In this episode, our discussion of contemporary architectural theory is framed by the question of why there is no contemporary discipline-defining book of theory like Delirious New York, Complexity and Contradiction, or Animate Form. This generation explains the myriad reasons why this is the case, from their professional priorities, critiques of singular authors, the rise of the internet, the professionalization of writing about architecture, and their simple lack of interest. The group also discusses the theorization that does exist today, and their own approach to writing.
Download“One has to choose where time gets spent, right? And we are not going to be writing a tome because we are very much trying to build a practice.”
“One can write a book to get tenure, or one can write a book that puts people together into a book to get tenure. And there’s a necessity, that institutional necessity to produce a publication.”
“A lot of the practices that we’ve been talking about engage with theory. But they engage with specific micro genres of theory.”
“I don’t see anyone reading books anyway anymore.”
“I just feel there’s no way to write something important at the moment. I just feel like inevitably it’s going to be pretty diluted.”
“Everyone I know, even the leading voices of our generation, decline, let’s say, the baton to supposedly write the heavyweight paper or book that supposedly would define a generation.”
“One of the reasons people have become maybe less interested in architectural theory as such, is more because it doesn’t meet the issues of our day.”
“I think it’s so much stronger or so much more radical and important to have a plurality of voices”
“I tried and I’m just not good enough. I wrote a book, it was trying to be an important piece of urban theory.”
“We are definitely the generation of short form writing.”
“I write as a way to figure out some of the issues in my work.”
“It’s no longer about a debate between two positions. It’s multiple positions, plurality of perspectives, and I don’t really know how one breaks from that other than just – we’re all part of a late capitalist machine, which is turning faster and faster every day, spitting out more and more byproducts of industrial production.”
Interviewer
Joseph Bedford
Producer and Editor
Tim Cox
Writer
Tim Cox
Narrator
Tim Cox
Interviewees
Curtis Roth, Andrew Holder, Michael Meredith, David Eskenazi, Michael Young, Kyle Reynolds, Kyle Miller, Hans Tursack, Katie Macdonald, Kyle Schumann, Jaffer Kolb, Kelly Bair and Kristy Balliet, Bryony Roberts, Meredith Miller, Anna Neimark, Neyran Turan, Michelle Chang, Ashley Bigham, Erik Herrmann, Jerome Haferd, Clark Thenhaus, Paul Preissner, Stewart Hicks, Brittney Utting, Daniel Jacobs, Mira Henry, Matthew Au, Jimenez Lai, McLain Clutter and Cyrus Peñarroyo, Andrew Kovacs, and Jon Lott.
Senior Editor
Joseph Bedford
Music
Background music Dreamsphere 1 by Sascha Ende has been used under CC BY 4.0.