ARCHITECTURE: ...and ART...FILE UNDER ARCHITECTURE Publication.

From: IN%"[email protected]" "Art Criticism Discussion Forum" 18-JUL-1994
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To: IN%"HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx" "Howard Lawrence"
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Subj: File Under Architecture

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From: MARKHALL@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: File Under Architecture
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To: Howard Lawrence <HRL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Ray,
The publisher of "File Under Architecture" is The MIT Press, Cambridge,
Massachusetts, 1974. Here is what it says on the back cover-

"I am an architect who has neither designed nor built any buildings nor
has the inclination to do so. I call myself an architect purely out of the
comic conceit which is all that remains of the Western architectural
tradition. Buildings have such short lifespans nowadays, and few bother to
look at them, anyway. Planning schemes must be revised each year, and still
can't keep up. Last winter's cosmic-comical conceptual designs are
forgotten with the appearance of the new spring line. Books last longer,
take up less space, are easier to take care of, make better gifts than do
most buildings. In the last analysis, architecture is not a very highly
evolved state of mind.
evolved state of mind."

"This is neither sour-grapes bitterness nor casual frivolity. It is the
opening of a passionate, informed, witty, and intensely serious critique
of the idea of architecture and an exposure of architectural pretense in
all ages, but especially in the modern age--the years following the
Industrial Revolution, which have been characterized by visual and
ideological chaos and a wholesale dipping into the aesthetic and conceptual
capital accumulated by ages past."

What really struck me about this book when I was reading it was that you
can substitute the word "art" for the word "architecture" in most sentences
and they will still ring true.

One more thing- there is no typesetting to speak of, only typewritten copy.

Mark Hall
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