Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2014
In An Architectural Theory of Relations: Sigfried Giedion and Team X, Sarah Deyong uncovers an im... more In An Architectural Theory of Relations: Sigfried Giedion and Team X, Sarah Deyong uncovers an important aspect of the theoretical framework underpinning Team X’s work: Sigfried Giedion’s philosophical orientation and aesthetic theories in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Because Giedion is often seen as an old-guard CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) member that Team X opposed, his contribution to Team X’s design method has been grossly underestimated. Deyong rectifies the link between Giedion and Team X to accomplish two goals. She casts new light on Giedion’s unique contribution to the reinvention of modern architecture at midcentury, and she offers a new interpretation of Team X’s legacy, constructed around missing pieces of the group’s intellectual history. Deyong’s evidence for this argument derives from two archival sources in particular: Giedion’s papers in the Archives of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta Archives) in Zurich, and...
Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen (2014) published an op-ed piece... more Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen (2014) published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on the trials of architecture that was quickly rebutted by another piece by Aaron Betzky (2014) in Architect. The articles rehearsed a long-standing debate, raising questions about the social and cultural role of architecture. On one hand, architects were seen to serve society, listening to and collaborating with diverse stakeholders. On the other, they were harbingers of the avant-garde, ahead of the pack in advancing culture with radical experiments in form making.
On November i, 2000, The Howard Gilman Foundation generously donated to The Museum of Modern Art ... more On November i, 2000, The Howard Gilman Foundation generously donated to The Museum of Modern Art one of the foremost collections of visionary architectural drawings in the world. The Howard Gilman Collection is renowned among scholars of the genre for the quality of the work and for the depth and breadth of its content. Focusing on radical projects from the 1960s and 1970s and comprising 205 artworks, the gift greatly enhances MoMA's existing holdings of visionary architectural drawings. Included in the Gilman collection are some of the most famous Utopian drawings of the twentieth century, such as R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House of 1927-29 and Ron Herron's spectacular Cities : Moving of 1964. Among the many architects whose work is featured in the collection are Raimund Abraham, Archigram, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, and Ettore Sottsass. The acquisition of this collection led to the cre ation of the Howard Gilman Archive of Visionary Architectural Drawings, within the Museum's Department of Architecture and Design. The new archive now comprises the Gilman collection plus the Museum's existing holdings of visionary architectural drawings as well as future like-minded acquisitions.
The Companions to the History of Architecture, v. IV. Edited by David Leatherbarrow and Alexander Eisenschmidt., 2017
Perhaps more than any other movement of their generation, it was Archigram who defined the archit... more Perhaps more than any other movement of their generation, it was Archigram who defined the architectural style of the 1960s. This style spoke to the cultural imagination of an epoch: mass-consumer culture, pop art, the space program, the counterculture, and the idealism of youth. As an image of the postindustrial present, classic Archigram projects such as Walking City (1964) were as distinct from the modernism of the previous decade as The Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa was from Elvis Presley’s eponymous album cover. Instead of serious, brutalist and monumental, Archigram’s style was light, colorful, fantastic and hedonistic. As the 1960s wore on, however, their pursuit of style proved vexingly elusive. While at first it appealed to the technological optimism of the Second Machine Age, by the end of the decade optimism gave way to self-parody and a more complicated image of the decade emerged, mirroring the events of May ’68 and student protests across Europe.
the Discipline of Architecture Sarah Deyong Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Mar... more the Discipline of Architecture Sarah Deyong Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on the trials of architecture that was quickly rebutted by another piece by Aaron Betzky in Architect. The articles rehearsed a long-standing debate, raising questions about the social and cultural role of architecture. On one hand, architects were seen to serve society, listening to and collaborating with diverse stakeholders. On the other, they were harbingers of the avant-garde, ahead of the pack in advancing culture with radical experiments in form making.
