This book orchestrates a convergence of two discourses from the 1960s—Nelson Goodman’s aesthetic theory on one side and critiques of modern architecture articulated by figures like Peter Blake, Charles Jencks, and Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown on the other. Grounded in Goodman’s aesthetic theory, the book explores his conceptual framework within the context of modern architecture.
At the heart of the investigation lies Goodman’s concept of exemplification. While his notion of denotation pertains to representational elements, often ornaments, in architecture, exemplification accentuates specific formal properties at the expense of others, including color, spatial orientation, transparency, seriality, and the like. Supplemented by findings from phenomenology, the book traces these effects in buildings, notably those by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and Frank Lloyd Wright—all key figures in the critiques of modern architecture.
Employing Goodman’s framework, the book aims to address accusations of emptiness and alienation directed at modern architecture in the postwar era. It illustrates that modern architecture symbolizes aesthetically in a fundamentally different way than architecture from earlier periods.
This book will be of interest to architects, artists, researchers, and students in architecture, architectural history, theory, cultural theory, philosophy, and aesthetics.
By:
Kasper Lægring
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 710g
ISBN: 9781032347424
ISBN 10: 1032347422
Series: Routledge Research in Architecture
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 19 July 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgements List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Reckoning with the critique of modern architecture A Goodmanian take on modern architecture and its critiques Defining the object of study Problems of demarcation The ideological basis for modern architecture in functionalist theory Current research into the praxis of modern architecture Chapter 2: Applying Goodman’s aesthetic theory to architecture Aesthetics and cognition Aesthetics and language Goodman as nominalist Right or wrong rather than true or false When does architecture take place? Goodman’s rejection of competing theories Languages of Art Symbol systems and symbol schemes Syntactic and semantic, notation, digital and analog Imperfect notational systems: Notational schemes Allographic, autographic and the steps of the design process Notational approaches: Score and script Notation and mixed symbol systems in architecture Denotation Fictitious denotation Exemplification Exemplification in modern architecture Expression (metaphorical exemplification) Feelings or moods? Complex and mediate modes of reference: Allusion, variation, style Allusion Variation Style Chapter 3: Symbolization in pre-modern architecture Renaissance architecture Mannerist architecture Baroque architecture Rococo architecture Neoclassical architecture Romanticist impulses Historicist architecture Chapter 4: Symbolization in the early phases of modern architecture The Chicago School Wainwright Building Art Nouveau, Jugendstil, Wiener Secession, and Catalan Modernisme Maison Coilliot Maison Horta Majolikahaus Casa Milà Willow Tearooms Adolf Loos Looshaus Expressionist architecture Het Schip Einsteinturm Glass architecture Chapter 5: The aesthetic implications of the critique of modern architecture The International Style exhibition in 1932 as a compass The aesthetically oriented critique of modern architecture, circa 1970 Chapter 6: Symbolization in modern architecture The International Style: Mies van der Rohe and the minimalism of glass and steel Illinois Institute of Technology General means of aesthetic symbolization in Mies’ formalistic architecture The International Style: Gropius, Bauhaus, and the factory aesthetic The Bauhaus building in Dessau Late works by Gropius Formalism and classicism in American federal and corporate International Style The International Style: Le Corbusier and Purism Les Quartiers Modernes Frugès in Pessac The white, cubist aesthetic of the villas of Loos and Le Corbusier Le Corbusier’s late works and the Brutalism of béton brut Unité d’habitation in Marseille Notre-Dame-du-Haut at Ronchamp The imprint of Brutalism on late modernism Frank Lloyd Wright and organic modernism Late works by Wright Fallingwater From Alvar Aalto to the notion of another modernism Chapter 7: Conclusion The hegemony of exemplification in modern architectural praxis The architecture of formalism: symbolic rather than silent Bibliography Index
Kasper Lægring is a theorist of architecture and the arts, a curator, and currently a New Carlsberg Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History at Aarhus University. He is serving as the Second Vice President of the European Architectural History Network for the period 2024–2026 (with Panagiotis Farantatos). With research degrees in architecture (MS, University of Pennsylvania; PhD, The Royal Danish Academy School of Architecture) and art history (Mag.art., University of Copenhagen), he has received recognition such as the Gold Medal of the University of Copenhagen. His studies and research have been supported by numerous prestigious institutions, including the J. William Fulbright Commission, the New Carlsberg Foundation, and the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius. Some recent notable publications include contributions to A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries (Brill, 2022) and The Contested Territory of Architectural Theory (Routledge, 2022). This book is a revised and expanded version of his PhD dissertation.
