How Architecture Got its Hump. (Grimp in Mire).Roger Connah, London: MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. 2001. [pounds sterling]11.50 'Hijack' is Roger Connah's favourite word. This book is supposed to be about the way contemporary architecture has hijacked (or possibly been hijacked by) other disciplines such as film, photography, drawing, philosophy and linguistics. Reference is made to all the usual philosophers and theorists -- Bachelard, Barthes, Derrida, Deleuze etc -- but also to literary figures such as Laurence Sterne, Samuel Beckett and Rudyard Kipling. It sounds intriguing and the title, derived from one of Kipling's Just So Stories, 'How the Camel Got its Hump', leads one to expect something lighter and more playful than the standard product of the architectural theory Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, or most importantly writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in most architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. industry. Unfortunately the book seems to be written in a private language and is virtually unintelligible UNINTELLIGIBLE. That which cannot be understood. 2. When a law, a contract, or will, is unintelligible, it has no effect whatever. Vide Construction, and the authorities there referred to. . At first one gives it the benefit of the doubt, assuming that it is merely difficult, but after a few pages it becomes clear that this writer is not interested in his readers, or at least is interested in them only as a wondering, uncomprehending but admiring audience. Wondering and uncomprehending yes; admiring no. This writing is so bad it simply doesn't communicate. Occasionally the silhouette of an idea can be made out in the fog, but then another non-sequitur or mixed metaphor mixed metaphor n. A succession of incongruous metaphors, as in The negotiator played his cards to the hilt. mixed metaphor Noun a combination of incongruous metaphors, such as , another empty rhetorical question rhetorical question n. A question to which no answer is expected, often used for rhetorical effect. rhetorical question Noun or meaningless chiasmus chi·as·mus n. pl. chi·as·mi A rhetorical inversion of the second of two parallel structures, as in "Each throat/Was parched, and glazed each eye" Samuel Taylor Coleridge. drifts across the page and restores the perfect obscurity. The following sentence is fairly typical: 'What might, then, we have in mind for an undressed architecture caught between Deleuze's movement-image and a liquid architecture, including sotware [sic] projections, communing deep structures and formative myths only with ourselves.' Sort that one out. The many typographical errors typographical error - (typo) An error while inputting text via keyboard, made despite the fact that the user knows exactly what to type in. This usually results from the operator's inexperience at keyboarding, rushing, not paying attention, or carelessness. Compare: mouso, thinko. are perhaps understandable. Pity the poor proof reader (like the poor reviewer) having to grope their way through this stuff. What this text needed, at the very least, was a really tough editor. It doesn't seem to have been edited at all. Indeed one wonders if it was even read. |
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