Philosophy for Architects PDF Download

Author: Branko Mitrovic
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 161689072X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
Philosophy for Architects is an engaging and easy-to-grasp introduction to philosophical questions of interest to students of architectural theory. Topics include Aristotle's theories of "visual imagination" and their relevance to digital design, the problem of optical correction as explored by Plato, Hegel's theory of zeitgeist, and Kant's examinations of space and aesthetics, among others. Focusing primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, it provides students with a wider perspective concerning philosophical problems that come up in contemporary architectural debates.

Author: Andrew Benjamin
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780485004151
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Architectural Philosophy is the first book to outline a philosophical account of architecture and to establish the singularity of architectural practice and theory. This dazzling sequence of essays opens out the subject of architecture, touching on issues as wide ranging as the problem of memory and the dystopias of science fiction. Arguing for the indissolubility of form and function, Architectural Philosophy explores both the definition of the site and the possibility of alterity. The analysis of the nature of the present and the complex sructure of repetition allows for the possibility of judgement, a judgement that arises from a reworked politics of architecture.

Author: John Lobell
Publisher: The Monacelli Press, LLC
ISBN: 1580935281
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
For everyone interested in the enduring appeal of Louis Kahn, this book demonstrates that a close look at how Kahn put his buildings together will reveal a deeply felt philosophy. Louis I. Kahn is one of the most influential and poetic architects of the twentieth century, a figure whose appeal extends beyond the realm of specialists. In this book, noted Kahn expert John Lobell explores how Kahn's focus on structure, respect for materials, clarity of program, and reverence for details come together to manifest an overall philosophy. Kahn's work clearly conveys a kind of "transcendent rootedness"--a rootedness in the fundamentals of architecture that also asks soaring questions about our experience of light and space, and even how we fit into the world. In Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, John Lobell seeks to reveal how Kahn's buildings speak to grand humanistic concerns. Through examinations of five of Kahn's great buildings--the Richards Medical Research Building in Philadelphia; the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla; the Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire; the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; and the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven--Lobell presents a clear but detailed look at how the way these buildings are put together presents Kahn's philosophy, including how Kahn wishes us to experience them. An architecture book that touches on topics that addresses the universal human interests of consciousness and creativity, Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy helps us understand our place and the nature of well-being in the built environment.

Author: Christian Illies
Publisher: Cambridge Architectural Press
ISBN: 9780993053009
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
This little handbook acts as a brief introduction to philosophical ideas and how they intersect with architecture: its reception and appreciation as well as its practice. It suggests that since design is the core human discipline, being the only activity that involves the imaginative conception of ideas, leading to artifacts that are realised as actual constructions in the world, architecture itself can be regarded as a way of overcoming philosophical tensions by suggesting practical possibilities, namely designs, that appear to bridge between rival theories and approaches.

Author: Branko Mitrović
Publisher: Oro Editions
ISBN: 9781954081451
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Philosophy exercises a massive influence on contemporary architectural culture and the understanding of the built environment. Discussions of architects and architectural academics are heavily loaded with theoretical ideas, concepts and views imported from the works of philosophers. At the same time this architectural employment of philosophy rarely goes beyond the tendency to mine philosophical works for ideas, words and phrases and use them, often without much understanding, in order to promote architectural agendas and embellish theoretical claims made by architects and academics. The book presents the history of this phenomenon for the past hundred years. It describes and analyzes numerous, often funny, entertaining as well as embarrassing, examples of false intellectual pretense and pompous but incompetent philosophical posturing by prominent architects and architectural academics of the era and their efforts to bamboozle readers, colleagues and the general public. The book presents a powerful criticism of modernist views on architecture and argues that the rise of obfuscation and philosophical posturing among architects and architectural academics is a defensive strategy intended to draw attention away from the failure of Modernism in architecture.

