Xenotheka
Xenotheka
  • Home
  • Collaboration
  • On Xenotheka
  • Folders
  • Categories
    • _English Language
    • _French Language
    • _German Language
    • _Italian Language
    • Architectural Theory
    • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism
    • Architecture + Philosophy
    • Artists in Rome
    • Art Theory
    • Bernini
    • Christian Iconography
    • France
    • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism
    • Italy
    • Literary Theory
    • Historiography
    • Low Countries (Benelux)
    • Modern
    • Monuments + Conservation
    • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality
    • Popes, Vatican, Rome
    • Post-Modern
    • Renaissance
    • Rome
    • Sources
    • 17th Century
    • 1750-1850
    • 20th Century
    • 21th Century
  • ask.alice-ch3n81
  • _English Language
  • 1750-1850
  • 19th century
  • 20th Century
  • Architectural Theory
  • Modern

Purdy, On the Ruins of Babel

  • By: Xenotheka
  • August 30, 2018
  • 0
  • 9
  • 91

 
 

The eighteenth century struggled to define architecture as either an art or a science—the image of the architect as a grand figure who synthesizes all other disciplines within a single master plan emerged from this discourse. Immanuel Kant and Johann Wolfgang Goethe described the architect as their equal, a genius with godlike creativity. For writers from Descartes to Freud, architectural reasoning provided a method for critically examining consciousness. The architect, as philosophers liked to think of him, was obligated by the design and construction process to mediate between the abstract and the actual.

In On the Ruins of Babel, Daniel Purdy traces this notion back to its wellspring. He surveys the volatile state of architectural theory in the Enlightenment, brought on by the newly emerged scientific critiques of Renaissance cosmology, then shows how German writers redeployed Renaissance terminology so that “harmony,” “unity,” “synthesis,” “foundation,” and “orderliness” became states of consciousness, rather than terms used to describe the built world. Purdy’s distinctly new interpretation of German theory reveals how metaphors constitute interior life as an architectural space to be designed, constructed, renovated, or demolished. He elucidates the close affinity between Hegel’s Romantic aesthetic of space and Daniel Libeskind’s deconstruction of monumental architecture in Berlin’s Jewish Museum.

Through a careful reading of Walter Benjamin’s writing on architecture as myth, Purdy details how classical architecture shaped Benjamin’s modernist interpretations of urban life, particularly his elaboration on Freud’s archaeology of the unconscious. Benjamin’s essays on dreams and architecture turn the individualist sensibility of the Enlightenment into a collective and mythic identification between humans and buildings.

 
 

Download

Purdy_On the Ruins of Babel.pdf
Purdy_On the Ruins of Babel.txt
Purdy_On the Ruins of Babel.html
Purdy_On the Ruins of Babel.jpg
Purdy_On the Ruins of Babel.zip

 
 

  • Tags
  • Deconstructivism
  • Philosophy
← Previous Article
Price, Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage
→ Next Article
Saunders, The Art and Architecture of London

