Search

The paper attempts to study architecture as an esthetic object with the use of mobile methods. I develop the concept of the flâneur view: an act of perception associated with a casual walk, enriched with reflections on the environment. The aim of the text is to describe the intricacies of the process: what makes the flâneur interested in particular architectural object, how one valorizes it, and what role the esthetics plays in the activity. This research walk was carried out by students in the Rzeszów Downtown. It included observation, taking notes, and photography. For the purpose of the paper, I analyze thirteen journals. The main finding is that students value visual and spatial harmony, and look for it in the cityscape. They are positive toward well-maintained, mostly historical buildings. Nature is also important to them. In their descriptions, they use everyday language and their type of esthetic reception can be named non-professional.

Architectural ruins in the context of the urban landscape carry many meanings and functions: they reflect changes in fashion, security, cultural values, and show the peculiar struggle of urbanization and the “recapture” of abandoned places by plants and animals. The article offers an analysis of the perception of architectural ruins in modern urban everyday life. Conceptualization is built through such functions and properties of urban ruins as providing a symbolic refuge for representatives of certain groups and symbolizing cultural trauma, i.e. trauma of a social group bound by a common culture and solidarity Based on the observations, the authors describe two cases: the ruins of the unfinished military camp “Olgino” in St. Petersburg and the ruins of the “Enthusiast” cinema in Moscow. Some recommendations are provided for researchers interested in studying urban ruins.

ABSTRACTIn a general sense, architecture and technology articulate two modes of evaluation of objects and built environments; however, are there conditions that allow us to consider architectural works as technologies? This paper explores this possibility by analyzing bibliographic, documentary, and planimetric information on housing blocks developed by the state agency, Corporación de la Vivienda (CORVI), between 1953 and 1974. Using Process Tracing as a method of analysis, milestones were identified that showed the ways in which the design and production of this typology were influenced by a regime of values based on the idea of rationalization, and that the heterogeneity of its cases showed flexibility and adaptation to the ways of calculating and realizing this value. The conclusions address the causality observed between value and typology in this case, and suggest that this behavior expresses a technological condition of architecture.

High-rise buildings have been experiencing a significant boom worldwide over the past two decades. This is true not least for European cities, where church steeples, town hall towers, and chimneys were the main vertical accents in city centers for a long time. This article focuses on the construction of high-rise buildings as a “glocal” phenomenon. The vertical building type has spread around the world, but approaches to it are site-specific and inextricably entangled with local problems, modes of action, and discourses. Construction strategies and discussions about tall buildings are quite diverse even in Europe alone. Presenting case studies of Paris, London, and Vienna, this article looks at three metropolises in which vertical building has caused particular unrest in recent years and reveals enlightening contrasts between them. In exploring the question of how distinctions are made in these cities between desirable and quasi-illegitimate buildings, or “possible” and “impossible” locations, I analyze city-specific patterns relating to vertical construction. Special attention is paid to urban planning—the activities of those actors who are responsible for developing strategies and implementing and concretizing legal regulations. The discussion draws on a larger research project and is based on the grounded theory research perspective. The data pool includes a large number of published and unpublished documents as well as interviews with actors from the fields of urban planning, architecture, and historic preservation. From a theoretical point of view, the article draws on reflections on the “specificity of cities” and “glocalization” in urban research.

Our study explores the question: what kind of landscape situations emerge between the urban fabric and a school building as a result of 21st-century suburbanisation? To answer this question, we will compare a traditional school town and a suburban settlement. Located less than thirty kilometres from Budapest, the traditional town is Vác, one of the most important historical school towns in Hungary. Dunakeszi, on the other hand, directly borders the capital and was a rural settlement at the beginning of the 20th century. This settlement is a typical example of urban sprawl. Its schools have occupied a place in the urban fabric since the second half of the 20th century. During our research, we used thick description and thoroughly analysed where the buildings are situated within the given urban structure, how their appearance can be described, and what their architecture communicates. Our basic argument is that while traditional settlement schools are a central element of the urban fabric, in the suburbs, schools occupy empty spaces of ‘leftover plots’ or develop new campuses in the interurban landscape. The results showed that regardless of the historical past of a given settlement, 21st-century educational institutions create separated, closed campuses in areas affected by suburbanisation processes. The primary reason for moving out is simply a lack of space in downtown areas, which is universally apparent in larger cities. The various roles and tasks schools fulfil also contribute to the process, for example the integration of sports fields or the increasing expectation to be accessible by car.

