Elie Haddad

Christian Norberg-Schulz's Phenomenological Project In Architecture

This paper will examine the theoretical work of one of the major proponents of a phenomenological approach in architecture, the historian-theoretician Christian Norberg-Schulz, examining the development of his ideas across 30 years. While Norberg-Schulz started out with Intentions in Architecture (1963), a work that was clearly influenced by structuralist studies, he soon shifted to a phenomenological approach with Existence, Space and Architecture (1971), and then with Genius Loci (1980) and The Concept of Dwelling (1985). He attempted through this trilogy to lay down the foundations of a phenomenological interpretation of architecture, with an underlying agenda that espoused certain directions in contemporary architecture. This paper will examine the major writings of Christian Norberg-Schulz, critically evaluating his interpretation of phenomenology in architecture in its ambiguous relation to the project of modernity.

Charles Jencks and the historiography of Post-Modernism

The history of Post-Modern Architecture was to a large extent tied to the name of Charles Jencks, who played an operative role in promoting the movement, much like his predecessor Sigfried Giedion had done for Modern Architecture in the 1930s. Like Giedion, Jencks was a prolific writer and a protagonist of a radical change in the direction of architecture. In the thirty-five year period from the appearance of his first book in 1971, Jencks published more than twenty four works, not counting the ones he edited or co-edited. And like Giedion, Jencks also attempted to reach a synthesis of opposites, by including disparate examples within his original ‘canon’, extending it in its last revision to include works by Eisenman and Tschumi, as Giedion had done by the inclusion of Aalto and Utzon in his later editions of Space, Time and Architecture. This paper will discuss Jenckss historiography of Post-Modernism by looking at the seminal texts that he wrote from 1970 until 2007, beginning with Architecture 2000 and ending with Critical Modernism. The main focus of this article is critically to examine his major work, the Language of Post Modernism, and to trace its evolution as a means of evaluating his contribution to the development of this movement, as well as to architectural historiography.

In Nietzsche's Shadow

Henry van de Veldes intellectual relation to Nietzsche constitutes one of the interesting episodes in the early developments of Modernism in architecture. On the basic level, it opens the question of the influence of a radical philosopher of Modernity on a contemporary artist: while at another level it raises the question of the correspondence between ‘idea’and ‘form’ in the context of an architectural problem: the project for the Nietzsche Monument in Weimar. Although this relation has already been explored by other scholars, this paper will look at some of the parallels in the thoughts of the philosopher and the artist, as in their vision of the role of art in culture, while also examining the discrepancies in Henry van de Veldes understanding, or appropriation, of the Nietzschean message. This is evident in the Nietzsche Monument project, a project that showed the artists difficulty at the time in conceptualizing a project that would concretize the philosophers vision. Finally, this paper will explore the parallel notions of power and force, the former being a foundational nation in ihe philosophers thought, the latter afoundational notion in ihe artists aesthetic theory.