Time's Arrows: Spaces of the Past/ Greig Crysler /2012

Crysler's introduction to the section "History/Memory/Tradition" in Sage Handbook of Architectural History argues that discussions of time and space are inseparable and any discussion of time is also a discussion of space. He explores the threads connecting the terms history, memory, tradition to architecture, even as they all appear to have distinct meanings when looked in isolation.

In the physical sciences, the 'arrow of time' refers to the notion that time moves in linear direction, and that the past is distinct and different from the future. What has happened in the past is understood to be irrevocable and unchangeable. In opposition to this, Crysler's essay examines the theory of 'spatial turn' that has emerged in the social sciences and humanities in the last three decades that "denaturalizes time by examining it as a social construction" (290). This theory argues that time and space have to be understood together, and any study of the past is simultaneously a study of imagined spaces. Crysler argues that time as it registers in social process is shaped by the production, organization, and use of space. In this time-space discussion he visualizes four types of 'timezones' -- multiple and contradictory temporalities emerging from the past.

1. Accelerated Time: 

 1. World City Theorists' Friedman and Sassen: Center and Periphery model/ Command and Control model : As time is moving faster/ is accelerated with globalization (shrinking of the globe) through speedy data transmission, rapid capital/ material/human movement and so on, there is an expansion or reorganization of space through displacement/ gentrification etc.
2. Lefebvre's Production of Space: Spatialization of social theory - social theory of urban society which was looked only through Marxist theory of economic functions was changed by Lefebvre's discourse on space.
3. Edward Soja: Lefebvrian discourse of space challenged 19th century historicism which presented space as a result of evolutionary time (space independently changes with time) or ignored it altogether. Soja argues that time and space are reciprocative -- as space is shaped by capitalism (economy), economy in turn is shaped by urban space.
4. David Harvey: Space is a social process. It is an ideological representation which can influence social change and in turn perception of time.

Copies without origin: When copies (simulations) are made of the past -- through heritage preservations and simulated reconstructions -- time dissolves into a flux where past can be uprooted, deterritorialized, and commodified on a global scale. History disappears or gets obscured through the spectacular visibility of the past -- 'culture of disappearance'.
In theme parks (simulated themed environments) the future dissolves into the present in a degenerate (dilute?) form. Sorkin's example of Disneyland is an example of collapsing of time in space where it becomes impossible to imagine a utopic future outside of these environs.
On an urban scale this can be seen in Rem Koolhas's "futuristic" vision of third world cities like Lagos, Hong Kong, Singapore where third world becomes not something that the first world has to progress from but rather progress towards.

1. Baudrillard (Hyperrealist): capitalist production moved from producing things of use value to exchange value. "Mirror of Production": production of a pervasive and constantly shifting spectacle of consumption that is based on economics of desire that is managed by marketing, advertising experts.
2. Manfredo Tafuri: Production of architecture not for its use value in communication but for its visual currency and consumer capital.


3. Remembered Time: 

As time is accelerating, history is disappearing, and memory is multiplying. There is an exponential growth of memory industry through museums, archives, memory studies etc. as a response to faltering legitimacy of progressive history. Memory is a social construction.

1. Pierre Nora: As bounded communities of collective memory disappear, "sites of memory" are needed to preserve the past from being destructed by history.
2. Alois Riegl (Modern Cult of Monuments): Past is made visible as "historical values" through determinations of the present.
3. Maurice Halbwachs: Memory is not intrinsic or given, but rather produced in shared social spaces.

Built environments help in activating, sustaining and modifying memory in three ways:
First, memory production intensifies in periods of rapid social change and is dependent upon on temporality of modernization.
Second, memory is created through specific social situations in the present and are key in establishing power relations.
Third, memory is not discovered by scholars/analysts but rather they are inherently present in artifacts who significance is produced through shared or contested processes.

Recollecting and articulating of memory happens through institutionalized practices often embedded in power struggles between contesting agencies. In such power struggles, memory/artifact is frozen at an opportune moment, and prevented from degenerating over time. "Preservation is not only about stopping time, but also claiming time". The minimum age to be claimed as 'heritage' is decreasing. As history is becoming more accessible, 19th century periodization of history becomes moot and the historic past is no longer the metaphorical foreign country. i.e. preservationists can bring to life the historic past.

Mrinalini Rajagopalan argues, preservation is not a technical process but a social process, as the decision of what has to be preserved precedes how it is done. In Colonial times, the preservations in the colonies was an orientalist representation of indigenous history, culture, and architecture. She argues, waves of modernization trough postcolonial nationalism, globalization have created different ideas of what has to be preserved. Preservation is a result of interchanges between bureaucracies, academia, legalities, and changing epistemologies of architectural history. Preservation becomes a tool to suspend artifacts in time, so that it becomes an origin for future myths in the discourse of market and nation.

A General Theory of Tourism

Tourism - An activity undertaken by a "tourist" who is a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change (Valene Smith)

Graburn - Tourism is a secular ritual where tourism and leisure stand in opposition to home and work. Thus "ritual theory" proposes that there are "push" and "pull" factors in tourism.
The work/home (sacred) and travel/leisure (profane) phases alternate in most people's lives, and these mark our rites of passages as suggested by Arnold Van Gnepp

Eric Cohen - Phenomenology of Tourism
1. Tourists (existentialists) who get enamored and stay back in the sites they visit
2. Tourists (experimentalists) who go out of their way in tourist sites to explore and experiement foreign cultures, but will eventually return home
3. Tourists (experiential) who are only looking for a temporary change in their lifestyle, never doubt their return to their home/work, and do not venture to try new experiences in the tourist site

Dean MacCannell: 
Urban and suburban middle class people are aware that their everyday life is without meaning and overtly artificial. Hence, they seek out "authenticity" in "other" places. This is the primary motivation for tourism --a search for authenticity.
This follows David Lowenthal's argument that "past is a foreign country".
But today's package tourists understand modernity's nostalgia for pre-modern and "stage authenticity" to please the tourists. In this, tourists looking for authenticity only get to see "staged authenticity".

Different kinds of front-back regions: one where authenticity of staged for tourists in varying degrees, and one which is the real back stage.. where locals go about their everyday life accepting the presence of tourists as a part of regional scenery. But only few people try to go to the original backstage.