Despite their differences, sociologists of architecture agree on one fundamental premise: buildings—and architecture more broadly—play a role in shaping social life. The importance of the "agency" of architecture has been equally highlighted in debates in cultural theory. The authors of the publications under discussion here approached this issue through empirical research. We suggest that, in doing so, they make visible the methodological challenges and potentials that confront sociologists of architecture. We aim to offer a comparative overview of some of the newer publications in the German-speaking sociology of architecture which adapt established methods of qualitative sociology to the field of architecture. We review these works through the lens of how well they empirically address the issue of the ways in which architecture can be shown to have agency in society.

In 1930, a housing exhibition called ‘Woba’ took place in the city of Basel. Unique for Switzerland, the commercial aspect of the furniture industry was complemented by a newly constructed residential colony. In accordance with discussions held one year before at the II CIAM congress in Frankfurt a. M., the Wohnung für das Existenzminimum was brought to life. Thirteen architectural offices experimented with different spatial designs in order to develop cheap and hygienic housing for the working class. For one month, some of the houses were open to the public. In the Swiss press, a vivid and controversial debate arose. On one side, its supporters advocated for standardized and rationalized housing as an appropriate way of living for modern individuals. On the other side, conservative forces saw a communist scheme at work in this housing in the style of Neues Bauen. By analyzing contemporary press articles on the Woba, this paper shows that the question of society’s future was being negotiated through architecture and furniture.

The study tested that cities are studied from different perspectives: from city-to-city links, structural elements of urban space to everyday practices of cities. Among the representatives of the scientific field, which made a significant contribution to the development of the theory of urban research is to highlight J. Bodriyar, P. Bourdieu, D. Becker, D. Jacobs, C. Lynch, A. Lefevra, M. Castells, D. Garvey, A. Scott, R. Pal, J. Fischer, H. Delitz and others. Moreover interesting and thorough are the scientific works of Ukrainian researchers – V. Sereda, M. Sobolevskaya, L. Males, Y. Soroka, D. Sudin, A. Petrenko-Lisak, A. Mikheeva, L. Nagorna, O. Musiyuzdov and a number of others. In this case, the methodological position of the researchers is relevant, which states that the symbolic space of the city is formed through the ability of visual objects to translate cultural and symbolic codes with the help of geometric, semantic and aesthetic characteristics. For example, in this work, one of the key terms is «architectural landscapes» with which it is possible to analyze the combination of spatial forms in the city with meaningful cultural and ideological content. It was recorded that the signs or symbolic markers can serve as architectural buildings, monuments, memorable signs, street names, informational and promotional posters, and so on. The main objects of research in the sociology of the study of architectural forms gradually became the phenomenon of buildings and structures, as well as the development of theoretical directions in architecture, the study of the place and role of space in sociology and cultural studies. As a result in the methodological space, along with the phenomenological, anthropological, and linguistic turns, the term «architectural turn» appears. From the point of view of the system theory, architecture is not seen as the main subject of research, namely communication on architecture. Accordingly, institutional theory in sociology considers architecture as an «institutional mechanism» that firmly asks individuals a certain social order and allows for the implementation of architectural ideas. On the other hand, at the same time, open questions remain regarding the meaningful content of the meanings contained in the objects of architecture. The postmodern direction, which reveals other aspects of the study of architectural forms, deserves special attention. Discreteness Architectural of social life, «decentralization of the subject», the decomposition of reality into actual and virtual, freedom and spontaneity as characteristics of the postmodern era are reflected and read in the architecture of postmodern. The architectural space of the city is considered by a number of domestic and foreign researchers in the context of symbolic interaction between power structures and actors through architectural constructions and design of a living environment.

This paper deals with Oliver SCHMIDTKE's study of architecture as a professional practice. SCHMIDTKE undertakes to prove that architects form a profession and that architecture represents an activity in need of professionalization. His approach is based on Ulrich OEVERMANN's influential theory of professions, which states that occupational groups become professionalized if they deal, by proxy, with specific crises faced by individuals and communities. In this understanding, architects form a profession because they deal with the practical problem of marking internal and external borders in shared social space. SCHMIDTKE thus examines architectural works with regard to how such crises are aesthetically translated by architects and materialized in an appropriate design vocabulary. His study focuses on the need to professionalize architectural practice in the face of competition from other occupational groups but the analysis of such developments also makes clear the limitations of this theoretical approach to professionalization. Despite this, SCHMIDTKE's account of the professional activity of architects represents an important and highly recommended contribution to the sociology of professions as well as the sociology of architecture. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs090159