This collection of a number of key essays by the New York-based
architect and writer Mark Rakatansky proposes an innovative framework
for architecture to enact the complex tectonic dramas of social and
culture space.
Following its title, the book is arrayed in three sections: Tectonic,
Acts of, Desire and Doubt. In each, Rakatansky covers a series of
subjects in a writerly voice that varies from the third-person narrative
of the scholarly essays to the transcript of an email exchange with
fellow academic Sarah Whiting discussing recent books by architect Greg
Lynn. Transformational performances of architectural identity are
explored in discussions of fabrication, social parametrics, building
envelopes, spatial narratives, animation, migrancy, and in illuminating
readings into the works of Louis Kahn, Robin Evans, John Coltrane,
Giulio Romano and Andrea Palladio.