*incomplete review*

Giedeon/ Space Time Architetcure

Giedion's aim was not only analyzing the past, but also evaluating the present and anticipating the future.

Industrialization brought about both new materials and new usages for old materials. For example iron, which was not so much preferred until the nineteenth century because of its poor resistance to corrosion, lack of classical precedents, and difficulty to produce except in relatively small quantities, became much popular in the nineteenth century with the development of new techniques in construction.

According to him, the architecture of the present is not the product of a few of protagonists appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century, but it is rooted in the nineteenth century with the beginning of industrial revolution.

The Chicago School had an important place in American architecture especially for the development of the high-rise buildings in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. This engineeringbased architecture school under the pioneering of William Le Baron Jenney, an École Polytechnique graduated French engineer-architect, achieved notable novelties in architectonic detail and ornament, and trained many remarkable architects such as Louis Sullivan. The muddy ground of Chicago led the local architects to invent the floating foundation. The high-rise buildings were erected with the help of iron skeleton, and the iron skeleton brought about the horizontally elongated window.

The sixth chapter, „Space-Time in Art, Architecture, and Construction‟, the reader encounters with the birth of new art and architecture in Europe. But first of all, one needs to know the factors that affect the human activities, which are social, economic, and functional, as well as human feelings and emotions.

While Cubism reinterpreted space-time conception through spatial representation, Futurism reinterpreted it through movement. Gradually, the Bauhaus was under the effect of the abstractionists and De Stijl group, but it was never affected by the expressionists. Bauhaus was established to melt art, science and industry in the same pot using architecture as the medium

As Giedion mentions, Germany was quite welcoming to the ideas of every kind until the thirties. For those years, while the Austrian architects Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner were active in Germany, Peter Behrens was accepted as the representative of the German architecture; some of the protagonists of modern architecture worked in his office, such as Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier.

Giedion draws attention to the feature of the new architecture that the approach in design tend to resemble each other; however by keeping the regional characteristics, – such as it does in Brasil or in Finland – and by representing the spirit of the age they are able to remain unique.

The usage of glass and the attention to the proportions can be considered as the main aspects of his design. His skyscraper apartments represent the next generation of the Chicago School –now with a combination of artist‟s creativity and the immense means of industrialization. Giedion is quite satisfied with the idea of creativity and mechanization operating together. On the other hand, the integrity of form becomes important. Mies van der Rohe‟s design concept is evolved just according to this principle. With every building he designed, he approaches the pure form. Without differentiating his style, he treated every project even; and as Giedion claims, Mies van der Rohe‟s working methods brought a „deep moral influence‟ upon current American architecture.

The book is considered as a praiser of modern architecture, yet what distinguishes it from the other books on modern architecture is the way Giedion took in order to analyze the evolution of the modern architecture. He suggested exploring the roots of modern architecture beginning with the Renaissance, and sought for a common denominator to unite the factors that composed the true architecture. The examination of the tendencies throughout the periods since the Renaissance, the revelation of the hidden facts –which are of cardinal importance for an accurate architecture-, the cooperation of science and arts on the behalf of the human‟s sake should be investigated through the way Giedion handled.

Kostof assesses Giedion as an appropriate and sufficient collaborator of the modern movement, who was a devoted spokesman of the case through his publications and being the secretary of CIAM. Kostof introduces the reader the notion of „ Giedionesque thought‟, which champions a rather democratic approach towards the small items of everyday life and towards the society in its most expanded meaning. Yet, he concludes that Giedion‟s approach, the way he examined the modern movement is the most valuable and worthwhile aspect of Space, Time and Architecture. Space, Time and Architecture is accepted by Kostof as Giedion‟s “next major step in the historical rehabilitation of the Modern Movement” after being involved with CIAM and the publication of Building in France. 279 What Kostof underscores is the insistence of Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock with their proclamation of the International Style, in spite of the rejection of the word "style" by Giedion.

Society of Spectacle/ Guy Debord

Debord suggests that modern society has undergone a significant and unique development since around the time of mass industrialization. People have moved away from the existence of necessity and toward an existence of surplus. As modern production has enabled the mass accumulation of capital, so it has changed the fundamental nature of the experience of living.

The result is Debord's society of the spectacle where, first, the condition of being is replaced by the condition of having; and, second, the condition of having is replaced by the appearance of having. In other words, modern production has enabled a surplus of the necessities of life so great that most people never face the reality of, e.g., starvation. In the early stages of the spectacle, massive amounts of capital are stockpiled—being is replaced by having. In the later stages of the spectacle, amassed capital becomes so immense that it is valueless within the system—having is replaced by the appearance of having.

Chapter one of Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" deals with the changing relation between direct experience and mediated representation in modern times, and it opens with the assertion that"Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation". For Debord the spectacle is not a collection of images, "but a social relation among people, mediated by images" (4) and he assigns the spectacle with reifying capacities, justifying society as it is. However, for Debord there is no separation between material "real life" and the false represented one, the spectacle. They are intertwined to such a degree that "the true is a moment of the false" (9), by displaying life, the spectacle negates them by reducing them to mere appearance.

The Society of the Spectacle is a critique of contemporary consumer culture and commodity fetishism, dealing with issues such as class alienation, cultural homogenization, and the mass media. In a consumer society, social life is not about living, but about having; the spectacle uses the image to convey what people need and must have. Consequently, social life moves further, leaving a state of "having" and proceeding into a state of "appearing"; namely the appearance of the image.

*incomplete review*

the question of narrative in contemporary historical theory/ Hayden White

• Narrative has been viewed neither as theory nor as a method, but rather as a form of discourse
• "historical" narrative differs from "fictional" narrative on the basis of its content not form
• The content in historical narratives are real events that are "found" but they can also be "constructed"-- verbal fictions
• Historical narrative follow empirically validated facts, but also need imaginative filling
• Narrative will be a result of the application of a proper historical method. 
• Dissertative discourse -- interpretation / Narrative discourse -- representation
• Annales school members like Braudel criticized narrative history
• Follows postmodernist debate that there is no truth in history
• History is literary artifacts - distinguishes between history and story
• Historical narrative -- medium not the message

History in Practice/ Jordonova

Jordonova talks about the practice of history, rather than a theoretical approach. "What historians actually do, and how and why they do it"

• The most important work of a historian is writing. 
• Practice of history - finding sources -- archives, oral history, engaging with the material, writing.
• However reliable, even in the hands of the most impartial historian, documents can never tell us what happened in the past objectively
• What do historians mean by "truth"? -- Mistaken claims to knowledge
• History is neither an art nor a science
• Primary and Secondary sources - subject both to unsparing irterrogation
• Public history: History has written and produced by salaried historians against what the public seems to think happened (collective memory)  -- popular history
• Public history - deeply political

Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire / Pierre Nora

"Nora begins with a basic distinction: between memory and history. He suggests that we
have arrived at a juncture at which history - cold, distant, critical - is taking the place of, and
hence largely eradicating, collective memory."

