Constructing a new agenda : architectural theory 1993-2009 / edited by A. Krista Sykes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Introduction -- Architectural curvilinearity : the folded, the pliant, and the supple / Greg Lynn -- Charter of the New Urbanism / Congress for the New Urbanism -- Thoughts on the everyday / Deborah Berke -- Mach 1 (and other mystic visitations) / Sanford Kwinter -- A new pragmatism? / John Rajchman -- The rural studio / Samuel Mockbee -- Field conditions / Stan Allen -- Junkspace / Rem Koolhaas -- The cunning of cosmetics / Jeffrey Kipnis -- Green questionnaire / Norman Foster, Jan Kaplicky, Richard Rogers, Ken Yeang, and Thomas Herzog -- Scale and span in a global digital world / Saskia Sassen -- Notes around the Doppler Effect and other moods of modernism / Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting -- Design intelligence / Michael Speaks -- From principles to practices : creating a sustaining architecture for the twenty-first century / William McDonough and Michael Braungart -- Boundaries/networks / William J. Mitchell -- Future city / Fredric Jameson -- Architecture and the virtual : towards a new materiality / Antoine Picon -- No more dreams? : the passion for reality in recent Dutch architecture-- and its limitations / Roemer van Toorn -- Architecture's expanded field / Anthony Vidler -- Architecture by numbers / K. Michael Hays -- Critical of what? : toward a utopian realism / Reinhold Martin -- Technology, place, and nonmodern regionalism / Steven A. Moore -- Raised to observe : Glenn Murcutt / interviewed by Cynthia Davidson -- On criticality / Arie Graafland -- Metaphysics of genetic architecture and computation / Karl S. Chu -- Introduction to Atlas of novel tectonics / Reiser + Umemoto -- Practice makes perfect / Sylvia Lavin -- Ru(m)inations : the haunts of contemporary architecture / John McMorrough -- Afterword / K. Michael Hays -- Contributors' biographies -- Selected bibliography -- Index.

This follow-up to Kate Nesbitt's best-selling anthology Theorizing a New Agenda collects twenty-eight essays that address architecture theory from the mid-1990s, where Nesbitt left off, through the present. Kristin Sykes offers an overview of the myriad approaches and attitudes adopted by architects and architectural theorists during this era. Multiple themes including the impact of digital technologies on processes of architectural design, production, materiality, and representation; the implications of globalization and networks of information; the growing emphasis on sustainable and green architecture; and the phenomenon of the 'starchitect and iconic architecture appear against a background colored by architectural theory, as it existed from the 1960s on, in a period of transition (if not crisis) that centers around the perceived abyss between theory and practice. Theory's transitional state persists today, rendering its immediate history particularly relevant to contemporary thought and practice. While other collections of recent theoretical writings exist none attempt to address the situation as a whole, providing in one place key theoretical texts of the past decade and a half. This book provides a foundation for ongoing discussions surrounding contemporary architectural thought and practice, with iconic essays by Greg Lynn, Deborah Berke, Sanford Kwinter, Samuel Mockbee, Stan Allen, Rem Koolhaas, William Mitchell, Anthony Vidler, Micahel Hays, Reinhold Martin, Reiser + Umemoto, Glenn Murcutt, William McDonough, Micahael Braungart, Michael Speaks, and many more.