Discipline of Architecture

2000

Andrzej Piotrowski and Julia Williams Robinson, editors

A polemical look at how architectural knowledge is produced, disseminated, and received.

The essays collected in this groundbreaking volume address the current state of architecture as an academic and professional discipline. Often critical of the current paradigm, these essays offer a provocative challenge to accepted assumptions about the production, dissemination, and reception of architectural knowledge.

Contributors: Sherry Ahrentzen, Stanford Anderson, Carol Burns, W. Russell Ellis, Thomas Fisher, Linda N. Groat, Kay Bea Jones, David Leatherbarrow, A. G. Krishna Menon, Garth Rockcastle, Michael Stanton, Sharon Egretta Sutton, David J. T. Vanderburgh, and Donald Watson.

In the vast literature on architectural theory and practice, the ways in which architectural knowledge is actually taught, debated, and understood are too often ignored. The essays collected in this groundbreaking volume address the current state of architecture as an academic and professional discipline. The issues considered range from the form and content of architectural education to the architect’s social and environmental obligations and the emergence of a new generation of architects. Often critical of the current paradigm, these essays offer a provocative challenge to accepted assumptions about the production, dissemination, and reception of architectural knowledge.

Contributors: Sherry Ahrentzen, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Stanford Anderson, MIT; Carol Burns, Harvard U; Russell Ellis, UC Berkeley; Thomas Fisher, U of Minnesota; Linda Groat, U of Michigan; Kay Bea Jones, Ohio State U; David Leatherbarrow, U of Pennsylvania; A. G. Krishna Menon, TVB School of Habitat Studies, India; Garth Rockcastle, U of Minnesota; Michael Stanton, American U, Beirut; Sharon E. Sutton, U of Washington; David J. T. Vanderburgh, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium; and Donald Watson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Andrzej Piotrowski is associate professor of architecture and Julia Williams Robinson is professor of architecture, both at the University of Minnesota.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction Julia Williams Robinson and Andrzej Piotrowski

1. Revisiting the Discipline of Architecture Thomas Fisher
2. Disciplining Knowledge: Architecture between Cube and Frame Michael Stanton
3. On the Practices of Representing and Knowing Architecture Andrzej Piotrowski
4. The Form and Structure of Architectural Knowledge: From Practice to Discipline Julia Williams Robinson
5. Architecture Is Its Own Discipline David Leatherbarrow
6. A Dialectics of Determination: Social Truth-Claims in Architectural Writing, 1970–1995 David J. T. Vanderburgh and W. Russell Ellis
7. Unpacking the Suitcase: Travel as Process and Paradigm in Constructing Architectural Knowledge Kay Bea Jones
8. Environment and Architecture Donald Watson
9. Reinventing Professional Privilege as Inclusivity: A Proposal for an Enriched Mission of Architecture Sharon Egretta Sutton
10. Thinking “Indian” Architecture A. G. Krishna Menon
11. Interdisciplinary Visions of Architectural Education: The Perspectives of Faculty Women Linda N. Groat and Sherry Ahrentzen
12. A Framework for Aligning Professional Education and Practice in Architecture Carol Burns
13. Reduction and Transformation of Architecture in Las Vegas Garth Rockcastle
14. The Profession and Discipline of Architecture: Practice and Education Stanford Anderson

Works Cited
Contributors

Index