Description
VIVA BOOKS PRIVATE LIMITED The Future of Post-Human Architecture by Peter Baofu
Is architecture really so simple that as Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe made a name of himself by his famous functionalist dictum “less is more”? (WK 2011) This functionalist dictum can be contrasted with an opposing ideal of architecture like the one proposed by Robert Venturi in that “less is a bore.” (WK 2011) Contrary to these opposing ideals (and other views as will be discussed in the book) architecture (in relation to form and function) is neither possible nor desirable to the extent that the respective ideologues (on different sides) would like us to believe. Of course the challenge to these opposing ideas in architecture does not suggest that architecture has little use or that those fields of study (related to architecture) like urban planning landscape gardening industrial design visual arts hermeneutics computation construction and so on should be rejected too. Needless to say neither of these extreme views is reasonable. Rather this book provides an alternative (better) way to understand the future of architecture especially in the dialectic context of form and function – while learning from different approaches in the literature but without favoring any one of them (nor integrating them since they are not necessarily compatible with each other). Differently put this book offers a new theory (that is the transcendent theory of architecture) to go beyond the existing approaches in a novel way. If successful this seminal project is to fundamentally change the way that we think about architecture from the combined perspectives of the mind nature society and culture with enormous implications for the human future and what I originally called its “post-human” fate. In this book: Introduction – The Legacy of Architecture Form and its Twin Faces Function and its Double Sword Conclusion – The Future of Architecture Beyond Form and Function