Perspecta 54: Atopia - Couverture souple

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0262543818 ISBN 13 : 9780262543811

Editeur : The MIT Press, 2022

Synopsis

Atopia as both the site of architecture’s critical confrontation with hegemonic systems and the theoretical space in which its own processes can be challenged.
 

A literal no-place, atopia represents the spatial end-product of a society seemingly flattened by supra-territorial flows of information and material. It expresses both a physical artifact and condition of mass culture, and like the global systems of production and consumption from which it is conceived, atopia is both nowhere and everywhere at once. For the contributors of Perspecta 54, the ephemeral conditions of atopia are also an invitation to an equally unconstrained critical practice. Blurred boundaries—geopolitical, virtual, technical, disciplinary—offer sites for transgressive speculation and critique from beyond the limits of traditional design agency.
 
What results is a form of design practice that ambiguously straddles impossibility and hyperreality. Atopia rejects both the escapist fantasy of utopia and the nihilism of dystopia, favoring instead a conceptual middle ground from which real-world conditions can be productively engaged and challenged. Architecture’s traditional objectives of critical inquiry—particularly the location of modes of complicity, agency, and resistance within larger structures—are mediated and reframed through nontraditional strategies of speculative design and fiction. For a profession that is routinely asked to navigate extreme complexity with limited tools, this approach suggests an expanded operational domain and possibilities for reinvigorated creative thought. From urban crises and climate emergencies to border disputes and geopolitics, Perspecta 54 examines atopia as both the site of architecture’s critical confrontation with hegemonic systems and the theoretical space in which its own processes can be challenged.
 

A propos du livre

À propos de l?auteur

Melinda Agron, Timon Covelli, Alexis Kandel, and David Langdon are all graduates of Yale School of Architecture.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: The MIT Press
• Date d'édition: 2022
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0262543818
• ISBN 13: 9780262543811
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272
• Éditeur: Agron Melinda, Covelli Timon, Kandel Alexis, Langdon David
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible