The production of architectural criticism

Journal of Architectural Education

After the first workshop at the Université Rennes 2 (January 2016), centered on the relationship of criticism to “public opinion” and on criticism as an autonomous discipline, Actors and Vehicles of Architectural Criticism (Università di Bologna, October 4-5, 2016) is the second of three international workshops planned by the Mapping.Crit.Arch: Architectural criticism 20th and 21st centuries, a cartography research project (funded by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR) to foster scholarship on the history of architectural criticism and facilitate exchanges between scholars active in this field of research. This second international workshop takes into consideration the actors and the vehicles of criticism: with these terms it refers to both the agents of criticism (critics, architects, historians, publishers, photographers, institutions, etc.) and the media through which criticism is disseminated (press, photography, exhibitions, etc.). The workshop aims to expand the knowledge about the specific functions of these actors and their networks and to outline their mutual relationships. The four sessions investigate the links between the actors, the media of criticism, and the historical contexts within which they materialize, as well as the cultural, intellectual, and institutional milieus from which they originate. The first session Vehicles and Actors: Journals, Newspapers and their Editors deals with the influence on the forms, discourse, and contents of criticism on the part of specific types of journals, from daily newspapers, to cultural magazines and building construction periodicals and wants to put into question the categories that recurrently describe the so-called “typologies of criticism”. The second (Institutions, Exhibitions, Competitions) and fourth (Critical Competencies) sessions intend to broaden the notion of “actor” of architectural criticism not only to encompass critics or authors (the same notion of “authorship” in criticism might be subject to question) but also to include professional and academic institutions, publishers, and the various specialists who are involved in the actual production of professional publications. As a different vehicle of architectural criticism, the third session (Visual Criticism) would like to pay attention to the photographic image and, more generally, to the visual components of architectural criticism.

2014

Architectural theory and architectural criticism are essential domains in architecture and very crucial for architectural education. As the progress of the discipline of architectural education depends on both of them, this or her paper focuses on whether architectural theory is a tool for architectural criticism and if necessarily employed in architectural education in form of critique or review stemming from architectural theory which in turns stemming from architectural criticism. The objective of the paper is to see whether the architectural theory is stemming from architectural criticism and whether architectural theory employed in architectural education in form of critique or review. Architectural theory differs from scientific theory; this is because of the differences between the natures of the two disciplines. As architecture includes nonphysical dimensions; humanistic, cultural, aesthetic, social, and his or her historical, architectural theories can't be at the same level of universality and objectivity of scientific theories. Like any theory, architectural theory needs to be tested, but because of its special nature it requires special tools, which are analytical to judge or criticize its validity and applicability. The majority of architectural criticism focuses on the end product or buildings in its architectural design projects critique or review form, this or her is because the end product or buildings are more tangible encompassing all preceding stages and the process and end product is as well having abundant architectural design projects criticizing or reviewing. Architectural criticism has the potential to be a powerful pedagogical tool in architectural education, forming the base of architectural pedagogy in the study of the methods of architecture teaching. Criticism in the architecture domain is most frequently used in the sense of evaluating proposals for buildings or environments that are presented in education, in competitions or adjudications or for other proposals in different practical reviews, are the basis of the pedagogical method in which students take turns presenting their proposals to a critic, a jury, adjudication or review as well as to other students in the design studio or professional offices in what is generally termed crit or review. The methodology of this or her paper depends on both theoretical and analytical studies through three major fields, firstly begins with architectural criticism that secondly extends to architectural theory to thirdly present an analytical study of architectural education in form of critique or review. Finally the paper concludes by linking architectural education mostly in its architectural design projects critique or review form with architectural theory and its dependent upon architectural criticism.

Under a general perspective, criticism can be defined as a systematized judgments produced within the cognitive process on human actions and artefacts. We can talk about the necessity of three important elements in order to realize the activity of criticism. These are: criticizer, criticized and the judgment that criticizer develops over the criticized. Within epistemological analysis-similar to the conventional knowledge analysis-they can be called as; the subject of criticism, the object of criticism and the critical judgment respectively. The activity of criticism differs from the knowledge analysis in terms of these three elements. First of all, the object of knowledge can be all existing things, while the object of criticism are the assets resulting from voluntary activity. For example, self-existing stone or tree in the nature can be an object of knowledge but not an object of criticism while all kinds of thoughts produced by humans, like work of art, work of engineering, scientific work or activity that can produced by human labor can be both an object of knowledge and criticism. The subject of criticism separates from the subject of knowledge in terms of his attitudes and intentions. The subject of knowledge has the intentions such as describing, explaining, comprehending, discovering and recognizing while the subject of criticism has the intentions such as affirming, liking, encouraging, motivating, directing or vice versa and the related attitudes. Criticism as a form of judgment is different from knowledge as a form of judgment by being value-oriented and normative. Knowledge takes its power or resistance of existence from "truth" which is the only value that determines the relationship between itself and its object. The properties such as measurability, quantity and objectivity of knowledge are important in order to arrive at the truth value. Nevertheless, criticism takes its power or resistance of existence from various previously accepted values in an open or covered manner between its object and itself such as goodness, beauty, efficiency, effectiveness, affordability and the consistency among these values. Together with this, obtaining and expressing knowledge in terms of truth value can be a criticism object while criticism can be an object of knowledge as in this writing. Theory in architecture is accepted as both knowledge and criticism field of the practice. Mostly these two types of judgments are consciously or unconsciously loaded with an integrated function to create a combination of theoretical narrative. It can be said that this case is due to having the judgment object of the willpower together with the object of knowledge of the description together visible, mostly in the same asset. Similarly, the fact that architectural problems being not only understanding, discovering, learning and knowing, but also making decisions and being a problem-solving activity explains the coexistence of knowledge fields with criticism. However, this situation also forms an epistemic barrier in front of the scientification of the architecture as an academic study field. Due to the nature of the normative qualified critical judgments, they are not considered within the scientific knowledge field as they are resistant against measuring, quantifying and objectifying. In spite of containing how much descriptive knowledge, theories containing normative-quality judgments cannot be considered as scientific theories. This statement will discuss the aspects of the fields of architecture that are open to the judgment field and the epistemic knowledge field. Architectural subject, architectural object, architectural knowledge and architectural judgment concepts will be intended to be analyzed in epistemological terms. The knowledge and the theories produced on this subject in the literature will be discussed within the perspective of the put forward definitions.

The purpose of this study is to shed more light on the subjects of architectural historiography, historical criticism and the role of architecture as ideology. Our starting point will be Italy and the political, social, economical, architectural background after the Second World War. We will focus on the Italian scene and the relationship between architecture and material criticism.

The search for judgment​ beyond the simple yea or nay.

Criticism is the analysis and judgement of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work. Criticism may seem somewhat irrelevant to any talk about building and even less relevant regarding those buildings whose extravagant bulk now litters architectural publications. But criticism in architecture has become an important because today's Architecture is going away from the needs of the user and has become Architect specific. The works of Architectural critics such as Ada Huxtable, Robert Venturi, etc. has contributed a lot to the society and Architecture.