How many times have we rejected the temptation of knowledge, and how many times have we been drawn away from an author because we thought their texts were too complex or unattainable?
Reading texts on architectural criticism has never been an easy task, nor a fast one: the practice of reading, especially architectural criticism, requires prior knowledge, dedication and training that is not easy to acquire. Today's society, immersed in a culture of immediacy and concerned with obtaining practical outcomes, refuses to devote the necessary time to theoretical or spiritual spheres ("Bildung"). However, knowledge is closer to experience —as it is built in a cumulative process— than information —as something you can buy, or even download—, and as such it requires this previous effort. Without it, most of our own culture would result inaccessible. However in the end, this refusal —which could qualify better as intimidation— results in an impoverishment of the personal training of architects as well as the impoverishment of the discipline itself, stripped of its character and the ability to act upon itself, to improve and to advance.
The “Marginalia” series aims to publish fundamental texts from 20th century architectural critics accompanied by a detailed study of their context. Under this format, the text is followed by a dossier that will place the text in the history of ideas, including an introduction to the author, a glossary of terms and an explanation of the most important concepts contained within. This format provides texts on architectural criticism —always difficult and unattractive to architects— with an explanatory context to facilitate its understanding and reading. With this, we want to encourage readers to enter the world of architectural criticism, to approach reading without fear, and to foster their understanding.
Regarding Anthony Vidler’s book “Stories of the Immediate Present”, in a recent radio interview, Moisés Puente explained that there had been a generation of theorists (Kaufman, Pevsner, Banham, Zevi, Giedion, Rowe and many others) who built the grand narrative of modernity in architecture; and the subsequent generation, after them, added, revised and systematized their historiographical methods (Vidler, Turnikiotis and others). In the same manner, there has been a generation of thinkers who have been building the story —though fragmentary and discontinuous— of postmodernism (Tafuri, Rossi, Venturi, Eisenman, Jameson, etc.). Understanding the condition of contemporary architecture, the end of Modernity and the various operations and proposals surmounting this conceptual disorientation (theoretical and practical) requires the recovery of that legacy. To make sense of our own practice, as a form of cultural production, we have no other choice but to refer to them and commit to the task of rereading, revising, interpreting, explaining and contextualizing these controversial and stimulating ideas: perhaps to discover a pleasure that we did not expect.
These critical texts will include more than just the texts of architects. Authors from other disciplines (philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, geographers) have been the fundamental voices in understanding our times, and have written about architecture, contemporary art, cultural production and other related subjects. Marginalia seeks to bring these different contributions together, positioning all the concerns of architectural criticism and giving them their proper place and value in the context of contemporary thought.
© PAU DE SOLÀ-MORALES
Under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 Licence
PAU DE SOLÀ-MORALES I SERRA has a doctorate in design from Harvard University (2000) and UPC (2006), MDes (1998) and a degree in architecture and urban planning from the ETSAB (UPC, 1993). He is specialised in the use and application of information technology in architecture and design.
He was granted the COAC 2004 Young Architects Award in the critical article category. He was member of the jury for the FAD Awards on Thought and Criticism 2011 and author, among others, of the volume Los Premios FAD (1958-2008): 50 años de arquitectura e interiorismo en la Península Ibérica and of the compilation Los Artículos de Any by Ignasi de Solà-Morales. He is currently a professor at the University Roviri i Virgili School of Architecture in Reus in Spain where he gives classes on architecture theory and representation techniques. During this time, part of his work has been dedicated to rethinking the role of research in architecture and redefining the role this discipline should play in the knowledge society of the 21st century.
Image: Aldo Rossi. Il Teatro del Mondo, Venecia, 1979
