understanding of the conditions under which these forms have been generated lifts the
debate beyond the level of a discussion of symptoms. In so doing it exposes the
shortcomings of Jencks’s appropriation of the term ‘postmodernism’ to refer in the main
to a select group of often commercial office buildings characterized by the use of
historicist motifs.
The extracts selected for this volume therefore open up the possibilities of how
architecture might be understood beyond the narrow focus of traditional architectural
discourse. They present a range of methodologies—a set of tools—for addressing the
question of architecture and for understanding it within a broader cultural context.
Although some of the material is well known within architectural circles, and has been
absorbed into mainstream architectural education, much of the material will be new to an
architectural audience. By introducing this material to an architectural domain, the nature
of that domain will have been altered.
The essays have all been written by thinkers from ‘outside’ architecture. With the
exception of Kracauer, none of the contributors has undertaken any recognized training in
architecture, and even Kracauer had abandoned the profession by the time he wrote the
essays included here. At first sight this may seem an impediment. The absence of any
background training, it could be argued, would automatically prevent any useful
contribution to the discourse of architectural theory. The content of these essays,
however, provides sufficient evidence to suggest otherwise. Indeed, as Theodor Adorno
observes, a certain professional distance might be precisely what is required in order to
maintain the necessary critical distance.
It seems to me, however, not unrealistic that at times—in latent crisis
situations—it may help to remove oneself farther from phenomena than
the spirit of technical competence would usually allow. The principle of
‘fittingness to the material’ rests on the foundation of the division of
labour. Nevertheless, it is advisable even for experts to occasionally take
into account the extent to which their expertise may suffer from just that
division of labour, as the artistic naïvité underlying it can impose its own
limitations.^8Thus a certain tension is allowed to develop between a way of thinking that belongs
specifically to the world of architects and one that is generated ‘outside’ that world.
The essays in this volume therefore stand in opposition to the mainstream body of
accepted architectural theory. Indeed, on occasions they offer a direct critique of specific
works of architectural theory. For example, Theodor Adorno’s essay, ‘Functionalism
today’, can profitably be set against Adolf Loos’s seminal piece, ‘Ornament and crime’,
while the section included from Fredric Jameson’s Seeds of Time, ‘The Constraints of
Postmodernism’, is a direct response to Kenneth Frampton’s equally seminal essay,
‘Towards a critical regionalism’.^9 The reason for including pieces critical of such
canonical works of architectural theory is not to undermine their authority, but rather to
reinforce their lines of thought by exposing the weaknesses in their argument. The essays
contained in this volume offer a number of strategies for rethinking architectural theory,
strategies whose aims are broadly in line with Jacques Derrida’s own project: