified disciplinary roles. By sell-critically reflecting on its own status and the conditionalily of architecnue dialectically examining replication md autonomy, visualizing the construction of 'reality' as one of various possible 'truths', .. this criticism will lift the architectural discus- . sion above the formal expression of a contemporary mood, above service, fashion or lifestyle, reconlextualizing it in society, culture and everyday experience. Critical thought deals with the public sphere, clients and their (political) views, production, funding aid ownership, questions of accessibility, participation, urbanity and public space. It concurrence, density, engagement, exchange, discussion and conflicts, and takes part in negotiating private and public interests, alb-"' not in isolation from the search for architectural quality and its criteria. In short, it scrutinizes the plausible relationship betwe-1.. form and society, as Koolhaas has ahead)' observed. NOTES ■ I George Baird goes so far as to talk about an edipal complex of the younger generation, hinting at the manifold personal links between the authors 0f critical and post-critical theory (Baird 2004, 17-18). 2 The title of the essay should be understood fri'this sense' An architecture that locks itself in the endless loop of language, excluding all other links (contiguity), that speaks only of itself, is decoration, representation and social mnvenation-L'Architecture dans fe Boudoir - is maximum formal freedom by itiaximizing rationalistic terror, a strategy that Tafuri compares to the literature of the Marquis de Sade and that alludes directly to the chapter dedicated to ■cie'-Sade 'Excursus II: Juliette or Enlightenment and 'Morality' in Horkheimer and Adorno's Dialectics of Enlightenment. - 3 The well-known 'Monte Amiata' housing block in the Gallaratese quarter of Milan designed by Alda Rossi in 1969-1973 was originally a condominium ; investor project that referred typological!y and spatially to the access arcade of Kalian worker housing of the nineteenth century. Ironically it was seized by Urban squatters in 1974 (Fezer 2003) 4 de Certeau (19B4, 26): 'The actual order of things is precisely what "popular" tactics turn to their own ends, without an illusion that it will change any time soon. Though elsewhere it is exploited by a dominant power or simply denied by an ideological discourse* here order is tricked by an art. Into the institution to be served are thus insinuated styles of social exchange, technical invention, and moral resistance, that is, an economy of the "gift" (generosities for which one expects a return), an esthetics ■of-'"tricks" (artists' operations) and an ethics of tenacity (countless ways of refusing to accord the established order the status of a law, a meaning, or afatality).' : 5 Auge (1995, 77-78): 'If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place. The hypothesis advanced here is that supermodernity produces non-places, meaning spaces which are not themselves anthropological places and which, unlike Baudelarian modernity, do not integrate the earlier places: [...]' .....6 Hilde Heynen (in Rendell et al. 2007, 53): 'The driving force behind this position [projective theory] is the indignation concerning the fact that social reality continues to be oppressive and unjust, and the conviction that, as long as this situation remains persistent, the need for critique remains as urgent as ever '