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Why write instead of draw when it comes to architecture? Why rely on literary pieces instead of architectural treatises and writings when it comes to the of study buildings and urban environments? Why rely on literary techniques and accounts instead of architectural practices and analysis when it comes to academic research and educational projects? Why trust authors and writers instead of sociologists or scientists when it comes to planning for the future of cities? This book builds on the existing interdisciplinary bibliography on architecture and literature, but prioritizes literature’s capacity to talk about the lived experience of place and the premise that literary language can often express the inexpressible. It sheds light on the importance of a literary instead of a pictorial imagination for architects and it looks into four contemporary architectural subjects through a wide variety of literary works. Drawing on novels that engage cities from around the world, the book reveals aspects of urban space to which other means of architectural representation are blind. Whether through novels that employ historical buildings or sites interpreted through specific literary methods, it suggests a range of methodologies for contemporary architectural academic research. By exploring the power of narrative language in conveying the experience of lived space, it discusses its potential for architectural design and pedagogy. Questioning the massive architectural production of today’s globalized capital-driven world, it turns to literature for ways to understand, resist or suggest alternative paths for architectural practice. Despite literature’s fictional character, the essays of this volume reveal true dimensions of and for places beyond their historical, social and political reality; dimensions of utmost importance for architects, urban planners, historians and theoreticians nowadays.
Show moreWhy write instead of draw when it comes to architecture? Why rely on literary pieces instead of architectural treatises and writings when it comes to the of study buildings and urban environments? Why rely on literary techniques and accounts instead of architectural practices and analysis when it comes to academic research and educational projects? Why trust authors and writers instead of sociologists or scientists when it comes to planning for the future of cities? This book builds on the existing interdisciplinary bibliography on architecture and literature, but prioritizes literature’s capacity to talk about the lived experience of place and the premise that literary language can often express the inexpressible. It sheds light on the importance of a literary instead of a pictorial imagination for architects and it looks into four contemporary architectural subjects through a wide variety of literary works. Drawing on novels that engage cities from around the world, the book reveals aspects of urban space to which other means of architectural representation are blind. Whether through novels that employ historical buildings or sites interpreted through specific literary methods, it suggests a range of methodologies for contemporary architectural academic research. By exploring the power of narrative language in conveying the experience of lived space, it discusses its potential for architectural design and pedagogy. Questioning the massive architectural production of today’s globalized capital-driven world, it turns to literature for ways to understand, resist or suggest alternative paths for architectural practice. Despite literature’s fictional character, the essays of this volume reveal true dimensions of and for places beyond their historical, social and political reality; dimensions of utmost importance for architects, urban planners, historians and theoreticians nowadays.
Show morePart 1 1. Oran: The Capital of Boredom Christian Parreno 2. Reading Salonica: Listening to Alexandria Eleni Bastéa 3. Another Man’s Room: Bangs of Life in Contemporary Seoul Yoonchun Jung 4. Traces of Christiania: A Topographical Reading of Knut Hamsun´s HungerMathilde Simonsen DahlPart 2 5. Fabrics of Reality in Fiction Mari Lending 6. How Places Speak: Poetic Reading of Architecture and Landscape Klaske Havik 7. W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz: Architecture as a Bridge between the Lost Past and the Present Rumiko Handa 8. Architectural Agency and the Storied Settings of Edgar Allan Poe Lisa Landrum 9. Wandering at Random Driven by ‘Paris and Her Folds, Paris and Her Faces’ Angeliki SioliPart 3 10. The Gesture of Drawing in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince Jason Crow 11. Architecture Drawn out of Bruno Schulz’s Poetic Prose Anca Matyiku 12. Writing, Model Making, and Inventing in Paul Scheerbart’s Perpetual Motion Machine Sevil Enginsoy Ekinci 13. Melvilla: An(other) Underline Reading Marc J Neveu 14. Dreaming the City through Unicorn Skulls: Reading Murakami with Agamben Paul HolmquistPart 4 15. Literary Imagination as a Modality of Collective Space Making: Paul Ricoeur’s Polysemy of Action Caroline Dionne 16. The Architectural Turn in Contemporary Literature David Spurr 17. Like This and Also Like That: Tactics from the Tales of Nguyēn Huy Thiêp Lily Chi 18. Lost and Longing: The Sense of Space in E.M. Forster’s ‘The Machine Stops’ Susana Oliveira. Afterword Alberto Pérez-Gómez. Image Credits. Index
Angeliki Sioli is assistant professor of architecture at Louisiana
State University, USA and a licensed architect in Greece. She
obtained her professional diploma in architecture from the
University of Thessaly, Greece, and was granted a post-professional
master’s in architectural theory and history by the National
Technical University of Athens, Greece. She completed her PhD
in history and theory of architecture at McGill University,
Canada in 2015. Her research seeks connections between
architecture and literature in the public realm of the early
twentieth-century European city. It has been published in a number
of edited books and journals, as well as presented at
interdisciplinary conferences. She has worked as a professional
architect and designer on projects ranging from residential and
office buildings to the design of small-scale objects and books.
She has also taught both undergraduate and graduate courses at
McGill University in Canada and University Tec de Monterrey in
Mexico.
Yoonchun Jung is originally from South Korea. He received his
bachelor's degree in architecture from Hongik University, South
Korea (2000), MArch from Cornell University, USA (2007)
and PhD in architecture from McGill University, Canada (2015).
His research interest focuses on various social, cultural and
political phenomena in modern Asian architecture and cities. He
taught at Cornell University from 2004 to 2006, The State
University of New York at Buffalo from 2006 to 2008 and McGill
University in 2010. From 2012 to 2013, he conducted PhD research in
Korean architectural modernity at Kyoto University as a Japan
Foundation fellow. He has won numerous awards and research grants,
and his work has been published in many journals and edited
collections. In the summer of 2015, he co-organized the Reading
Architecture Symposium with Dr. Angeliki Sioli and Dr. Alberto
Pérez-Gómez under the auspices of the Benaki Museum of Athens and
the Hellenic Institute of Architecture. He is currently assistant
professor at the Department of Architecture of Kwangwoon University
in South Korea.
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