Symptomatic Reading of Architecture

HIS 4523 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

Within the longstanding traditions of architectural interpretation, this course proceeds from two alternative positions that share a single premise: the semiotic model of architectural theory is exhausted. The first alternative is symptomatic reading in its Althusserian lineage — structural causality, the Lacanian theory of the subject, and current extensions of ideology critique — which locates meaning in a work’s silences and structuring absences. The second is François Jullien’s écart—the deliberate divergence opened between European and Chinese thought, which exposes as contingent those categories that present themselves as philosophically universal—being, truth, author, origin, and representation lose their air of inevitability once set against hua (transformation), shi (propensity), efficacy, and situation.

The seminar reads foundational texts in both traditions: symptomatic reading and silent transformation. The instructors will test these procedures against recent architecture in the United States, China, and Europe. Alongside this material the instructors develop a contemporary theory of architecture’s inscription.