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recently added books

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

January 11, 2021
An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

January 11, 2021
Mack, The Sea: A Cultural History

Mack, The Sea: A Cultural History

January 6, 2021
Mirrlees, Collected Poems

Mirrlees, Collected Poems

January 6, 2021
Mitchell, Daoist Nei Gong: The Philosophical Art of Change

Mitchell, Daoist Nei Gong: The Philosophical Art of Change

January 6, 2021

Categories

  • _English Language 961
  • _French Language 53
  • _German Language 65
  • _Italian Language 53
  • _Latin Language 42
  • 1750-1850 64
  • 17th Century 76
  • 17th culture and other cities in Italy 5
  • 19th century 45
  • 20th Century 150
  • 21th Century 75
  • Ancient Literature 36
  • Architectural Theory 216
  • Architecture + Philosophy 28
  • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism 29
  • Art 6
  • Art Theory 96
  • Artificial Intelligence 1
  • Artists in Rome 20
  • Autobiography 1
  • Bernini 19
  • Catalogue 1
  • Christian Iconography 18
  • Christianity 7
  • Cinema 1
  • City 44
  • Design 29
  • Digital Architectonics 13
  • Drawings 39
  • Economy 13
  • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism 13
  • England & British Isles 23
  • Evolution 2
  • Fashion 5
  • Feminism 11
  • Film Festival 1
  • France 43
  • Gender and Sexuality Studies 4
  • Gothic 13
  • Greek, Roman Library 62
  • Historiography 31
  • Humanism 10
  • India 5
  • Italy 76
  • Landscape Architecture 8
  • LGBT 1
  • Libraries 0
  • Linguistics 1
  • Literary Criticism 2
  • Literary Theory 62
  • Literature 53
  • Low Countries (Benelux) 14
  • Mathematics 32
  • Medicine 1
  • medieval library 32
  • medieval literature 7
  • Modern 48
  • Monuments + Conservation 27
  • Mythology 13
  • Philosophy 210
  • Physics 11
  • Politics 46
  • Popes, Vatican, Rome 27
  • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality 56
  • Post-Modern 21
  • Programming 1
  • Psychology 14
  • Religion 2
  • Renaissance 77
  • Roman Architecture 19
  • Rome 118
  • Schinkel 8
  • Science 35
  • Sociology 12
  • Sources 56
  • Spain 10
  • Switzerland 47
  • Uncategorized 67
  • Urbanism 52

Follow Us

Most liked books

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

Duncan, The James Bond Archives

January 11, 2021
An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

An, Roman, 10 Creation Myths

January 11, 2021

Recent Comments

     

    Categories

    • _English Language 961
    • _French Language 53
    • _German Language 65
    • _Italian Language 53
    • _Latin Language 42
    • 1750-1850 64
    • 17th Century 76
    • 17th culture and other cities in Italy 5
    • 19th century 45
    • 20th Century 150
    • 21th Century 75
    • Ancient Literature 36
    • Architectural Theory 216
    • Architecture + Philosophy 28
    • Architecture and Literature, Symbolism 29
    • Art 6
    • Art Theory 96
    • Artificial Intelligence 1
    • Artists in Rome 20
    • Autobiography 1
    • Bernini 19
    • Catalogue 1
    • Christian Iconography 18
    • Christianity 7
    • Cinema 1
    • City 44
    • Design 29
    • Digital Architectonics 13
    • Drawings 39
    • Economy 13
    • Empire, Architecture + Catholicism 13
    • England & British Isles 23
    • Evolution 2
    • Fashion 5
    • Feminism 11
    • Film Festival 1
    • France 43
    • Gender and Sexuality Studies 4
    • Gothic 13
    • Greek, Roman Library 62
    • Historiography 31
    • Humanism 10
    • India 5
    • Italy 76
    • Landscape Architecture 8
    • LGBT 1
    • Libraries 0
    • Linguistics 1
    • Literary Criticism 2
    • Literary Theory 62
    • Literature 53
    • Low Countries (Benelux) 14
    • Mathematics 32
    • Medicine 1
    • medieval library 32
    • medieval literature 7
    • Modern 48
    • Monuments + Conservation 27
    • Mythology 13
    • Philosophy 210
    • Physics 11
    • Politics 46
    • Popes, Vatican, Rome 27
    • Portrait, Sculpture, Materiality 56
    • Post-Modern 21
    • Programming 1
    • Psychology 14
    • Religion 2
    • Renaissance 77
    • Roman Architecture 19
    • Rome 118
    • Schinkel 8
    • Science 35
    • Sociology 12
    • Sources 56
    • Spain 10
    • Switzerland 47
    • Uncategorized 67
    • Urbanism 52
    • Home
    • Collaboration
    • On Xenotheka
    • Folders
    • Categories
    • ask.alice-ch3n81

    Copyright © Xenotheka