Inside Architecture

Inside Architecture is a concise, insightful examination of the role the modernist project has played in late twentieth-century building, as well as an attempt to reconcile the dilemmas and shortcomings of modern orthodoxy with a renewed vision of modernism. Since the 1950s, Vittorio Gregotti has constructed a critical position that is probably without peer among practicing architects. Through his experiments with the neo- avant-gardes in 1963, his editorship of Casabella from 1982 to 1995, and his teaching, practice, and writing, Gregotti’s voice has influenced almost every recent architectural debate. Inside Architecture, his first major work to be translated into English, balances a series of architectual themes concerning the theoretical debate surrounding modernism and tradition with the more practical affairs of the architect. Gregotti first identifies the elements of mass culture and public institutions that have led to the deterioration of natural and man-made environments. He then investigates eight issues–precision, technique, monumentality, modification, atopia, simplicity, procedure, and image–that influence the activities of contemporary architects. Gregotti is particularly suspicious of the deconstructivist argument and its heavy reliance on literary models. And he provides an incisive critique of the recent interest in modernist aesthetics, warning against reviving the forms of an old movement without considering the cultural and social criteria that once gave it purpose and meaning. The Graham Foundation / MIT Press Series in Contemporary Architectural Discourse