Our third-year studio actively integrates history, theory and criticism with design. It makes exp... more Our third-year studio actively integrates history, theory and criticism with design. It makes explicit the relevance of history, theory and criticism to the design process and prepares the student for upper level studies, especially integrated studio. In this, our guide was Colin Rowe, an historian and critic whose writings help to illuminate, in five logical steps, the design process. Of particular significance is his position on the well-worn form|function divide. For Rowe, form did not follow function nor did function follow form.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Jun 2014
This essay uncovers an important element of Team X’s thinking, which I trace back to Giedion’s po... more This essay uncovers an important element of Team X’s thinking, which I trace back to Giedion’s postwar interpretation of a relational theory. It argues that a relational viewpoint in philosophy underpins Giedion’s ideas on the Synthesis of the Arts and gave unprecedented direction to Team X’s search for a “new attitude” in art and architecture. However, since Giedion is often seen as an old-guard CIAM member that Team X opposed, his influence on Team X has been overlooked in the literature to date. In rectifying the link between Giedion and Team X, this essay adds two important aspects to our understanding of modern architecture at mid century. It casts new light on Giedion’s unique contribution to the postwar reinvention of modernism in the context of Team X, and offers a new interpretation of Team X’s legacy, constructed around missing pieces of the group’s intellectual history.
In 1998, alumni of Yale University organized the symposium “Rethinking Designs of the 60s” to dis... more In 1998, alumni of Yale University organized the symposium “Rethinking Designs of the 60s” to discuss the legacy of architecture's engagement with social issues. My essay reopens the question of this legacy by focusing on the work of activist and eco-pioneer Pliny Fisk. A colleague of Robert Venturi and Denise-Scott Brown and a student of Ian McHarg, Fisk graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, where ideas on complexity permeated a highly interdisciplinary curriculum. Combining emerging theories in advocacy planning, appropriate technologies, and systems thinking, Fisk's early projects, from the 1970s and 1980s, were not only pragmatic; they were also strategies for leveraging social and environmental change that foregrounded the politically radical stakes of this endeavor.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2014
In An Architectural Theory of Relations: Sigfried Giedion and Team X, Sarah Deyong uncovers an im... more In An Architectural Theory of Relations: Sigfried Giedion and Team X, Sarah Deyong uncovers an important aspect of the theoretical framework underpinning Team X’s work: Sigfried Giedion’s philosophical orientation and aesthetic theories in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Because Giedion is often seen as an old-guard CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) member that Team X opposed, his contribution to Team X’s design method has been grossly underestimated. Deyong rectifies the link between Giedion and Team X to accomplish two goals. She casts new light on Giedion’s unique contribution to the reinvention of modern architecture at midcentury, and she offers a new interpretation of Team X’s legacy, constructed around missing pieces of the group’s intellectual history. Deyong’s evidence for this argument derives from two archival sources in particular: Giedion’s papers in the Archives of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta Archives) in Zurich, and...
Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen (2014) published an op-ed piece... more Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen (2014) published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on the trials of architecture that was quickly rebutted by another piece by Aaron Betzky (2014) in Architect. The articles rehearsed a long-standing debate, raising questions about the social and cultural role of architecture. On one hand, architects were seen to serve society, listening to and collaborating with diverse stakeholders. On the other, they were harbingers of the avant-garde, ahead of the pack in advancing culture with radical experiments in form making.
On November i, 2000, The Howard Gilman Foundation generously donated to The Museum of Modern Art ... more On November i, 2000, The Howard Gilman Foundation generously donated to The Museum of Modern Art one of the foremost collections of visionary architectural drawings in the world. The Howard Gilman Collection is renowned among scholars of the genre for the quality of the work and for the depth and breadth of its content. Focusing on radical projects from the 1960s and 1970s and comprising 205 artworks, the gift greatly enhances MoMA's existing holdings of visionary architectural drawings. Included in the Gilman collection are some of the most famous Utopian drawings of the twentieth century, such as R. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion House of 1927-29 and Ron Herron's spectacular Cities : Moving of 1964. Among the many architects whose work is featured in the collection are Raimund Abraham, Archigram, Arata Isozaki, Rem Koolhaas, and Ettore Sottsass. The acquisition of this collection led to the cre ation of the Howard Gilman Archive of Visionary Architectural Drawings, within the Museum's Department of Architecture and Design. The new archive now comprises the Gilman collection plus the Museum's existing holdings of visionary architectural drawings as well as future like-minded acquisitions.
