In response to the contentious process surrounding the selection of a
design for the World Trade Center site, the use of spectacular buildings
to brand cities and institutions, and the dizzying transformations of
the skylines of Shanghai and Dubai, public awareness of architecture and
design has perhaps never been higher. At the same time, architecture
itself is undergoing an identity crisis as it confronts fundamental
issues: the effect of digital technology on design, the pervasive impact
of global capitalism, and whether to embrace or resist popular media and
taste.
The New Architectural Pragmatism collects the most provocative,
penetrating, and influential attempts by leading theorists and
practitioners in the field to define what architectural practice should
be at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Written in the
aftermath of modernism's utopian impulse and postmodernism's detached
playfulness, the essays gathered here express and critique a new spirit
of cultural and political engagement with contemporary society.
Interrogating the architect's social responsibility, the contributors
deliberate about how much we should ask of architecture and suggest that
in the coming century, architecture must be at once flexible and robust,
responsive and self-directed.
Contributors: Stan Allen; George Baird; Lucy Bullivant; James Corner;
Hal Foster; Kenneth Frampton; K. Michael Hays; Dave Hickey; Robert
Levit; Evonne Levy; Reinhold Martin; Jorge Silvetti; Robert Somol;
Philippe Starck; Roemer van Toorn; Sarah Whiting; Alejandro Zaera-Polo.
William S. Saunders is editor of Harvard Design Magazine and assistant
dean for external relations at Harvard University's Graduate School of
Design. He is the editor of four previous Harvard Design Magazine
Readers, published by Minnesota.
