Architecture and Science & Urban Environments & Interdisciplinary Architecture. (Science or What?).

Edited by Giuseppa Di Cristina

Edited by Elisabetta G. Mapelli

Edited by Nicoletta Trasi. London: Wiley-Academy. 2001. [pounds sterling]27.50 each

These three volumes present anthologies of essays previously published in Architectural Design. The implicit intention of the enterprise is to discover, in the content of that distinguished journal, broad, pervasive and central themes in the current architectural discourse. The relation of Architecture and Science, the issue of Urban Environments and the proposition of an Interdisciplinary Architecture all appear to be valid categories in the extensive terrain of present theory and practice and the essays gathered together are almost all notable in some way or another. But, as scrutiny of the volumes quickly reveals, the process of anthologization and categorization is neither simple nor self-evidently logical.

First it is necessary to qualify the title of each volume. The content of Architectural Science, that includes pieces by Jeffrey Kipnis, Greg Lynn, Gilles Deleuze, Peter Bisenman, Frank O. Gehry, Daniel Libeskind, Neil Spiller, Marcos Novak and Brian Massumi, is more precisely described by Giuseppa Di Cristina's editorial essay, 'The Topological Tendency in Architecture'. This is a skilful resume of the engagement of architecture with topology that manages to bring order to a complex, confusing and, perhaps sometimes, confused field. I am particularly grateful to her for emphasizing Marcos Novak's reminder that, 'topology does not mean curved surfaces, as is currently held, but is precisely the study of the geometrical properties that remain unchanged when figures undergo continuous transformations. Again the scope of the essays in Urban Environments is not precisely represented by the tide. The focus is the house not the city as the title implies. This is justified by arguing that, 'the house is a constant i n the evolution of the built environment', and that, 'dwellings constitute the greater part of the environment we live in'. These are unexceptionable propositions, but there is more to the urban environment than that. The contributions to this volume are ideologically and methodologically more diverse than those in its companions and, in an attempt to establish some order and structure, they are organized in four categories. These are 'traditionalists', 'perpetrators of various isms', 'exponents of a new avant-garde' and 'environment-conscious designers.

The editorial essay, by Elisabetta G. Mapelli, is, again, skilful, but the need to negotiate a line from the Prince of Wales, through Alberto Campo Baeza, Sarah Wigglesworth and Jeremy Till, Archigram, Foreign Office Architects, Neil Spiller, Future Systems to William Mitchell does tend to limit the possibilities for substantial argument.

Interdisciplinary Architecture is actually about the relation of art and architecture. Nicoletta Trasi's editorial essay is subtitled, Art/Architecture/Landscape: Intersections. This elegantly locates the principal contributions to the book, including essays by Robert Maxwell, Neil Spiller -- who scores a unique hat-trick of appearances in all three volumes, Will Alsop, James Turrell, Richard Wentworth, Henri Ciriani, Antoine Predock, Richard Sennett and Jean-Francors Lyotard, in a narrative stretching from Violletle-Duc to land art.

There has probably never been a time when the concerns of architecture have generated so many words. These volumes add more to the stockpile, but, with the helpful guidance of their editors, they merit a place on our bulging shelves. All three books are extensively illustrated and elegantly produced.