On Theory
This article appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer 2005, Number 22. To order this issue or a subscription, visit the HDM homepage at . © 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Not to be reproduced without the permission of the publisher: hdm-rights@gsd.harvard.edu.
Critical of What?
Toward a Utopian Realism by Reinhold Martin
There has long been a tendancy in
vard Design Magazine
architecture to erect straw figures only to knock them down. In his article “‘Criticality’ and its Discontents,” published in the Fall 2004/Winter 2005 issue of dedicated to “Realism and Utopianism,” George Baird admirably—and, I think, accurately— summarizes recent efforts to do just that.1 These entail the identification of and subsequent assault on something called “the critical” or “critical architecture,” usually accompanied by a collateral assault on something called “theory.” At the risk of erecting yet another straw figure that tramples on the subtleties of Baird’s analysis, it might be fair to characterize such practices, variously named “post-critical” or “projective,” as sharing a commitment to an affect-driven, nonoppositional, nonresistant, nondissenting, and therefore nonutopian form of architectural production. But as Baird notes, these efforts have thus far failed to deliver an actual, affirmative project, settling instead for vague adjectives like “easy,” “relaxed,” and—perish the thought— “cool.” Baird therefore concludes his article by asking (with critical overtones?) what they expect to yield in the form of discourse or what he calls “critical assessHar-
ment.” In other words, by what criteria is the “post-critical” asking to be judged, beyond mere acceptance and accommodation of existing societal, economic, or cultural norms? This question seems worth pursuing but also, perhaps, rephrasing. Since, as with all the other “posts” that preceded it, the “post-critical” (or “relaxed” or “projective”) assumes the existence of what it
Critical of What?
Toward a Utopian Realism by Reinhold Martin
There has long been a tendancy in
vard Design Magazine
architecture to erect straw figures only to knock them down. In his article “‘Criticality’ and its Discontents,” published in the Fall 2004/Winter 2005 issue of dedicated to “Realism and Utopianism,” George Baird admirably—and, I think, accurately— summarizes recent efforts to do just that.1 These entail the identification of and subsequent assault on something called “the critical” or “critical architecture,” usually accompanied by a collateral assault on something called “theory.” At the risk of erecting yet another straw figure that tramples on the subtleties of Baird’s analysis, it might be fair to characterize such practices, variously named “post-critical” or “projective,” as sharing a commitment to an affect-driven, nonoppositional, nonresistant, nondissenting, and therefore nonutopian form of architectural production. But as Baird notes, these efforts have thus far failed to deliver an actual, affirmative project, settling instead for vague adjectives like “easy,” “relaxed,” and—perish the thought— “cool.” Baird therefore concludes his article by asking (with critical overtones?) what they expect to yield in the form of discourse or what he calls “critical assessHar-
ment.” In other words, by what criteria is the “post-critical” asking to be judged, beyond mere acceptance and accommodation of existing societal, economic, or cultural norms? This question seems worth pursuing but also, perhaps, rephrasing. Since, as with all the other “posts” that preceded it, the “post-critical” (or “relaxed” or “projective”) assumes the existence of what it