Artificial Light by Mitnick, Keith. (Princeton Architectural Press,2008) [Paperback]

by Keith Mitnick

In Artificial A Narrative Inquiry into the Nature of Abstraction, Immediacy, and other Architectural Fictions, Keith Mitnick - himself an architect and teacher - presents a startlingly vivid personal memoir. Inexorably linked to his highly developed awareness of his surroundings - be they the family living room, the amusement park, a porno set, or the site of a prison execution - Mitnick's observations reveal his past in engrossing detail. By exploiting the literary conventions of the genre, he crafts an intimate narrative of repressed childhood anger, adolescent rebellion, and thoughtful reflection.

Genres: Architecture

Paperback

First published June 19, 2008

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a rare treat. An engaging, insightful interrogation of architectural concepts in the form of a personal memoir. Alternating between narrative and theory, Mitnick constructs a kind of experimental criticism, one studded with humor, charged with intellect and rife with implication.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We seem to understand phenomenal experience in two different and polarized ways, rather than as a single dynamic in which one set of preconceptions is continually adjusted and reconfigured by the terms of the other. For instance, when we experience the rain falling from the sky, there is the idea of rain, and there is the actual rain. We know that the individual droplets of water are part of a larger body of rainfall, but because the rainfall is beyond our visual comprehension, it has different attributes and associations for us than the raindrops we can touch."

"Despite the fact that we see the meaning of things changing right before our eyes, we nevertheless expect architecture to convey a pre-existing and unchanging reality rather than the provisional staging of one. We want it to be the irreducible structure of physical matter, not an imitation of it. But rather than trying to block the disparity between how we think about things and the way they appear to us, what if architecture embraced the disconnect by allowing things to exist multifariously, with conflicted identities ascribed according to differing sensibilities?"

"It is the relationship among things - rather than the things themselves - that gives objects their identities. Though we tend to regard them as having stable and enduring characteristics, the determination of 'thingness' is more a matter of groupings and classifications than it is a consequence of inherent material properties. Objects require limits in order to be distinguished from the field of reciprocal relations in which they exist, but the limits we impose upon them are a function of our perception rather than a property of their thingness."

"Have you ever noticed how photographs of buildings and places change our actual experience of them? In some ways we are becoming more and more conditioned to experience architecture according to a kind of two-dimensional pictorial logic projected upon three-dimensional things. Blurred zones and blind spots reflect the logic of photographic images more so than the logic - if there is one - of the physical world itself. We use representations to make sense of places and things, and then mistake the structure of these images for that of the things they represent."

[Sean Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting book. A narrative of Keith's life that questions our assumed understanding of the built world around us. I thought it was well written and down to earth. Sometimes being even more blunt than you would expect. I definitely enjoyed it, knowing that I read it the first time intrigued by the ideas, but mostly the story. Will be more critical of the underlying architectural themese this next time I read it.

Btw, great layout. Thoroughly enjoyed the idea of a "Dear Mom" at the end that really concludes the book with a clever grin

[Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your standard architecture textbook. It is unpretentious, personal, and actually enjoyable.

[Amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

read between 2:30 am and 4:00 am.

Thanks Brittany!

[Audrey]

This book was weird?!!? But it was written by one of my architecture professors, so I feel weird giving it a rating. It was interesting. In further news, I finished my reading challenge for the year!!