Toward A Minor Architecture

by Jill Stoner

A major proposal for a minor architecture, and for the making of spaces out of the already built.

Architecture can no longer limit itself to the art of making buildings; it must also invent the politics of taking them apart. This is Jill Stoner's premise for a minor architecture. Her architect's eye tracks differently from most, drawn not to the lauded and iconic but to what she calls "the landscape of our constructed mistakes"--metropolitan hinterlands rife with failed and foreclosed developments, undersubscribed office parks, chain hotels, and abandoned malls. These graveyards of capital, Stoner asserts, may be stripped of their excess and become sites of strategic spatial operations. But first we must dissect and dismantle prevalent architectural mythologies that brought them into being--western obsessions with interiority, with the autonomy of the building-object, with the architect's mantle of celebrity, and with the idea of nature as that which is "other" than the built metropolis. These four myths form the warp of the book.

Drawing on the literary theory of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Stoner suggests that minor architectures, like minor literatures, emerge from the bottoms of power structures and within the language of those structures. Yet they too are the result of powerful and instrumental forces. Provoked by collective desires, directed by the instability of time, and celebrating contingency, minor architectures may be mobilized within buildings that are oversaturated, underutilized, or perceived as obsolete.

Stoner's provocative challenge to current discourse veers away from design, through a diverse landscape of cultural theory, contemporary fiction, and environmental ethics. Hers is an optimistic and inclusive approach to a more politicized practice of architecture.

Genres: Architecture, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Pilar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un estudio sobre la "literatura del espacio" (Robbe-Grillet, Proust, Poe, Orwell, Atwood, Borges...) y las "arquitecturas literarias" y los "libros" de piedra a los que llamamos edificios, tomando a Kafka como el maestro absoluto de las atmósferas domésticas asfixiantes. Todo ello con el propósito es invitar a los creadores de espacios a devenir arquitectxs menores frente a las locuras banales de la última arquitectura neoliberal.

En resumen, un ensayo denso y desafiante para el lector promedio, con un enfoque atípico, que me recuerda en su dificultad a aquellos textos de Manfredo Tafuri que leía en mis años mozos.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

Stoner wanders into some interesting spaces and places here, drawing heavily from Kafka and Deleuze and seemingly obsessed with the idea of Euclidean anything. For such a short work she appears to be in no rush to get to her point and instead seems to be in a more whimsical and restless mood, buzzing around ideas, seemingly reluctant to set in the concrete foundations of her deeper point, getting side-tracked and distracted by some really interesting ideas.

Although I quite enjoyed many of her jumping off points and their subsequent digressions, I’m not sure I could tell you exactly what a “minor architecture” is?...We get a lot of literary theory, political insight and historical lessons, but often the link to architecture seems transitory and tenuous at best?...And to be fair she does give herself an out very early on when she says –

“As we begin to investigate what minor architecture might mean, we must be prepared for its precise nature to elude capture.”

[Elisabeth Gagnon]

je vais me déterritorialiser

[Jack Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muy interesante. No digo más … estoy trabajando en algo

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minor architecture is a worthwhile opposition to the ingrained systems and assumptions of "major" architecture, and Stoner's use of D&G and Kafka makes the distinction clear. But the book's intentional piecemeal progression and patchwork of examples (falcons, Torre de David, Moby Dick?) don't add enough to the discussion.

[Nigel Holmes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Minor architecture, a complexly written book, and the subject matter perhaps disjointed and in parts. Overall brings to life how architecture should be something we merit as been modest. That we should take into consideration all facets of possibility and thinking to create a richer understanding of the juxtapositions of architecture and literature.

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I left the practice of architecture to become a computer programmer based in large part to my love affair with Deleuzian philosophy. This book reunited me with my first love! We are reunited with a new understanding! Wonderful read

[R.B. Lemberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much Kafka. It would have worked better for me if it had either less literary theory or much more literary theory.