Memory - Traditional, peasant, lived, vibrant, collective
History - Modern, cold, distilled, belongs to no one and everyone

"Nora argues that the form of memory prompted by and reflected in lieux de memoire is fundamentally different from ''traditional memory''. It is ''modem memory'', memory "seized by history." Where traditional memory is unmediated, unconscious, and passed down through unspoken traditions, modem memory has been transformed by history: it is deliberate, voluntary, and, most importantly, always indirect - mediated by self-consciousness and awareness of the distance of the past."

"Modern Memory is archival: Here Nora brings in the preoccupation with conservation and preservation. Archives, museums, data banks, oral history projects, even photo albums exemplify "modem memory'', since they have "become the deliberate and calculated secretion of lost memory. [They] add to life...a prothesis-memory .... Even as traditional memory disappears, we feel obliged. .. to collect remains, testimonies, documents, images, speeches, any visible signs of what has been. .. " (13) That is, we hold on to pieces of the past because we think they will enable us to remember or re-encounter that which we know to be irretrievably lost We have forgotten how to remember, so we keep everything. The things we keep become lieux de memoire.

The bungalow: The production of a global culture/ Anthony King/ 1984

King presents a cultural history of the Bungalow. He traces its growth and movement from its indigenous setting in India to the west primarily through the British. King writes that the idea of the Bungalow was modified by the British to suit their needs, and then exported to the colonized world in Africa and South East Asia. He ends the book with the coming of Bungalow to North America, and later being adopted in Australia.
King calls the omnipresence of the Bungalow all over the world as a 'global culture'.

In its original form, Bangala was a mud thatched hut in Bengal regions of India. Later on, the indigenous houses built in the region took on the same name. The British, however, modified the scale of the house, and set it in a different social and political setting to house their officials. During the later years of colonization, upward social mobility of the colonial elite allowed them to occupy similar houses "Bungalows" as the ones in which British officials lived. A large number of Bungalows were built to house both the growing colonial elites and the British officials.

This Indo-British product was exported to London, where there was excess capital and shortage of land in the city. The Bungalows came to occupy seaside locations, and emphasized a Bohemian lifestyle of the owner. With a demand for Bungalows, they started being prefabricated. With the advent of prefabricated  Bungalows at seaside locations,  zoning and land-use regulations were modified to accommodate them in London countryside. These dwellings came to represent working class British homes.

As British officials travelled to other colonies,  this Europeanized Bungalow form was exported to other British colonies like North Africa. King argues the widespread construction of Bungalows in Africa (Western Africa) changed the familial and social structure of the society forever. During urbanization, working class Africans who could not afford to live in Bungalows were forced to have nuclear families. This arrangement did not change after the independence.

In North America, the Bungalow appealed to reformers, bohemians, feminists given its history with being one with nature, and being more individualistic as opposed to community living and apartments. But post ww2 wealth and ostentatiousness made the Bungalow appear too austere and simple. But the California Bungalow gained attention all over the world.

The California bungalow became popular in Australia post 1920's. Since there was no prior indigenous urbanization, the form of the bungalow was adopted and modified to suit regional needs.

Orientalism/ Edward Said/ 1978

School of thought: Postcolonial

Historiography of Scholarship: Foucault (Discipline and Punish), Gramsci (Consent and Hegemony)

Said argues the 'orient' to be an European invention, and presents three meanings of his term 'Orientalism'. First, in the academic world, Orientalism apples to everyone who studies, writes, teaches about the Orient. Second, it is style of thought based upon an ontological difference created between the 'Occident' and the 'Orient'. Third, in a larger sense, Orientalism can be thought of as a corporate institution of the west, for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the orient.

By employing Foucault's notion of discourse, Said argues Orientalism to be a discourse through which the Europe created a a systematic discipline (myth turned into a discipline) through which they managed and produced the 'orient'. Second, by using Gramsci's idea of hegemony, or rather cultural hegemony, he argues by orientalising, Europe established its identity as being far superior to all other non-europeans. The west was defining itself by defining the 'Other'. (Ex: because the religion of Christ is called Christianity, they termed the religion following Muhammed as Muhammedism")
A dichotomy was constructed with the west being civilized, hygienic, intellectual, rational world; and the oriental world being uncivilized, unhygienic, mysterious, esoteric, superstitious etc. This construction of the orient was eventually employed for political dominance.

Said uses 19th century novels by Stacy and Renan where they romanticized the East, as being an entirely different place from the west. Said argues that earlier European novels depicting the East as esoteric created a bias and prejudice for further writers and visitors who encountered the orient with a colored lens.

He argues that today (post WW2) the center of orientalism has shifted from Europe to the USA. While earlier oriental studies were undertaken to understand the colonial populace, make policies for them, and rule them; the independence of European colonies put an end to such a discourse. Later, orientalism has been occurring through western academic scholarship centered in the the US.

Said's final argument is that his primary contention is against the creation of boundaries of 'self' and 'other', rather than critiquing scholars who generalize an entire population or exclude the orient's perspective in their narrative.

Critique: Critiquing an entire scholarship created of the Orients by western scholars as Orientalism is in itself a sweeping generalization. 

Colonizing Egypt / Timothy Mitchell/ 1991

Mitchell argues that the British orientalized the Egypt in the process of colonizing them.

In the first chapter, he gives a textual tour of the Paris exposition in 1851 were British put up 'Egypt' on display. Winding roads and dirty houses were recreated in the exhibition, and dirty looking Egyptians were brought in to pose and dance for the visitors to the exposition. He argues that Egypt was made into an 'object' that was put on display. The group of Egyptians who were visiting were disgusted by this and kept themselves away. In this exhibition not even colonial elites (like the king of Egypt) was made an exception. When the rulers encountered British description of themselves they strategically decided to Europeanize themselves, and accept that Egyptians needed to embrace modernity.

