bodyoftheory
Architecture
Harman on Heidegger: ‘Buildings as Tool-Beings’
Much of Graham Harman’s so-called ‘object-oriented philosophy’ takes up Martin Heidegger’s account of the nature of tools and equipment, as set out in the first part and first division of his major work Being and Time. The key problem I have with Harman’s reading of this account is the overly binary view of perception which … Continue reading
Making Sense in the Mid-Lands
In a recent lecture at the University of Nottingham, David Leatherbarrow (University of Pennsylvania) set out what might be called – in an echo of his Philadelphia neighbours Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown – a ‘gentle manifesto’ for a not-too-complex-but-just-a-little-bit-contradictory approach to contemporary design. [1] In a typically precise and measured delivery, and in language … Continue reading
Architecture as Process: Objects-Things-Lines
Tim Ingold likes to rough-up the edges of things. As an anthropologist he’s more interested in people than architecture-as-such, but whether he’s talking about objects, buildings or bodies, the boundaries between them soon become fuzzy. In a way reminiscent of the philosopher David Hume’s idea of the self as a ‘bundle or collection of different … Continue reading
Opaque and Transparent Technology
The engineer and educator Peter McCleary, in an essay that leans heavily – as most things do in the philosophy of technology – on the writings of Martin Heidegger, asks a curious but interesting question: “What are the characteristics of knowledge derived during the production of the built environment?” [1]. McCleary claims that by picking … Continue reading
DAAR / Thomas Demand
The latest exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary puts together two unlikely subjects – the disputed territories of Israel and Palestine and some rough-and-ready cardboard mock-ups of 1960s American villas. Galleries 1 and 2 are occupied by DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency) a three-person art and architecture collective based in Palestine. Called ‘Common Assembly’ the work in the show is … Continue reading
Welcome!
Welcome to ‘bodyoftheory’, an experiment in research and communication in the field of architectural humanities. I hope it will help me to bring together a series of research and teaching interests, ideas, activities and outputs around the broad theme of ‘architecture and embodiment’. This is something I’ve been interested in for a long time and passionately … Continue reading
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