Architectural theory
Contemporary

In contemporary architectural discourse theory has become more concerned with its position within culture generally, and thought in particular. This is why university courses on architecture theory may often spend just as much time discussing philosophy and cultural studies as buildings, and why advanced postgraduate research and doctoral dissertations focus on philosophical topics in connection with architectural humanities. Some architectural theorists aim at discussing philosophical themes, or engage in direct dialogues with philosophers, as in the case of Peter Eisenman 's and Bernard Tschumi 's interest in Derrida 's thought, or Anthony Vidler 's interest in the works of Freud and Lacan, in addition to an interest in Gaston Bachelard 's Poetics of Space or texts by Gilles Deleuze. This has also been the case with educators in academia like Dalibor Vesely or Alberto-Perez Gomez, and in more recent years this philosophical orientation has been reinforced through the research of a new generation of theorists (E.G. Jeffrey Kipnis or Sanford Kwinter). Similarly, we can refer to contemporary architects who are interested in philosophy and cultural studies. Some are interested in phenomenology and neuroaesthetics, like Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Sarah Robinson, and Christian Norberg-Schulz, or specialize as philosophers and historians of science, such as Nader El-Bizri who is also a notable phenomenologist (especially in Heidegger studies). Others, like Beatriz Colomina and Mary McLeod, expand historical understandings of architecture to include lesser or minor discourses that have influenced the development of architectural ideas over time. Studies in feminism in architecture, and in sexuality and gender as potent cultural expressions, are also considered an integral part of the latter 20th-century theoretical discourse, and are associated with such persons as Dolores Hayden, Catherine Ingraham, Jennifer Bloomer and Sylvia Lavin. The notion that theory entails critique also stemmed from post-structural literary studies in the work of many other theorists and architects, such as Mark Wigley and Diana Agrest, among others. In their theories, architecture is compared to a language which can be invented and re-invented every time it is used. This theory influenced the so-called deconstructivist architecture. In contrast, network society innovators, especially Silicon Valley software developers, have embraced Christopher Alexander 's emphasis on The Timeless Way of Building (1979) based on pattern languages that are optimized on-site as construction unfolds.

Since 2000, architectural theory has also had to face the rapid rise of urbanism and globalization. By developing a new understanding of the city, many theorists developed new understandings of the urban conditions of our planet (E.G. Rem Koolhaas 's Bigness). Interests in fragmentation and architecture as transient objects further affected such thinking (e.g. the concern for employing high technology), but also related to general concerns such as ecology, mass media, and economism.

In the past decade, there has been the emergence of the so-called "Digital" Architecture. Several currents and design methodologies are being developed simultaneously, some of which reinforce each other, whereas others work in opposition. One of these trends is Biomimicry, which is the process of examining nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements, to emulate or take inspiration from them in order to solve human problems. Architects also design organic-looking buildings in the attempt to develop a new formal language. Another trend is the exploration of those computational techniques that are influenced by algorithms relevant to biological processes and sometimes referred to as Digital morphogenesis. Trying to utilize Computational creativity in architecture, Genetic algorithms developed in computer science are used to evolve designs on a computer, and some of these are proposed and built as actual structures. Since these new architectural tendencies emerged, many theorists and architects have been working on these issues, developing theories and ideas such as Patrick Schumacher's Parametricism.

Contemporary architecture's theoretical world is plural and multicolored. There are different dominant schools of architectural theory which are based on linguistic analysis, philosophy, post-structuralism, or cultural theory. For instance, there is emerging interest in the re-discovery of the post-modernist project Sam Jacob, in the definition of new radical tendencies of architecture and its implication in the development of cities (Pier Vittorio Aureli), in the embrace of the idea of discipline and in a new formalist approach to architecture through the appropriation of concepts from the Object Oriented philosophy. It is too early, however, to say whether any of these explorations will have widespread or lasting impact on architecture.

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, there is the emergence of architectural theory based on the frameworks of social reproduction theory and care ethics. This approach is introduced in Doina Petrescu 's and Kim Trogal's edited a volume on the Social (Re)Production of Architecture and in the volume Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet edited by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny.
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