The later chapter, discuss the 19th century colonial projects which were carried out in a system called 'new order'. The British created a new military framework by drafting Egyptian peasants, and to ensure the peasants stayed in the barracks they created a 'model village' of western-style houses. Concurrently the colonial elites who had encountered their constructed image in Paris, went about westernizing the streets of Cairo and introduced western style education in the schools to instill self discipline in students. He explaining the actions of both the British and the colonial elite, Mitchell employs Foucault's idea of 'institutional/ disciplinary power' to discuss the human agency in making 'objectness'. Mitchell argues that these processes of westernization were rationalized under Islamic traditions. In colonizing Egypt, Mitchell argues that British and colonial elites constructed a new Egypt.

Historiographical engagement: Foucault (Power), Said (Orientalism)

The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism / Gwendolyn Wright / 1991

Wright argues that urban design was strategically used as a tool to make colonialism more tolerable for colonized and more popular among colonizers. Analyzing three cities in French colonized North Africa: Indochina, Madagascar, and Morocco, she argues that urban culture was used in political endeavor.

She argues that the French modernized certain sections of the city like public health, industries,  and supported certain other aspects (like building and maintaining opulent palaces for Sultans) so that the traditional values are preserved.

Main argument: French used the colonies as laboratories where they could experiment urban planning strategies that could be eventually implemented in the metropole: Paris, Lyon etc. They saw the colonies as tabula rasa. As administrators were seeking to maintain colonies without having to use military, they used architects, urban planners, geographers etc to introduce urban planning measures in the colonies. Through this they hoped that the colonized people would become loyal and appreciative of the French, and the French planners could test planning methods.

Contradictory methods were suggested in doing this. The early 19 century method called "assimilation" which was more heavy handed and hegemonic. French planners introduced standardized buildings, simplified geometric forms, and the city was imagined as a unified whole rather than as haphazard organic growth. French predominance in language, laws, and military dominance by destroying indigenous cities. As this process came under attack, primarily for moral reaons in the early 20th century, a  second process called "association", that tried to respect indigenous traditions and architecture, and aimed to maintain a balance between modernization and preservation was introduced -- "laboratory for colonial life and conservatory for oriental life".

Morocco: Herbert Luatey - association - dual city - preserving the indigenous city with mosques and winding streets, and constructing an outer neighborhood for colonial officials. There was a no-construction zone between the two settlements - "sanitary corridor". The French quarters had large roads, sanitation, zoning guidelines but used Moroccan motifs in design and used to indigenous climatological design solutions. Habous districts were newly created as harmonious districts to accommodate growing population. These provided some facilities that old Arab cities lacked like sanitation and thoroughfares, but were still inherently Moroccan in cultural form. This became the western setting for tourism.

Indochina (Vietnam): Here too they wanted to strike a balance between modernization and preserving local architecture and culture. But the architects and planners only had superficial knowledge of the cultural differences. Herbard outlined a zoning plan that restricted uses for different districts in the city. But here the restriction and segregation was not not based on military dominance but relied on modern industry, financial development, cultural tolerance.

Madagascar: This island had resisted colonization for 100 years by refusing to built inland roads. But French abolished slavery, and forcibly put former slaves who migrated to cities to build roads. Seeing the success of Morocco and Indochina they wanted to follow a balanced model without disturbing local traditions unnecessarily. But since malaria and plague were major concerns they built wide roads outside the native city - cordon sanitaire - to segregate the population. But this separation did not help prevent mosquitoes, and the next governor general implemented standardized building with concrete, and uniform buildings were built for both Madagascar workers and French officials in place of old indigenous buildings.

Comments: Local voice is lost as Wright only narrates the story of French colonial urbanism and politics using references from French architects and planners. Were the lessons learnt in the colonies used in the metropole? What was the fate of these colonial designs post the nations' independence? How did the dual city model affect the natives' lives?

The Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City/ 1996

Jacobs book marks a critical move from earlier colonial discourses on urbanism by moving the spatial rhetoric to 'real' geographies. She studies four cities --two in London and two in Autralia -- to bring together the theories of colonial and postcolonial urbanism with studies of postmodern contemporary cities. She traces contemporary processes of urban redevelopment in postmodern cities which were previouslt the seat of Imperialism, to show how the relations of power and difference of colonialism still lingers on in first world cities, and is challenged through politics of identity and power that artculates itself through spaces.

By picking four cities - London, Spatialfields, Perth, Brisbane -- she destablises the edge and periphery model of postcolonial urbanism at the outset. These examples represent the presence of a third world inside the firest world (the aboriginal australia, disporic communities in London). By examining the local in the global city, Jacobs says, she unsettles the cultural geographies and politics of power and identity. Jacobs situates both the postcolonial and postmodern in the first world. If one followed, Anthony King and Brenda Yeoh, these cities can be termed "post-imperial"metropoles.

Colonialism/Imperialism: "Imperialism defined as the practice, the theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre ruling a distant territory. Colonialism, by his definition, is a specific

articulation of imperialism associated with territorial invasions and settlements." (Said)

Jacobs argues that term 'postcolonial' is prematurely celebratory since there still exists unresolved tensions and conflicts in the spaces of both the colonized and colonizer. Aboriginal in Australia are still fighting for their identity as indigenous/native, and Bangaladeshi immigrants in London are still victims of Xenophobia etc. Jacobs conceptualizes postcolonialism as "an historically

dispersed set of formations which negotiate the ideological, social and material structures of power established under colonialism."(p.25) Citing several postcolonial critics, she writes, by terming an entire set of nations postcolonial, there is generalization of diverse culture and geographies.

London: Bank Junction - Urban redevelopment struggles. Jacobs argues that imperialism, the power struggle is continuing even today in postcolonial cities.  People protested the re-development of heritage area of Bank Junction in London. The buildings and memorials here were considered to be reminiscent of the Imperial domination.
Spitalfields: Bengali immigrants were being driven out due to gentrification. 