The Companions to the History of Architecture, v. IV. Edited by David Leatherbarrow and Alexander Eisenschmidt., 2017
Perhaps more than any other movement of their generation, it was Archigram who defined the archit... more Perhaps more than any other movement of their generation, it was Archigram who defined the architectural style of the 1960s. This style spoke to the cultural imagination of an epoch: mass-consumer culture, pop art, the space program, the counterculture, and the idealism of youth. As an image of the postindustrial present, classic Archigram projects such as Walking City (1964) were as distinct from the modernism of the previous decade as The Grateful Dead’s Aoxomoxoa was from Elvis Presley’s eponymous album cover. Instead of serious, brutalist and monumental, Archigram’s style was light, colorful, fantastic and hedonistic. As the 1960s wore on, however, their pursuit of style proved vexingly elusive. While at first it appealed to the technological optimism of the Second Machine Age, by the end of the decade optimism gave way to self-parody and a more complicated image of the decade emerged, mirroring the events of May ’68 and student protests across Europe.
the Discipline of Architecture Sarah Deyong Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Mar... more the Discipline of Architecture Sarah Deyong Slightly more than a year ago, Steven Bingler and Martin Pedersen published an op-ed piece in The New York Times on the trials of architecture that was quickly rebutted by another piece by Aaron Betzky in Architect. The articles rehearsed a long-standing debate, raising questions about the social and cultural role of architecture. On one hand, architects were seen to serve society, listening to and collaborating with diverse stakeholders. On the other, they were harbingers of the avant-garde, ahead of the pack in advancing culture with radical experiments in form making.
Our third-year studio actively integrates history, theory and criticism with design. It makes exp... more Our third-year studio actively integrates history, theory and criticism with design. It makes explicit the relevance of history, theory and criticism to the design process and prepares the student for upper level studies, especially integrated studio. In this, our guide was Colin Rowe, an historian and critic whose writings help to illuminate, in five logical steps, the design process. Of particular significance is his position on the well-worn form|function divide. For Rowe, form did not follow function nor did function follow form.
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Jun 2014
This essay uncovers an important element of Team X’s thinking, which I trace back to Giedion’s po... more This essay uncovers an important element of Team X’s thinking, which I trace back to Giedion’s postwar interpretation of a relational theory. It argues that a relational viewpoint in philosophy underpins Giedion’s ideas on the Synthesis of the Arts and gave unprecedented direction to Team X’s search for a “new attitude” in art and architecture. However, since Giedion is often seen as an old-guard CIAM member that Team X opposed, his influence on Team X has been overlooked in the literature to date. In rectifying the link between Giedion and Team X, this essay adds two important aspects to our understanding of modern architecture at mid century. It casts new light on Giedion’s unique contribution to the postwar reinvention of modernism in the context of Team X, and offers a new interpretation of Team X’s legacy, constructed around missing pieces of the group’s intellectual history.
In 1998, alumni of Yale University organized the symposium “Rethinking Designs of the 60s” to dis... more In 1998, alumni of Yale University organized the symposium “Rethinking Designs of the 60s” to discuss the legacy of architecture's engagement with social issues. My essay reopens the question of this legacy by focusing on the work of activist and eco-pioneer Pliny Fisk. A colleague of Robert Venturi and Denise-Scott Brown and a student of Ian McHarg, Fisk graduated from the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, where ideas on complexity permeated a highly interdisciplinary curriculum. Combining emerging theories in advocacy planning, appropriate technologies, and systems thinking, Fisk's early projects, from the 1970s and 1980s, were not only pragmatic; they were also strategies for leveraging social and environmental change that foregrounded the politically radical stakes of this endeavor.
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