Topic
becoming a computer & how to unlearn it
The role of beauty in postindustrial architectural production
The thesis at hand can be seen as a discourse analysis of the architectural debate extending from the Industrial to the Digital Revolution. An analogue data collection takes shape in form of a handwritten book. During the reflexive act of handwriting and reading a new narrative is unfolding. The interweaving and juxtaposition of various statements reveals a contemporary position on the question of what architecture can and should achieve beyond fulfilling quantifiable specifications. Conventional design parameters are being questioned and complemented. The starting point of the work was the statistically verifiable fact that broad user groups are dissatisfied with contemporary architecture. This survey explores the popular question why new architecture is “so ugly” at various socio-political levels that architecture is reflecting.They for example comprise the mechanisation of production through industrialisation, the development of liberal capitalism, and the digitisation of design tools since the 1990ies which have led to a kind of hyperrationalisation in current architectural production. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant has defined beauty as a feeling in the observer. Dissolving sexist narratives rooted in modernism that propagate pure functionalism instead of people-friendly spaces will open the door to new kinds of freedom: as soon as subjective perception regains its value architecture in which people are feeling welcomed as human beings is within reach. Closely connected to the theoretical work an art installation performatively illustrates the role of architects. There are only one handwritten original and a limited number of physical copies of this scientific paper.
Supervision