The International Style/ Hitchcock and Johnson/ 1932

"Architecture is always a set of actual monuments, not a vague corpus of theory".

The 18th century was a time of revival, chief among which were styles of Classical Revival and Medieval Revival. But the stylistic confusion of combining the styles of revivalism with the new methods and technologies of construction was the

In the 19th century, the revival styles came to be used as decorative elements with no relation to interior space and function. The style of 'Eclecticism' created more chaos. The authors argue that one of the primary reasons that some architects revolted in the 20th century to these styles was that "eclecticism' had broken away from the disciplines of classical architecture, and was simply imitating them. They write that it is possible to imitate the essence of past styles, but imitating their surfaces is problematic.

In this context, they argue, a new style was born -- that which resembled Gothic in terms of structure, and resembled the classical in terms of handling problems.

International Style: Not international in the sense that buildings built in different countries look similar. Neither is it so prescriptive that works of different architects are indistinguishable. This has become distinguishable as a style only after different architects in different countries have carried out similar experiments which share characteristics.
Three characteristics:
conception of architecture as volume and not mass
regularity vs axial symmetry
Proscribing decorative ornamentation

Chapter 2:
The need to break away from existing architectural traditions:
1. availability of new building technologies
2. development of architectural design regardless of limitations

Beginnign of 19th century architects began to move away from revival styles. But stylistic integration did not happen until after world war. Although Industrial architecture of Germany, Berlage at Amsterdam, use of ferroconcrete at paris had initiated principles of International style independently before war.

But it was in America that the International style came into fruition. Walter Gropius, JJ Oud, Mies Van Rohe, Le Corbusier can be considered to be the primary figures of International style. 

All That is Solid Melts into Air/ Marshall Berman/ 1982

Marshall Berman's book is a critique of postmodernism. He urges the readers to reconsider the history of modernity which will enrich our present and may even guide us into the future. In his introduction 'Modernity- yesterday, today, tomorrow' he briefly traces the different experiences of modernity in 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries and argues that our ancestors experience with modernity has been much richer.

He begins with this childhood home in Bronx that was demolished to build highway under the orders of Robert Moses. He writes that since highways symbolized modernity, the people opposing the construction (as they were loosing their homes from the demolition) were made to feel guilty, as if they were opposing modernity.

Modernity: Historical experience. Experience of men and women in modern environments.
Modernization: Social processes that bring a maelstrom (industrialization, scientific progress etc) into being, and keep it in a perpetual state of being. People being both subjects and objects on modernization.
Modernism: The visions and values that modernization brings, and gives people the power to be changed and change the world they live in modernism.

History of Modernity
1st Phase: 16th to 18th century : people don’t know what hit them. Beginning to grapple with new ideas.
2nd phase: French revolution – 1790 – end of 19th century – revolutionary ideas, upheavals in social and political lives. 

19th century: People can understand what it means to live in modernity. Ideas of modernism and modernization emerge. People are living in two worlds simultaneously.
3rd Phase: 20th century: expands to the entire world. Modernity breaks down society into fragments – people loose touch with their roots.

He critiques post-modernists as being too quick to reduce modernism into a closed monolith that is incapable of being shaped by modern men anymore. He critiques postmodernism as leading towards a nihilistic point of view, and sucking the optimism of modernism. He critiques Foucault and his postmodernist theories for behaving as if everything in the society is new, and modern man does not have any freedom in shaping his/her own world. Berman suggests that postmodernist ideas are "simply iterations of the constant intellectual evolution of modernity itself, that in seeking to destroy the modernist ideas that preceded them they have in fact become simply the newest destructive forces that are inherent in the modern cycle of destruction and rebirth."

Berman argues that by examining our contemporary society (Today) through the visions and lens of (Yesterday), 19th century modernists will encourage us to create the modernisms of 21st century (Tomorrow). He argues modernisms of the past can help us connect the world and brings together people who are going through the processes of modernization together.

He engages with Goethe's Faust, Marx's Communist Manifesto, Baudelaire's essays on modernity, and Dostoevsky's and Gogol's digresses about Crystal Palace to introduce the vitality and dynamism inherent in early modernist writers.

The End of Tradition, or the Tradition of Endings/ Nezar Alsayyad/ 2004

Alsayyad begins the essay by tracing the four threads of recent discourses on endings. The first is Daniel Bell's "The end of ideology". Bell argued that 19th century ideologies like Marxism were ending, and that a new utopia of social harmony cannot be brought about through ideological means. But this theory was proved false with the radicalism that arose in 1960's. The second is Fukuyama's 'End of history and the the last man' which argued that as western liberal democracy takes root and the sociocultural evolution of man will halt with liberal government becoming the final form of governing. But this was also wrong since liberal democracy has been constantly challenged by fundamentalism, radical movements, and authoritarianism. The third discourse was Ohmae's End of Nation state that argued that as the money that moves between nations are mostly private, there is no need for a nation-state involved. Fourth, Jacoby's 'End of Utopia' that argues with the wide spreading of free market capitalism there cannot be any radical changes and that utopia that brings about change is dead. Alsayyad argues that all these endings are a fallacy, and in the 21st century there exists real threats to liberal democracy, history, capitalism, and new ideologies still emerge.

On tradition: Alsayyad argues that tradition has to be seen as the process that creates contested subjectivities involved in producing/occupying spaces. First study of tradition in 1989: Tuan argued Tradition to be a constraint. Paul Oliver presented the concept of handing down traditions and Rapoport came up with a list of attributes to test the degree of trasitionality.

On built environment: How built traditional environments have to studies in response to changes in society? Glassie and Rapoport say architecture is material culture/cultural landscape and they reflect the norms of the society. Abu Lughod argues for breaking down of dichotomies and suggests the use of 'traditioning' as a verb in opposition of tradition as a noun (process over product). She argues that traditional environments should not be seen as endangered environments. Following this argument Alsayyad argues that deterritorialization of identity through globalization happens in 4 phases, Insular phase (indigenous vernacular) colonial (hybrid architecture) independent nation building (modernization), and globalization (settlements homogenized, and people are ethnically aware).

Alsayyad asks, if the end of tradition as an object of enquiry suggests an end of tradition as an objective reality? Answering his question negatively, he says the new modes of enquiry into tradition only suggests that tradition as a concept we have know thus far is ending, and not the end of tradition itself.

