History and Theory in Architecture IX: 1990s Theories that Inspired Architecture

Tutor: Dr. Cathelijne Nuijsink

Course Description

This course will take some of the most provocative thematic issues of the 26 editions of the journal ANY: Architecture New York (1993–2000) as a starting point for discussing non-architectural theories that inspired architects.

In 1990, the architects Peter Eisenman, Arata Isozaki, and Ignasi de Solà-Morales, along with the editor Cynthia Davidson, founded the non-profit Anyone Corporation with the goal of stimulating theoretical discourse through cross-disciplinary discussion. The Anyone Corporation began with a series of ten cross-cultural and multidisciplinary conferences, The Any Conferences (1991–2000), which provided a unique forum for architects in the 1990s to discuss architecture from interdisciplinary perspectives while physically spending three days together, fostering constructive feedback. ANY: Architecture New York was a journal launched in 1993 to widen the impact of The Any Conferences and incorporate more young voices around architectural themes discussed by people from outside the field of architecture. As such, the ANY magazine was a critical part of the entire Anyone Project; an activating force that aimed to expand and build on the annual conferences with something that occurred ‘in-between’ the yearly conferences.

This course seeks to make architectural students aware of the interdisciplinary character of architecture and ask what we can learn from discussing architecture from multiple disciplinary viewpoints by tackling ANY magazine’s forward-looking themes such as feminism, virtual space, public fear, the mechanical in the electronic era, lightness, and whiteness, topics all highly relevant today. We will examine various cultural and disciplinary perspectives that have been taken on these theories, as well as the fact that they were not immutable but rather developed over time as a result of various interpretations and (mis)translations.

More broadly, the goal of this course is to help close the gap between currently available architectural histories – which are primarily centred on architects – and the complex, multidisciplinary reality of the built environment.

Time and Location

The course will take place on Friday mornings from 8:50 to 9:35 in room HIL E1.

• Seminar 01 | Introduction
  Friday 20 September 2024

protected page Cynthia Davidson, Peter Eisenman, Alberto Pérez Gómez, Ignasi Solà-Morales, Mirko Zardini, “Any Story.” Lotus International, no. 92, 1997: 92-131.

protected page Daniel Sherer, "Architecture in the Labyrinth. Theory and Criticism in the United States: Oppositions, Assemblage, ANY (1973-1999)." Zodiac, no. 20, 1999 :pp 36-63.

protected page Khōrein and Cynthia Davidson, “Writing in, on, and for Architecture,” Khōrein: Journal of Philosophy and Architecture, vol. 1, no. 2, 2023: 89-97.

• Seminar 02 | Lightness
  Friday 27 September 2024

protected page John Rajchman, “Lightness, A Concept in Architecture” in ANY, March/April 1994, No. 5, Lightness (March/April 1994), pp. 5-7

protected page Italo Calvino, “Lightness,” in Six Memos for the Next Millenium, 1988: pp 3-29.

protected page Terence Riley, “Introduction” in Light Construction, 1995: pp 9-32.   

• Seminar 03 | Lightness
  Friday 4 October 2024

protected page Greg Lynn, “Differential Gravities,” ANY: Architecture New York , March/April 1994, No. 5, Lightness (March/April 1994), pp. 20-23.

protected page Toyo Ito, “A Garden of Microships: The Architectural Language of the Microelectronic Age,” in JA Library 2 (Summer 1993): 4-15.

protected page Adrian Forty, “Transparency”, in Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. Thames and Hudson, 2000: pp 286-288.

• Seminar 04 | Whiteness
  Friday 11 October 2024

protected page Ernest Pascucci, “White Forms, Forms of Whiteness”, in ANY, No. 16 (1996), Whiteness: pp. 14-15.

protected page Mark Wigley, “Introduction,” in White Walls, Designer Dresses : The Fashioning of Modern Architecture, 1995: pp xiv-xxvi.

protected page Irene Cheng, “Structural Racialism in Modern Architectural Theory,” in Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present, 2020: pp 134-152.

• Seminar 05 | Whiteness
  Friday 18 October 2024

protected page Lesley Lokko, “Introduction,” in White Paper, Black Marks: Architecture, Race, Culture, 2000: pp 11-35.

protected page Charles L. Mills, “Global White Ignorance,” in Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies, 2015: pp 217-227.

protected page Mabel. O Wilson, “White by Design,” in Among Others: Blackness at MoMA, 2019: pp 101-109.

• [SEMINAR WEEK] 

• Seminar 06 | Diagram
  Friday 1 November 2024

• Seminar 07 | Diagram
  Friday 8 November 2024

• Seminar 08 | Public Fear
  Friday 15 November 2024

• [NO CLASS]

• Seminar 09 | Public Fear
  Friday 29 November 2024

• Seminar 10
  Friday 06 December 2024