Main entry:

Kuma, Kengo, 1954- author.

Title & Author:

Architecture of defeat / Kengo Kuma ; translated by Hiroshi Watanabe.

Edition:

English edition.

Publication:

New York : Routledge, 2019.

Description:

vi, 174 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Notes:
"Originally Published in 2002 by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, Tokyo."
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction -- Part I. Disconnection, criticism, form : From disconnection to connection -- Filed and object --What was criticality? -- The dreariness of form versus freedom -- Part II. Transparency, democracy, materialism : De Stijl: a melancholic transparency -- Rudolf Schindler: a vision of democracy -- Yoshichika Uchida : postwar democracy -- Togo Murano: system and materialism -- Place, building, image: San'ai Dream Center -- Give us houses, let us see TV: Venice Biennale 1995 -- Girls and yogis: Venice Biennale 2000 -- Part III. Brands, virtuality, enclosure : Public, brands, private -- Houses and the sex trade -- Concrete time -- Virtuality and parasite -- The end of beauty -- Enclosure -- Afterword.

Summary:

Kengo Kuma, one of Japan's leading architects, has been combining professional practice and academia for most of his career. In addition to creating many internationally recognized buildings all over the world, he has written extensively about the history and theory of architecture. Like his built work, his writings also reflect his profound personal philosophy. Architecture of Defeat is no exception. Now available in English for the first time, the book explores events and architectural trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in both Japan and beyond. It brings together a collection of essays which Kuma wrote after disasters such as the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11 and the earthquake and tsunami that obliterated much of the built landscape on Japan's northern shore in a matter of minutes in 2011. Asking if we have been building in a manner that is too self-confident or arrogant, he examines architecture's intrinsic-and often problematic-relationship to the powerful forces of contemporary politics, economics, consumerism, and technology, as well as its vital ties to society. Despite the title, Architecture of Defeat is an optimistic and hopeful book. Rather than anticipating the demise of architecture, Kuma envisages a different mode of conceiving architecture: guided and shaped by more modesty and with greater respect for the forces of our natural world. Beautifully designed and illustrated, this is a fascinating insight into the thinking of one of the world's most influential architects.

ISBN:

9781138390836 hardcover
1138390836 hardcover
9781138390843 paperback
1138390844 paperback
electronic book
9780429423178
electronic publication
9780429751202
9780429751219
Mobipocket electronic book
9780429751196

Subject:

Architecture Philosophy.
Architecture Philosophie.

Added entries:

Watanabe, Hiroshi, translator.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 305567
Call No.: BIB 251542
Status: Available