Project or Product? A Critique of the Ideology of the Architectural Project
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Published:
Dec 10, 2013
Keywords:
Commodity fetish
Crystal Palace
immaterial labor
author as producer
projective city
Section
Dossier translations
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Abstract
Architects speak about their work as projects, and it's an admirable form of optimism about the future. Projects are future-directed.
They always look forward; they are an anticipation of victory over the forces of entropy in the world. But as such they demand the
jettisoning of ballast and the rejection of whatever impedes their flow. To be “postcritical“ – a term that was in vogue among architects just a few years ago – is to be without friction. In this sense the ideology of the architectural project is one of forgetting. To remind ourselves that architecture is produced, that architects are producers as well as authors, that buildings are not just finished forms but moments in a cycle of production, and that architecture strives to be beautiful in a world that is often and tragically ugly is to give the things we make a history and a conscience and to insist on the solidarity of our work with society at large.
They always look forward; they are an anticipation of victory over the forces of entropy in the world. But as such they demand the
jettisoning of ballast and the rejection of whatever impedes their flow. To be “postcritical“ – a term that was in vogue among architects just a few years ago – is to be without friction. In this sense the ideology of the architectural project is one of forgetting. To remind ourselves that architecture is produced, that architects are producers as well as authors, that buildings are not just finished forms but moments in a cycle of production, and that architecture strives to be beautiful in a world that is often and tragically ugly is to give the things we make a history and a conscience and to insist on the solidarity of our work with society at large.
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Ockman, J. (2013). Project or Product? A Critique of the Ideology of the Architectural Project. Materia Arquitectura, (08), 89–93. https://doi.org/10.56255/ma.v0i08.208
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GIEDION, S. (1954). Space, Time and Architecture (3a ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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SOMOL, R. E., & WHITING, S. (2005). Okay, Here's the Plan. Log(5), 5-7.
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- Joan Ockman, ¿Proyecto o producto? Crítica de la ideología del proyecto arquitectónico , Materia Arquitectura: No. 08 (2013): Materia Arquitectura 08 (Diciembre/December 2013)