Architectural Theory NOW ?
This symposium asks, “What happened to architectural theory and where is it headed?” Is it M.I.A., D.O.A. or simply in transition? What constitutes the practice of architectural thinking—or theory—today?Compared with the 1970s, 80s, and 90s—decades when journals such as Assemblage, Casabella, Daidalos, October, Oppositions, Zodiac, and ANY were filled with heady polemics that spilled over into popular architectural magazines, seminars, and design studios—architectural theory is today at an impasse, if not passé. Not only are many print journals now gone, architectural theory courses have been eliminated in many schools’ curricula in favor of technology-centered courses, research studios, history without theory, and “autonomous theory.” It’s as if architectural theory, a field of inquiry developed and articulated over a few thousand years, filling archives and rare book rooms with beautiful and beguiling works of architectural knowledge, was suddenly transformed in unrecognizable ways, or became obsolete.