Latour for Architects

Bruno Latour is one of the leading figures in Social Sciences today, but his contributions are also widely recognised in the arts. His theories ‘flourished’ in the 1980s in the aftermath of the structuralism wave and generated new concepts and methodologies for the understanding of the social. In the past decade, Latour and his Actor-Network Theory (ANT) have gained popularity among researchers in the field of architecture. Latour for Architects is the first introduction to the key concepts and ideas of Bruno Latour that are relevant to architects. First, the book discusses critically how specific methods and insights from his philosophy can inspire new thinking in architecture and design pedagogy. Second, it explores examples from architectural practice and urban design, and reviews recent attempts to extend the methods of ANT into the fields of architectural and urban studies. Third, the book advocates an ANT-inspired approach to architecture, and examines how its methodological insights can trace new research avenues in the field, reflecting meticulously on its epistemological offerings. Drawing on many lively examples from the world of architectural practice, the book makes a compelling argument about the agency of architectural design and the role architects can play in re-ordering the world we live in. Following Latour’s philosophy offers a new way to handle all the objects of human and nonhuman collective life, to re-examine the role of matter in design practice, and to redefine the forms of social, political and ethical associations that bind us together in cities

Latour for Architects

Bruno Latour is one of the leading figures in Social Sciences today, but his contributions are also widely recognised in the arts. His theories ‘flourished’ in the 1980s in the aftermath of the structuralism wave and generated new concepts and methodologies for the understanding of the social. In the past decade, Latour and his Actor-Network Theory (ANT) have gained popularity among researchers in the field of architecture. Latour for Architects is the first introduction to the key concepts and ideas of Bruno Latour that are relevant to architects. First, the book discusses critically how specific methods and insights from his philosophy can inspire new thinking in architecture and design pedagogy. Second, it explores examples from architectural practice and urban design, and reviews recent attempts to extend the methods of ANT into the fields of architectural and urban studies. Third, the book advocates an ANT-inspired approach to architecture, and examines how its methodological insights can trace new research avenues in the field, reflecting meticulously on its epistemological offerings. Drawing on many lively examples from the world of architectural practice, the book makes a compelling argument about the agency of architectural design and the role architects can play in re-ordering the world we live in. Following Latour’s philosophy offers a new way to handle all the objects of human and nonhuman collective life, to re-examine the role of matter in design practice, and to redefine the forms of social, political and ethical associations that bind us together in cities

Editoriale. Nuove voci nell’etnografia dell’architettura

Sono pochi i metodi di ricerca adatti a indagare il modo in cui gli architetti lavorano. L’etnografia è uno di questi. L’uso di metodi etnografici in architettura riserva dei potenziali notevoli nell’esplorazione di questioni nuove, nella ricerca e nel progetto. A partire dai primi anni Ottanta del Novecento, svariate ricerche sull’architettura hanno cominciato a spostare la loro attenzione dai prodotti – gli edifici e i luoghi – ai processi che riguardano la concezione e la negoziazione dei ..

Architectural Theory at Two Speeds

The article is a presentation of the ethnographic method applied to architecture. The author explains how “slow ethnographers” work when they deal with a building, by focusing on the case of namBa HIPS building by Shin Takamatsu, in Osaka. “Slow” ethnography offers an alternative to “quick theory” intended as a critical theory of architecture that is based on the observation and interpretation of a static object as related to the consolidated spheres of theory and history. Yaneva’s proposal is to start back from the experience of space and objects as built over time: architecture is a process made of cumulative interactions, that unfolds from the design phase to the experience of those who inhabit it, through a continuous intertwinement of human and non-human entities. The study offers itself as a diachronic operation framing the very project as an anticipation of the many velocities to which the project’s transactions are submitted, just as the uses of built space will be: «While working with the speeds, [the architect] does not express or symbolize anything; he simply immerses into the tempo of design and adjusts its different rhythms with engineers, contractors and investors»

Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen, Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Voices from the Archives, Lars Müller Publishers

In 1958 the Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn won the competition for the design of the Nordic Pavilion in Venice, inaugurated in 1962. Drawing back on a rich archive on this masterpiece of post-war architecture, Mari Lending and Erik Langdalen tell a different story about the building than the commonly spread poetic and critical narratives. The book is composed of two parts: part one Historicity of a Concrete Object takes the readers through key moments of the “life of the building”: the cult..

Editorial. New Voices in Architectural Ethnography

Few social research methods are adapted to the way architects work. Ethnography is one of them. The use of ethnographic methods in architecture holds remarkable potential to investigate new research and design questions. As early as the 1980s architectural researchers moved their attention from the products – buildings and places – to the processes of design thinking and negotiations. Donald Schön’s work on educational practice engaged in ethnographically unpacking reflection-in-action as sta..

«Give Me a Gun and I Will Make All Buildings Move»: An ANT’s View of Architecture

Our building problem is just the opposite of Etienne Jules Marey’s famous inquiry into the physiology of movement. Through the invention of his “photographic gun” (Fig. 1) he wanted to arrest the flight of a gull so as to be able to see in a fixed format every single successive freeze-frame of a continuous flow of flight (Figs. 2, 3), the mechanism of which had eluded all observers until his invention. What we need is the reverse: the problem with buildings is that they look desperately stati..