Customer Reviews

Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media

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The best way, somtimes, to talk about a larger condition is to delve into specifics. Colomina uses Loos and Corbusier to draw out comparisons about the use of information.

Considering the amount of architectural monographs being churned out on a daily basis, and the creation of terms such as "information architecture," it's extremely valuable to look at how modern architecture might have started from an alliance between types of publicity and design.

Both Loos and Corbusier come out, biography-wise, as extremely creepy, though shrewd in shaping how their work is percieved by the traces that they leave behind. In Corbusier's case, he leaves an archive stuffed with minutia, an overabundance of information to supplement the built work. Loos, on the other hand, leaves very little, and thus what little remains of his work requires imagination to fill gaps in his story. What a designer can gather from this is to ask the question: how does what we do effect what our work is? Colomina's work functions reflexively as well as she works from "evidence" to create representations of both architects.

It is a compelling argument, passionately written, and not the least boring.