“…we just need to think about how to make space for theory and then how to make theory better […] and then maybe be honest about what we’re using theory for.”
This piece asks “is architectural theory dead?” This might seem a strange question to ask given the lengthy discussion throughout the issue. Yet, at the turn of the millennium, a new generation of architectural theorists declared the “end of theory.” Nearly two decades on, a different generation addresses this question again, and asks why there was a perception of decline twenty years ago and whether or not, from our vantage point, this assessment is correct.
Download“…we just need to think about how to make space for theory and then how to make theory better […] and then maybe be honest about what we’re using theory for.”
“Architectural theory is not dead as long as we’re talking about it.”
“I think we’ve been way too heavy on the side of telling people what other people have done, rather than helping them explore what they might do.”
“If we limit the scope of theory, we can probably have a lot of quality, or at least a lot of intensity, engaged in very narrow problems.”
“I don’t think there was anything in discourse as such that merited exhaustion.”
“I think if we are actually going to bring a […] critical rigor to our field, we need to stop thinking about cycles of fashion in relationship to theory, and I think frame it differently.”
Producer
Arianna Corradi
Issue Editor
Joseph Bedford
Senior Editor
Joseph Bedford
Announcer
Trudy Watt
Interviewer
Joseph Bedford,
Interviewees
Joseph Godlewski, Jake Matatyaou, John May, Ginger Nolan, Bryan E. Norwood, Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco, Meredith TenHoor, and Marrikka Trotter.