Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics available in Paperback
Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics
- ISBN-10:
- 0262662051
- ISBN-13:
- 9780262662055
- Pub. Date:
- 02/15/2008
- Publisher:
- MIT Press
- ISBN-10:
- 0262662051
- ISBN-13:
- 9780262662055
- Pub. Date:
- 02/15/2008
- Publisher:
- MIT Press
Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics
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Overview
The forced polarity between form and function in considerations of architecture—opposing art to social interests, ethics to poetic expression—obscures the deep connections between ethical and poetical values in architectural tradition. Architecture has been, and must continue to be, writes Alberto Pérez-Gómez, built upon love. Modernity has rightly rejected past architectural excesses, but, Pérez-Gómez argues, the materialistic and technological alternatives it proposes do not answer satisfactorily the complex desire that defines humanity. True architecture is concerned with far more than fashionable form, affordable homes, and sustainable development; it responds to a desire for an eloquent place to dwell—one that lovingly provides a sense of order resonant with our dreams. In Built upon Love Pérez-Gómez uncovers the relationship between love and architecture in order to find the points of contact between poetics and ethics—between the architect's wish to design a beautiful world and architecture's imperative to provide a better place for society.
Eros, as first imagined by the early lyric poets of classical Greece, is the invisible force at the root of our capacity to create and comprehend the poetic image. Pérez-Gómez examines the nature of architectural form in the light of eros, seduction, and the tradition of the poetic image in Western architecture. He charts the ethical dimension of architecture, tracing the connections between philia—the love of friends that entails mutual responsibility among equals—and architectural program. He explores the position of architecture at the limits of language and discusses the analogical language of philia in modernist architectural theory. Finally, he uncovers connections between ethics and poetics, describing a contemporary practice of architecture under the sign of love, incorporating both eros and philia.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780262662055 |
---|---|
Publisher: | MIT Press |
Publication date: | 02/15/2008 |
Series: | The MIT Press |
Pages: | 260 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ixOpening conversation 1
Introduction: Architecture and Human Desire 3
Historical origins of eros and philia 7
Eros, Seduction, and the Poetic Image in Architecture: Form 9
Eros and Creation 11
Opening conversation 11
Primordial Eros 12
Eros as creative power in classical philosophy 14
Renaissance incorporations 16
Modern transformations 20
Orphic Eros in late modernity 25
Inspiration in contemporary praxis 28
Eros and Limits 31
Opening conversation 31
Eros, spacing, and joints 32
Erotic space and the origins of Western culture 36
Erotic architectural space in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili 39
Chora as erotic space 44
Renaissance incorporations 51
Modern transformations 56
Eros and time 65
Eros and the Poetic Image 69
Opening conversation 69
Origins 71
Marsilio Ficino and the poetic image in the Renaissance 73
The poetic image in Renaissance theory 79
Modern transformations 81
The poetic image in modernity 94
From Lequeu to Duchamp 101
Frederick Kiesler's endless architecture 104
Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum 105
The poetic image in the contemporary world 107
Interlude: Eros, Philia, and Agape 111
Eros and recognition 111
Philia, ethics, and communion 118
Philia, eros, and agape 120
Philia, Compassion, and the Ethical Dimension of Architecture: Program 123
Opening conversation 123
Philia, Ritual, and Decorum 125
Origins 125
From decorum to character 133
Architecture at the Limits of Language 137
Opening conversation 137
Language and architecture 139
Architecture as language 143
The Language of Philia in Architectural Theory 147
Vitruvian theory 147
The sequel 153
A Tale of Two Brothers: Jean-Louis and Charles-Francois Viel 167
The poetic architecture of Jean-Louis Viel 168
The political architecture of Charles-Francois Viel 173
Interweavings 184
Poetry and Meaning from within a (Western) Architectural Tradition 187
Opening conversation 187
Architecture from within 187
Architecture as poetic writing 192
Architecture as critical poem 196
The Ethical Image in Architecture 203
Opening conversation 203
Hermeneutics and ethical intentions 204
On endless desire 211
Notes 215
Index 243
What People are Saying About This
In Built upon Love, Pérez-Gómez traces the mythological and historical role of eros and philia in the making and experiencing of architecture. He shows convincingly and poetically that architecture arises not from utility and reason, practicality and technique, but from the desire to sensualize and poeticize the human condition. His erudite narrative helps us understand the essence of architectural pleasure and its origins in the longing for beauty. This book is an important antidote to today's over-intellectualized theories of architecture, alienated from life, and to the formalist and self-centered architecture of our time.
Built Upon Love adds yet another footnote to Plato, more specifically to the Symposium. But what a footnote it is! Informed by an extraordinary understanding of both the history of building and the history of ideas, it reminds us that, to the extent that architecture allows itself to be ruled by the material and political realities of our technological world, it loses sight of the bittersweet love that alone can ground both the ethics and the poetics of architecture.
In this book, as in Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Pérez-Gómez rewrites the history of architecture. His aim is not to replace reason with desire; instead, it is to show the insufficiency of the former and the unacknowledged importance of the latter for the making of good architecture. While showing the links between desire, friendship, and responsibility in human affairs, he unveils the ways architecture builds culture by giving material and spatial definition to those relationships. His learning is deep, his writing is passionate, and his message is profoundly humane.
Alberto Pérez-Gómez is one of that rare and endangered speciesthe Renaissance intellectual who can draw deeply from the wells of ancient wisdom while critically engaging with the modern humanist sciences. This book is testimony to a brilliant imagination in action, treading a daring tightrope between the competing demands of ethics and poetics.Richard Kearney, Charles Seelig Professor in Philosophy, Boston College, and Visiting Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin
Alberto Pérez-Gómez is one of that rare and endangered speciesthe Renaissance intellectual who can draw deeply from the wells of ancient wisdom while critically engaging with the modern humanist sciences. This book is testimony to a brilliant imagination in action, treading a daring tightrope between the competing demands of ethics and poetics.
In Built upon Love , Pérez-Gómez traces the mythological and historical role of eros and philia in the making and experiencing of architecture. He shows convincingly and poetically that architecture arises not from utility and reason, practicality and technique, but from the desire to sensualize and poeticize the human condition. His erudite narrative helps us understand the essence of architectural pleasure and its origins in the longing for beauty. This book is an important antidote to today's over-intellectualized theories of architecture, alienated from life, and to the formalist and self-centered architecture of our time.
Juhani Pallasmaa , architect, former Professor of Architecture, Helsinki University of Technology, and author of The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses Built Upon Love adds yet another footnote to Plato, more specifically to the Symposium . But what a footnote it is! Informed by an extraordinary understanding of both the history of building and the history of ideas, it reminds us that, to the extent that architecture allows itself to be ruled by the material and political realities of our technological world, it loses sight of the bittersweet love that alone can ground both the ethics and the poetics of architecture. Karsten Harries , Professor of Philosophy, Yale UniversityAlberto Pérez-Gómez is one of that rare and endangered speciesthe Renaissance intellectual who can draw deeply from the wells of ancient wisdom while critically engaging with the modern humanist sciences. This book is testimony to a brilliant imagination in action, treading a daring tightrope between the competing demands of ethics and poetics. Richard Kearney , Charles Seelig Professor in Philosophy, Boston College, and Visiting Professor of Philosophy, University College Dublin