Architecture, Ethics, and Technology
- Publisher
- McGill-Queen's University Press
- Initial publish date
- Mar 1994
- Category
- General, Criticism
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9780773511484
- Publish Date
- Mar 1994
- List Price
- $125.00
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Where to buy it
Description
An enlightened discussion of all relevant aspects of architecture shows the necessity for revision of commonly held assumptions about the nature of architectural history, theory, representation, and ideation; the production of buildings in the postindustrial city; and professional ethics. These topics provide the basis for the fourteen interdisciplinary papers presented here. The introductory section includes an examination of the epistemological origins of technology in the early modern European context and two alternative visions of ethics and its potential relevance for architecture. The second part presents four perspectives on important questions about how we represent buildings and the ethical values involved in that representation. "Ethics and Poetics in the Context of Technological Production" considers the role of philosophical ethics (i.e., a rational structure of categories in architectural practice) and the possibility, and desirability, of incorporating ethical reflections into the generation of architectural form. "The Architectural Uses of History and Narrative in a Technocratic World" explores alternatives for articulating an ethical attitude in forms of discourse other than philosophy and science. These papers were originally presented at the bilingual symposium "Architecture, Ethics, and Technology" held at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal in 1991.
About the authors
Louise Pelletier's profile page
Alberto Pérez Gómez directs the History and Theory of Architecture Program at McGill University, where he is Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History of Architecture. He is the author of Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (both published by the MIT Press), and other books.
Editorial Reviews
"A provocative and useful conjunction of ideas ... The intellectual level of the theme has been set very high ... I know of no other recent event of this sort which combines discourses from distinct disciplines so provocatively." George Baird, Baird/Sampson Architects.