Architecture and Abstraction

Writing Architecture #25

by Pier Vittorio Aureli

A landmark study of abstraction in architectural history, theory, and practice that challenges our assumptions about the meaning of abstract forms.

In this theoretical study of abstraction in architecture—the first of its kind—Pier Vittorio Aureli argues for a reconsideration of abstraction, its meanings, and its sources. Although architects have typically interpreted abstraction in formal terms—the purposeful reduction of the complexities of design to its essentials—Aureli shows that abstraction instead arises from the material conditions of building production. In a lively study informed by Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, and other social theorists, this book presents abstraction in architecture not as an aesthetic tendency but as a movement that arises from modern divisions of labor and consequent social asymmetries.

These divisions were anticipated by the architecture of antiquity, which established a distinction between manual and intellectual labor, and placed the former in service to the latter. Further abstractions arose as geometry, used for measuring territories, became the intermediary between land and money and eventually produced the logic of the grid. In our own time, architectural abstraction serves the logic of capitalism and embraces the premise that all things can be exchanged—even experience itself is a commodity. To resist this turn, Aureli seeks a critique of architecture that begins not by scaling philosophical heights, but by standing at the ground level of material practice.

Genres: Architecture, Design, Art

314 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2023

About the author

Pier Vittorio Aureli studied at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia and later at the Berlage Institute in Rottedam. Aureli currently teaches at the AA School of Architecture in London and is visiting professor at Yale University. He is the author of many essays and several books, including The Project of Autonomy (2008) and The Possibility of an Absolute Architecture (2011).

Reviews

[Federico García · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aureli es hoy uno de los teoricos de teoría de arquitectura mas eminentes.
Desde una perspectiva marxista, este libro hace un repaso sobre los autores mas importantes que han reflexionado a lo largo de la historia sobre la tensión entre arte y técnica. Acabando en el alemán Hannes Meyer. Entre una visión romántica y la economía.
Como ha extractado al final del libro: "una vez que la abstracción se desconecta de la arquitectura, puede convertirse en la forma mas apropiada para la vida socialista".
Lástima que la mayor parte de los arquitectos somos unos románticos incorregibles. Creemos en el arte como fuente de satisfacción personal.
Una posibilidad que forma parte de nuestras vidas.
Desgraciadamente, el sistema capitalista tiende a ploretarizar a los profesionales, igualándonos al resto de las personas.
No somos importantes.

[Malav Mehta · Rating 5 out of 5]

totally changed how i think about architecture

[Víctor Vázquez · Rating 4 out of 5]

M'ha agradat (tot i que no tot). Trobo interessant sobre la part d'explicació de l'arquitectura comunista russa.