K. Michael Hays

"Most people think of architecture as a very concrete and material medium; but in fact architecture is also one of the most complex perceptual medium it is constantly changing, constantly moving, and is constantly asking to be experienced in time. In the three essays contained in this book Of Mirrors and Ashes, Architecture s Appearance and the Practices of Imagination and Materiality of Figure, Figures of Materiality Hays offers a more robust way of perceiving architecture a way of conceiving it in its richness and complexity and also its social importance. As the author points out: Architecture is a fundamental human postulate. It is something that we need as a society, as a collective group, to understand our place in the world. And what this book does is offer examples and models of how architecture helps us to engage the world. La mayor a de la gente piensa en la arquitectura como un medio muy concreto y material; pero en realidad la arquitectura es tambi n uno de los medios perceptivos m s complejos: est constantemente cambiando, constantemente movi ndose, y est pidiendo constantemente ser experimentada en el tiempo. En los tres ensayos contenidos en este libro De espejos y cenizas, La aparici n de la arquitectura y las pr cticas de la imaginaci n y Materialidad de la figura, figuras de la materialidad Hays ofrece una forma m s robusta de percibir la arquitectura. Una forma de concebirla en su riqueza y complejidad y tambi n su importancia social. Tal como indica su autor: La arquitectura es un postulado humano fundamental. Es algo que necesitamos como sociedad, como grupo colectivo, para entender nuestro lugar en el mundo. Y lo que este libro hace es ofrecer ejemplos y modelos de c mo la arquitectura nos ayuda a incorporar al mundo .

Theorizes an architectural ethos of extreme self-reflection and finality from a Lacanian perspective.While it is widely recognized that the advanced architecture of the 1970s left a legacy of experimentation and theoretical speculation as intense as any in architecture's history, there has been no general theory of that ethos. Now, in Architecture's Desire, K. Michael Hays writes an account of the "late avant-garde" as an architecture systematically twisting back on itself, pondering its own historical status, and deliberately exploring architecture's representational possibilities right up to their absolute limits. In close readings of the brooding, melancholy silence of Aldo Rossi, the radically reductive "decompositions" and archaeologies of Peter Eisenman, the carnivalesque excesses of John Hejduk, and the "cinegrammatic" delirium of Bernard Tschumi, Hays narrates the story of architecture confronting its own boundaries with objects of ever more reflexivity, difficulty, and intransigence.The late avant-garde is the last architecture with philosophical aspirations, an architecture that could think philosophical problems through architecture rather than merely illustrate them. It takes architecture as the object of its own reflection, which in turn produces an unrelenting desire. Using the tools of critical theory together with the structure of Lacan's triad imaginary-symbolic-real, Hays constructs a theory of architectural desire that is historically specific and yet sets the terms and the challenges of all subsequent architectural practice, including today's.