This Is Not Architecture Architecture is discussed, explained and identified almost entirely through its representations. Indeed, these representations are often treated as though they were architecture itself. Huge status is given to the imaginary project, the authentic set of photographs or the eminent critical account. This is a paradox. Architecture is fundamentally concerned with physical reality, yet we discuss and even define architecture (as opposed to building) through an elaborate construct of media representations: photography, journalism, criticism, exhibition, history, books, films, television and critical theory.
This book assembles architectural writers of different kinds – historians, journalists, theorists, computer-game designers, film-makers, architects and academics – to discuss how this process works and to comment on the culture and bias which each medium inevitably brings. Together, they build up a critical picture of the construct of partial representations on which our understanding of architecture is based.
Contents
List of illustrations ix Notes on contributors xii Illustration credits xvii Acknowledgements xix
Introduction xxi
Part 1 A partial history of virtual reality 1
1 The revelation of order: perspective and architectural representation 3
Alberto Pérez-Gómez
2 On the origins of architectural photography 26 James S. Ackerman
3 Architectural cinematography 37 Patrick Keiller
4 The revenge of place 45 William J. Mitchell
Part 2 The shape of representation 55
5 Iconic pictures 57 Kester Rattenbury with contributions from Catherine Cooke
and Jonathan Hill
6 Think of it as a farm! Exhibitions, books, buildings 91 An interview with Peter Smithson
7 Diagrams: interactive instruments in operation 99 Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos
8 The height of the kick: designing gameplay 110 Philip Campbell
9 Foto-graph, Foto-shop 121 David Greene
Part 3 The reporting of architecture 125
10 Framing icons: Two Girls, two audiences.
The photographing of Case Study House #22 127 Pierluigi Serraino
11 Naturally biased: architecture in the UK national press 136 Kester Rattenbury
12 The architectural book: image and accident 157 Alan Powers
13 Post-Modernism and the revenge of the book 174 Charles Jencks
14 Architectural publishing: an alphabetical guide 198 Paul Finch
Part 4 The construction of theory 205
15 Architectureproduction 207
Beatriz Colomina
16 From dematerialisation to depoliticisation in architecture 222 Clare Melhuish
17 Wallpaper* person: notes on the behaviour of a new species 231 Neil Leach
18 Everything counts in large amounts (the sound of
geography collapsing) 244 FAT
Index
253