The book is divided into 3 parts:

Part 1 examines the dialectic nature of tradition and modernity. The three essays present new ways of looking at tradition through the lens of modernity.

Jane Jacobs: Tradition is (not) modern - Tradition and modernity are codependent but mutually exclusive. Tradition is imagined by modernity. Globalization has not killed tradition but rather reshaped it. Aboriginals in Australia hired architects to insert aboriginal identity into contemporary architecture of touristic buildings. Traditional authority was channeled through modes of modernity.
Ananya Roy: Nostalgias of the Modern: End of tradition is end of traditional ways of thinking. Consumption of tradition is production of tradition.
Dwelling: Authenticity- Recovering authenticity by creating nostalgia. (Crystal palace, Eifel Tower)
Performing: making explicit acts of consuming tradition. (Algiers)

Part 2: examines traditions as a process of invention. The three essays examine how traditions are "manufactured, packaged and deployed". An invented landscape inherently depeds upon succesful deployment of invented traditions. Since invented traditions are often messy and are competitive in what traditions they are excluding invented landscapes are usually a failure.

Part 3 examines tradition as a representation of a regime. It shows how tradition is programmed, policed, and deployed in hegemonic struggles that create both built environemnts and citizen subjects through its reworking of tradition.  Essays include Mia Fuller's examination of standardized farmhouses enforced by Italian fascist regimes to ensure that people thought of national identity before regional identity, and Dufang Lu's example of breaking and rebuilding city walls in China as a symbolic entity.

"What has ended is not tradition itself, but the idea of tradition as a harbinger of authenticity, and as a container of specific cultural meaning, as a place-based, temporally situated concept; as a static authoritative legacy; as a heritage owned by certain groups of people."

"Tradition is no longer found only in ‘real’ places; it lives on in the most fake of all places, where

it is reborn everyday in the social practice of those who inhabit what used to be the

space of fakery."

Behind the postcolonial/ Abidin Kusno/2000

School of thought: Postcolonial Critique

Others scholars mentioned: Spiro Kostof 'motivation of sequence'; Ben Anderson 'spectre of comparisons'; Anthony King 'colonial modernity'; Paul Rabinow 'social modernity'; Said 'social mission'; Partha Chatterjee 'material and spiritual realms'

Kusno address broad themes in postcolonial architetcure using specific historical examples from Indonesia. He begins the book by laying out the politics of the built environment in postcolonial Indonesia. While the old-order Sukarno's government favored a modern architectural style for newly independent Indonesia, and built a national mosque' symbolizing the narrative of progress, the new-order Suharto's regime favored going back to classical javanese architecture as a symbol of national identity. Several mosques were built across the archipelago in traditional javanese style trying to substitute one national style in place of several indigenous architectural styles. With Kusno argues architectural to be a produce of social and political forces, and as a way of rewriting history. He questions, where Indonesian architecture is rooted, and when should the beginning be placed? He argues architecture and urbanism is not only a lens to understand political and cultural formations of a postcolonial nation, but they are the tools themselves that shape particular social, cultural, and political formations. He uses the theoretical frameworks of Anthony King, Paul Rabinow, and Said to argue that architecture in Indonesia can only be grasped through a serious analysis of political cultures of regimes in power, and the continuing presence of colonialism in today's postcolonial society.

The book divided in three parts examines the architecture, urban spaces, and transnational architectural and political cultures of Indonesia. The primary themes of the book are: colonial origins of contemporary Indonesian architecture, the violent genology of the New Order, and the hybrid modernities that protest the New Order culture.

Part 1: Dutch architects who designed 'Indies architecture' were raised in the colony, and went to Netherland to obtain education. Returning as architects they believed in the colonial mission of modernizing subjects as a 'social mission'. This architecture provided a grammar for postcolonial arhcitects to imagine a national identity. Through the case of Dutch architects working in the Indies, Kusno tries to break away from the narrative of domination (colonizer/colonized binary), and "develop a way to understand the complexity and ambiguity which often formed colonial relation without undermining the importance of power relations."

Part 2:

Part 3: Contemporary protests after New Order:
Kusno argues that the creation of Self and Other as Said argues is occuring even after colonialism ended. Modern elites modernizing elites construct categories of “others”in urban spaces. "These “others” were not meant to be modernized. Instead, they were created for the self-formation of the “modern” elites. This formation of “internal” other follows the logic of colonial “civilizing mission” which in its attempt to modernize the colony still maintained a distance or a gap necessary for hierarchal identification." (Kusno interview)

1. Examines the role of architecture and urbanism in formation of collective subjectives in postcolonial Indonesia
2. It is a political history of Indonesian architecture, by studying the colonial origins of postcolonial architecture not only for the past, but to understand it in present and future
3. It transcends the criticism of modernist architecture as colonial and presents an understanding of how it can be nation-specific.
4. Studying the nexus of power that is located outside the east-west paradigm and understanding the different types of modernities.

The Invention of Tradition/ Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger/ 1983

Introduction: 
Hobsbawm in his introduction 'Inventing Traditions' makes the claim that traditions that often seem ancient and well established might in reality be created/invented in a more recent dateable time period. He defines 'Invented traditions' to mean "a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past." (p.1). He introduces an idea of a 'historic past' -- where traditions are invented to establish a continuity with a suitable historic past, but they are factitious.  In a constantly changing modern world, invented traditions attempt to structure some parts of social life and to create a semblance to an unchanging past.

Tradition, he argues, has to be differentiated from 'custom'. While the object and characteristic of traditions is to be unchanging and invariant, 'custom' cannot afford to be invariant, because life even in traditional societies is constantly changing. Customs, therefore, "gives any desired change the sanction of precedent and social continuity" (p.2). A decline of custom inevitably changes tradition.
Second, he writes, social practices which have to be repeated frequently are often formalized into a set of conventions or practices for the sake of convenience and efficiency. These set of practices, he argues, are not 'invented traditions' since their function is technical and not ideological. He identifies three overlapping types of invented traditions formed post industrial revolution - one, that is used to establish social cohesion or membership to real/imagined groups, second, establishing or legitimization social institutions and third, those which were instituted for value systems and inculcation of beliefs. But argues that the first type is what primarily qualifies as invented traditions.
He identifies two major differences in invented and age-old traditional practices: Old ones were strong, specific, and social binders. Latter ones are unspecified and vague to reflect nature of the values. Second, even though a lot of new traditions have been invented they only fill a small part of the vacuum created by the loss of 'real' traditions by secularization.

