Recent Publications
Publications
Architecture exists in the public sphere and is the product of collective work and knowledge. Yet the defining boundaries of the discipline are often contested. Architects can and often must embody a spectrum of characters in their practice: politician, artist, physicist, entrepreneur. Likewise, a building is the nexus of multifaceted economies, legislations, and information systems. Since “architecture” has become a metonym for increasingly distributed persons and practices, how–and for whom—do we establish its domain?
To trace the evolving meanings of the term “domain” is to trace the changing ways that space has been defined, accessed, and constructed: from domain as a territory of private ownership or legal control; to the egalitarian promise of public domain; to an Internet site situated within an infinitely dispersed global network. Each of these shifts poses dramatic changes to how we conceive of boundaries, physically and conceptually. But as we insist on staking boundaries, we are impelled to search for their limits—however remote or nebulous.
This issue of Perspecta—the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America—offers an initial expedition into the contested spaces of architecture’s domains. Perspecta 44’s multidisciplinary scope, with contributors ranging from legal scholars to software engineers, asserts a new set of coordinates for mapping the terms of architectural production. By embracing the inherent complexities of Domain, Perspecta 44 seeks to overcome the architect’s conventional repertoire—Site, Program, and Client—and propose instead Field, Protocol, and User as an expanded vocabulary for spatial practice, not without boundaries but rather abiding by the shifting logics and contours of public space.
Nasser Rabbat—"The Pedigreed Domain of Architecture: A View from the Cultural Margin"
R. Howard Bloch—"Viollet-le-Duc’s ‘Republic of Architectural Art’: The Greco-Gothic Revival and the Building of Modern France"
Sophie Houdart—"How (Far) Does Culture Go? Kengo Kuma and His Architecture"
Office Kersten Geers David Van Severen—"One Text and Eight Projects"
Neil Denari—"HL23: Three Public Domains"
The Forum for Urban Design—"Public Territories and Reclaimed Infrastructure: A Panel Discussion on the High Line and Hudson River Park"
Bruno Latour—"Why Do Architects Read Latour?“
Craig Buckley—”‘A Definite and Persistent Monster’: Tony Smith’s Urban Vision"
Mario Carpo—"The Craftsman and the Curator"
Ralitza Petit—"Avatar-Space: The Ego Inc.“
Bêkafilms and Richard Meier—"Vox Populi/Vox Dei: Richard Meier Builds in Tor Tre Teste”
Common Room—"The 5 Obstructions (For Architecture)“
Stuart Wrede—"Revisiting 1968-69: On Novum Organum and Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks”
Sam Jacob—"Dot Dot Dot.“
C. Dana Tomlin—"Mapping What Isn’t Quite There”
Casey Reas and Ben Fry et al.—"Processing Architecture"
Peggy Deamer—"Practicing Practice"
Michael Rock—"Graphic Design in the Expanded Field"
Lawrence Lessig—"Re-crafting a Public Domain"
