Table Of Contentthe political unconscious of architecture
Ashgate Studies in Architecture Series
series editor: eamonn canniffe, manchester school of architecture,
manchester metropolitan university, uk
The discipline of Architecture is undergoing subtle transformation as design
awareness permeates our visually dominated culture. Technological change,
the search for sustainability and debates around the value of place and meaning
of the architectural gesture are aspects which will affect the cities we inhabit. This
series seeks to address such topics, both theoretically and in practice, through
the publication of high quality original research, written and visual.
Other titles in this series
Neo-historical East Berlin
Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic 1970-1990
Florian Urban
ISBN 978 0 7546 7616 4
Architecture and Science-Fiction Film
Philip K. Dick and the Spectacle of Home
David T. Fortin
Forthcoming titles in this series
Generating Typologies
An Analysis of Residential Plans
Frank Edward Brown
ISBN 978 0 7546 7933 2
An Architecture of Ineloquence
A Carmelite Convent by José Luis Sert
J.K. Birksted
ISBN 978 0 7546 7801 4
The Political Unconscious of
Architecture
Re-opening Jameson’s Narrative
Edited by
Nadir Lahiji
© Nadir Lahiji and the contributors 2011
First published in paperback 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Nadir Lahiji has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the editor of this work.
Published by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The political unconscious of architecture : re-opening
Jameson’s narrative. – (Ashgate studies in architecture)
1. Architecture and society. 2. Architecture – Political
aspects. 3. Architecture – Philosophy. 4. Jameson, Fredric.
I. Series II. Lahiji, Nadir, 1948-
720.1’03-dc22
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The political unconscious of architecture : re-opening Jameson’s Narrative / edited by
Nadir Lahiji.
p. cm. — (Ashgate studies in architecture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4094-2639-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-4094-2640-0 (ebook)
1. Architecture and society. 2. Architecture—Political aspects.
3. Jameson, Fredric. I. Lahiji, Nadir, 1948-
NA2543.S6P63 2011
720.1—dc22
2011003468
ISBN 9781409426394 (hbk)
ISBN 9781409451815 (pbk)
ISBN 9781409426400 (ebk – PDF)
ISBN 9781409482383 (ebk – ePUB)
III
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the
MPG Books Group, UK
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xii
Introduction 1
1 Ban-lieues 11
Bechir Kenzari
2 The Architecture of Money: Jameson, Abstraction and Form 37
David Cunningham
3 The Master’s House 57
Donald Kunze
4 The Stolen Hope: Reading Jameson’s Critique of Tafuri 73
Gevork Hartoonian
5 Designing a Second Modernity? 97
Hal Foster
6 May Mo(u)rn: A Site-Writing 107
Jane Rendell
7 Allegories of Late Capitalism: Main Street and Wall Street
on the Map of the Global Village 141
Joan Ockman
8 Rethinking City Planning and Utopianism 159
Kojin Karatani
9 Fredric Jameson and Critical Architecture 169
Louis Martin
vi the political unconscious of architecture
10 Reloading Ideology Critique of Architecture 209
Nadir Lahiji
11 A Photography Not ‘Quite Right’: Fredric Jameson’s Discussion
of Architectural Photography in ‘Spatial Equivalents in the
World System’ 233
Robin Wilson
12 The Architectural Parallax 253
Slavoj Žižek
13 Botanizing the Bonaventura: Base and Superstructure in
Jamesonian Architectural Theory 297
Terry Smith
14 Jameson, Tafuri, Lefebvre 315
Xavier Costa
Index 321
… In Memory of my Mother
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Notes on Contributors
Xavier Costa is an architect, educator and curator. He is presently Dean of the
newly created College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University
in Boston, Massachusetts. His curatorial work in architecture includes projects
for the Mies van der Rohe Foundation. His recent publications include SANAA
Intervention in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion (2010), Coup de Dés, Housing and
Public Space (2010) and Muntadas On Translation BP/MVDR (Barcelona, 2009).
David Cunningham is Deputy Director of the Institute for Modern and
Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster, and an editor
of the journal Radical Philosophy. He has published widely on architectural
and urban theory, as well as on aesthetics, modernism and the avant-garde.
Recent publications include the co-edited Adorno and Literature (2006), and he
is currently completing a book on theories of the metropolis.
Hal Foster is Townsend Martin ‘17 Professor of Art and Architecture at
Princeton University and co-editor of October magazine. His latest book is The
Art-Architecture Complex (Verso, 2011).
Gevork Hartoonian is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University
of Canberra (Australia). He is the editor of Walter Benjamin and Architecture
(Routledge, 2009), and the author of several books including Crisis of the
Object: The Architecture of Theatricality (Routledge, 2006). He is a member of
the editorial group of Architectural Theory Review (Routledge).
Kojin Karatani is a Japanese philosopher and the founder of the New
Associationist Movement (NAM). Among dozens of his books, the following
are translated into English: Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (Duke
University Press, 1993), Architecture as Metaphor, Language, Number, Money
(MIT Press, 1995) and Transcritique: on Kant and Marx (MIT Press, 2003). His
History and Repetition will be published by Columbia University Press.
Bechir Kenzari is Associate Professor of Architecture at the UAE University.
He has been teaching architectural design and digital fabrication at the UAE
University since 2000. His writing has appeared in several international