Why is the study of invented traditions important: 1)they are both symptoms and evidences of the changes occurring in the society. They in fact point to breaks in continuity.  2) they showcase human relationship to the past, and how they want the past to be preserved and remembered. Especially in case of nationalism, symbol of nation-state, national languages etc. constructing historic continuities is crucial to the formation of social cohesion.

Chapter 2: The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland / Hugh Trevor-Roper
Trevor-Roper examines Scotland's national symbols (such as kilt, bagpipe, highland myth, wearing of different patterned Kilt to be representative of different clans etc.) and argues that they are not symbols of antiquity but rather modern inventions, that were developed in reaction to Scotland's Union with England. The highlands were always culturally connected to Ireland than to Scotland. They were isolated clans from Scottish lowlands, and their gaelic language was also considered to be closer to Irish. But after Scotland's union with England, the Scottish crown banned the usage of cultural Highland symbols like kilts, and popularized English in schools, in an attempt to unify the state and anglicize it. After the ban was lifted, Scottish gentry and Highlanders started wearing kilt, not only to preserve their identity but also to ease transition. Trevor- Roper argues that the Kilt as we know it today was invented by a Englishman in 18th century, and Sottish nationalists eventually claimed it as a symbol of their Celtic ancestors.

Chapter 4: The British Monarchy and Invention of Tradition/ David Cannadine
This chapter examines the pageantry and ceremonial practices associated with the British Monarchy. He argues that most ceremonial rituals associated with the royal family and the crown was established in 20th century, not only to bolster a shaky monarchy but also to foster a sense of national identity and belonging. He identifies the beginning of certain traditions, like the king's funeral in Westminister Abbey, the jubilee functions of the monarch's survival in office, investiture ceremony etc. Cannadine discusses the role of television media (BBC) in promoting of of this invented traditions, by commenting that it has enhanced the "fairytale splendor" of the royal families by bringing them to people's living rooms.

Chapter 5: Construction of Ritual idiom in Victorian India/ Bernard S Cohen
At the beginning of Raj, the first governor general travelled across North India carrying the message of the Crown and held "durbars" for Indian princes, British and Indian officials. At these "durbars" Indian prices were bestowed with titles such as Nawab, Rai Bahadur etc. These "durbars" Cohen argues became an invented tradition. The durbars were modeled upon those held by Mughal and Hindu kings where people were offered gold coins, clothes, keepsakes, and sometimes even elephants, horses etc. While in the Indian culture these gifts were reflective of a relationship forged b/w the emperor and his subject, the British mistook them to be bribery/ tributes. Gradually, Indian prices were ranked in terms of their allegiance to the British empire, their land holding etc. and at the British durbars Indian prices had to wear a certain attire, stand at a certain position, and would be greeted a certain way based on their rank and title.

Architectural Theory in an Expanded Field/ Grieg Crylser / 2001

School of Thought: Postmodernist

Text: Review of Architectural Theory

Other Scholars mentioned: Tschumi (postmodern), Levi Strauss (Structuralism), Husserl (phenomenology, essentialism), Manfred Tafuri (neo-marxist), Slaughter and Rhoades (Academic Capitalism)

Crysler's introduction to the Sage Handbook of Architectural Theory begins with an overview of the state of architectural theory in contemporary academia and practice.

Crysler begins the essay with a textual tour of Bernard Tschumi's Parc De La Villette (PDLV), which he won in a competition organized by French government in 1982. PDLV is picked an example to illustrate theory in design for its notoriety in "self-consciously animating theory". PDLV is an architectural manifestation of Tschumi's critique against foundational principles of architectural modernism -- that function, structure, finance should play a determinate role in architecture. PDLV stands as a collaboration of architecture with literature theory and philosophy (through Tschumi working with Eisenman and Derrida). PDLV came into limelight for bringing postmodernist and post structuralist theories into architectural design. Crysler, however argues that, PDLV should not be seen as ushering theory in design, but rather it arrived at a time when the time was ripe and was accepted into the architectural cannon , and gave rise to 'auto-generative' theory based design projects where conventional agencies of user, client, architect was scrambled. Despite the critiques PDLV got from replacing functionalism with extreme formalism, Crysler argues that it still encapsulates the hope and ambiguity of post structuralist theory and reminds us of the ways architecture renewed itself by interacting with other disciplines.

A large chunk of the essay discusses the interaction of architecture with scholars from other disciplines, which not only gave fodder to the intellectual agency of architecture but also helped by providing "practical alternatives for how architecture might conduct itself in the new world". As these discourses took shape, established theories of architecture, both ancient theories that worked with aesthetic formalism, proportions and composition, and the modern theories of neo-rationalism were questioned. In the wake of post-structuralist theories, architecture's engagement was marxism was found to be "too normative and cheerless" (4).

End of Theories: Manfredo Tafuri's neo-marxist critique of modern architecture's alliance with capitalism ushered in the 'end of theories' period where the influence of market economy and flows of capital on architecture was constantly critiqued by post structuralists. Architectural theories interactions with a wider field, Crysler argues, helped the practice of architecture by injecting theories and intellectual possibilities into buildings which would otherwise be dictated by economy. .

Institutional Context: Crysler begins by noting that the prominent medium for the dissemination of architectural theory and its intermixing with other disciplines is the print medium through journals, anthologies, monographs etc. He also notes that the primary language of communication is English, and the best known  academic institutions  are located in the anglo-saxon cultural sphere.
Crysler also notes that even as scholars (in the handbook) originally come from different places in the world, they were all educated in the US or UK, and are presently situated in the western institutions. Given this, he asks provoking questions about the geographic expansion of architectural academic world. He asks, does geographic expansion signify an intellectual diversification, does the academy support knowledges created outside of established centers, does the academy support a new commodified global format of production and consumption of knowledge.
Crysler observes that teachers of architecture have been clearly divided into two categories -- those who teach architectural history and theory, and those who teach design. He notes that these two categories rarely overlap, thus depriving the students to engage with critical theory in studios, and vice versa.

