The Autopoiesis of Architecture, Volume I (ePub)

Take a theoretical approach to architecture with The Autopoiesis
of Architecture, which presents the topic as a discipline with
its own unique logic. Architecture's conception of itself is
addressed as well as its development within wider contemporary
society.

Author Patrik Schumacher offers innovative treatment that
enriches architectural theory with a coordinated arsenal of
concepts facilitating both detailed analysis and insightful
comparisons with other domains, such as art, science and politics.
He explores how the various modes of communication comprising
architecture depend upon each other, combine, and form a unique
subsystem of society that co-evolves with other important
autopoietic subsystems like art, science, politics and the
economy.

The first of two volumes that together present a comprehensive
account of architecture's autopoiesis, this book elaborates the
theory of architecture?s autopoeisis in 8 parts, 50 sections and
200 chapters. Each of the 50 sections poses a thesis drawing a
central message from the insights articulated within the respective
section. The 200 chapters are gathering and sorting the accumulated
intelligence of the discipline according to the new conceptual
framework adopted, in order to catalyze and elaborate the new
formulations and insights that are then encapsulated in the theses.
However, while the theoretical work in the text of the chapters
relies on the rigorous build up of a new theoretical language, the
theses are written in ordinary language ? with the theoretical
concepts placed in brackets. The full list of the 50 theses affords
a convenient summary printed as appendix at the end of the
book.

The second volume completes the analysis of the discourse and
further proposes a new agenda for contemporary architecture in
response to the challenges and opportunities that confront
architectural design within the context of current societal and
technological developments.