Author: Diane Morgan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317517059
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
This book introduces architects to a philosopher, Immanuel Kant, whose work was constantly informed by a concern for the world as an evolving whole. According to Kant, in this interconnected and dynamic world, humans should act as mutually dependent and responsible subjects. Given his future-oriented and ethico-politically concerned thinking, Kant is a thinker who clearly speaks to architects. This introduction demonstrates how his ideas bear pertinently and creatively upon the world in which we live now and for which we should care thoughtfully. Kant grounded his enlightened vision of philosophy’s mission using an architectural metaphor: of the modest 'dwelling-house'. Far from constructing speculative 'castles in the sky' or vertiginous 'towers which reach to the heavens', he tells us that his humble aim is rather to build a 'secure home for ourselves', one which appropriately corresponds at once to the limited material resources available on our planet, and to our need for firm and solid principles to live by. This book also explores Kant's notions of cosmopolitics, which attempts to think politics from a global perspective by taking into account the geographical fact that the earth is a sphere with limited land mass and natural resources. Given the urgent topicality of sustainable development, these Kantian texts are of particular interest for architects of today. Students of architecture, who are necessarily trained in negotiating between theory and practice, gain much from considering Kant, whose critical project also consisted of testing and exploring the viability of ideas, so as to ascertain to what extent, and crucially, how ideas can have a constructive effect on the whole world, and on us as active agents therein.

Author: Mark Kingwell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197558569
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
A lively and accessible discussion of how architecture functions in a complex world of obligation and responsibility, with a preface offering specific discussion of architecture during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. What are the special ethical obligations assumed by architects? Because their work creates the basic material conditions that make all other human activity possible, architects and their associates in building enjoy vast influence on how we all live, work, play, worship, and think. With this influence comes tremendous, and not always examined, responsibility. This book addresses the range of ethical issues that architects face, with a broad understanding of ethics. Beyond strictly professional duties - transparency, technical competence, fair trading - lie more profound issues that move into aesthetic, political, and existential realms. Does an architect have a duty to create art, if not always beautiful art? Should an architect feel obliged to serve a community and not just a client? Is justice a possible orientation for architectural practice? Is there such a thing as feeling compelled to "shelter being" in architectural work? By taking these usually abstract questions into the region of physical creation, the book attempts a reformulation of "architectural ethics" as a matter of deep reflection on the architect's role as both citizen and caretaker. Thinkers and makers discussed include Le Corbusier, Martin Heidegger, Lewis Mumford, Rem Koolhaas, Jane Jacobs, Arthur Danto, and John Rawls.

Author: Alexandra Tyng
Publisher: Wiley-Interscience
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Comprehensively traces the development of Louis I. Kahn's philosophy of architecture from its beginnings in the 1930s to Kahn's death in 1974. The author, Kahn's daughter, provides a unique presentation of biographical information, portions of letters and writings, speeches, photos, and other material inaccessible to other writers. Includes diagrams collected from published and unpublished sources. Shows how Kahn's personality and background contributed directly to his philosophical principles.

Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108909566
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
What should our buildings look like? Or is their usability more important than their appearance? Paul Guyer argues that the fundamental goals of architecture first identified by the Roman architect Marcus Pollio Vitruvius - good construction, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - have remained valid despite constant changes in human activities, building materials and technologies, as well as in artistic styles and cultures. Guyer discusses philosophers and architects throughout history, including Alberti, Kant, Ruskin, Wright, and Loos, and surveys the ways in which their ideas are brought to life in buildings across the world. He also considers the works and words of contemporary architects including Annabelle Selldorf, Herzog and de Meuron, and Steven Holl, and shows that - despite changing times and fashions - good architecture continues to be something worth striving for. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.

Author: Bill Hubbard (Jr.)
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262082358
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This study looks at groups with an interest in a work of architecture - owners, inhabitants, customers, critics and historians, architecture schools - presents a conceptual framework in which those disparate interests are honoured for providing different perspectives on the building.