 Kate Nesbitt’s Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965–1995  that was published in 1996,  Rethinking Architecture  edited by Neil Leach that came out in 1997, and Architecture Theory since 1968 , edited by K. Michael Hays, appeared a year later,

Twentieth Century Reform Movements in India/ Kenneth Jones/

Kenneth Jones begins with an overview of the socio-political climate of 20^th century India, and identifies three crucial modifications that affected the way socio-political movements functioned, succeeded, or failed.  Later, he identifies five socio-religious movement that began in 19^th century and extended into the 20^th century: Ramakrishna Mission and Math, The Radhasoami Satsang, Arya Samaj, Ahmadiyas, Swaminarayan Guru of Kerala

First, the secular nationalism introduced by Indian National Congress that came in waves of Gandhian movements. Second, is a contrasting communalism and severe religious conflicts that arose as a counter-design to nationalist peak. The third major modification in Indian society was th allocation of sepereate electorates to muslim population. The census (as Anderson has theorized) defined religious communities, counted them, and presented them as social and economic units. He identifies this constitutional reform as the factor that stimulated and reinforced a new form of political institution. These led to the formation of the first ‘religio-political’ groups in India. Muslim league was founded on the basis of Muslim nationalism, and expressed a concept of Pakistan. Hindu Mahasabha was formed under the leadership Savarkar and expounded a Hindu nationalism opposing secular nationalism of INC. Similarly, Sikhs too moved towards their own religious nationalism. Jones argues that while in 19^th century most new ideas and symbols would turn into some form religion, in the 20^th century, the ideologies that travelled from the west.

Ramakrishna Math and Mission:

-Expanded across India and to the US after Vivekanada’s death.

- Managed by Swami Brahmananada and the trustee board of Belur Math

- Often the mission carried out local initiatives without involvement from the central board. But the activities of mission and math often overlapped.

- Spread to US cities through Vedanta society – but the role here was different since there was no social service involved – only teaching of Vedanta doctrines.

Rethinking the Nation/ Abidin Kusno/ 2012

Kusno's chapter discusses the "implications of nationalism for architecture by reflecting historically on how architecture  participates in the construction of and contestation over national identities and historical memories" (214). He studies the interaction of architecture with nationalism and the forces of capitalism, colonialism and modernity acting on architecture.

Kusno's chapter has four main objectives:
1.To see architecture plainly as a state's ideological artifact to exercise its power, Kusno argues, limits the ways architecture can be perceived. Instead, he aims to distinguish  between conflated terms of nation and state, to conceive architecture as national narratives or practices.
2. He argues postcolonial nationalism is not an enemy of modern liberalism. It should not be associated with fascism or totalitarianism.
3. To understand the influence of globalization on mega architectural projects across the globe -- he argues these mega projects get incorporated within existing order of capitalism rather than interrogating it like early independent projects.
4.Due to neo-liberalism governmental power now reached deeper into everyday communities, and even these everyday communities have acquired tactics of insurgency

The second part of the essay, surveys the literature on the relationship of architecture and nationalism that have largely seen architecture as a vehicle of the state to exhibit power.
Anthony King, Diane Ghirado, Gwen Wright, Barbara Lane -- impact of western imperialism on nationalism and architecture
Nezar Alsayyad, James Holston, Lawrence Vale -- nationalism and architecture in postcolonial perspective.
In this section he asks two important questions: How does architecture challenge the dominant power of the national regime and help in imagining a nation? And second, how does architecture allow one to imagine a limited sovereign?

In the third part, Kusno uses Vale and Ksiazek's work on capitols and governments to argue that "architecture is never autonomous". he writes as this ideological framework has been well established,  he wants to focus on how architecture is politicized and used by a national regime to legitimize national sentiments. Here, he wants to clarify the difference between nation and nation-state. He suggests using the terms, people-nation and state-apparatus instead.

The fourth section heavily draws from Anderson's 'Imagined Communities'. Kusno writes that the crucial issue in Anderson's argument is not the employment of idealized national culture to imagine communities, but rather how these are represented and experienced. Kusno suggests architecture is also a medium of representation along with maps, museums, census, newspaper, novel etc. Architecture, Kusno writes, is a "technology of power". Architecture can both narrate the themes of nation as idealized by a particular power group, or it can challenge a regulatory regime of a nation state.

Anderson identifies two ways of  how nation was imagined historically: one was through a horizontal comradeship and second was the official nationalism sanctioned by the nation-state. But in Anderson;s formulation, the nation was always conceived through horizontal comradeship. Thus there is a dialectic relationship between a nation and state which invites one to think the role of architecture in not only supporting state power, but challenging it or even transforming the state through the formation of a new national imagination. To demonstrate this he uses the example of The Institute of Technology at Bandung.

The fifth section is a discussion of how histories of colonialism have influenced architecture. In this he identifies two ways in which architecture has been as a form of dominance: One, middling modernism (free from influence of the local). Second, techno-cosmopolitism (using local for inspiration). He argues, territorial power of the west set up boundaries of the colony and and produced symbolic mapping of national space. 

The Institute of Technology at Bandung was a dutch colonial design which brought together disparate elements from various island of the Indonesian archipelago to form a syncretic architectural style called the "indies architecture". This style, Kusno argues, inadvertently gave the colonized a platform to imagine a new nation, with all its different cultures coming together. However, post independence in Sukarno's time, Indies architecture was forgotten and a modern international style was embraced. But when Suharto's regime came in, Indonesian architects went to Indies architecture which was a combination of various architectural styles of the archipelago to oppose Suharto's choice of using javanese architecture as national symbol. Thus, Kusno argues, architecture became a tool for insurgency, and did not remain a vehicle to exercise state's power.

The next sections delve into the relationship between regionalism and nationalism in the west, and in the colonized world. The US adopted international style as "inherits of western civilization". Kusno argued, the leaders of the newly independent world Nehru, Sukarno, Mao Zedong etc. embraced modern architecture for their newly independent cities like Brasilia, Jakarata, Vhandigarh to rise above regionalism and vernacular inspirations, and to provide the people an architecture to imagine themselves as a part of a pan-regional community. He argues these leaders performed insurgency by showcasing modernist architecture as national symbol. But now, modern architecture has been forgotten as the place for utopian visions of nation and has been replaced by market economy.