Author(s): Joshua M. Taron
There appears to be a strange yet common misunderstanding about the relationshipbetween autonomy and contingency in architecture where the two terms are treated asoppositional and mutually exclusive. This is certainly evident in the framing of the termsof debate being held at the 2015 ÌÇÐÄvlog Fall conference: Between the Autonomous andContingent Object. Here Michael Hays’ text, Critical Architecture: Between Culture andForm, is used as a point of bifurcation of two camps—one concerned with architecture’sdependency on social and cultural production, the other with an obsession with the pursuitof architecture’s capacity to achieve an emancipatory status through autonomy . But thismay in fact be a kind of sensationalist reading of Hays’ text—a diversion that produces a kindof farcical distinction that has lasted now for decades. As architecture now grapples withquestions raised through speculative philosophy,1 it appears to be doing so while reifying anunnecessarily anthropocentric model of autonomy—a hangover from the 1970’s that mayprevent architecture from addressing problems that lie beyond our ability to both think andperceive them.2 But why would either of these approaches be taken in the first place and arethey just two ways of arriving at a similarly anthropocentric end—either making separateand distinct individuals (autonomy) or specific social objectives (culture)? The issue at thecore of the question rests with how architectural difference is determined and if our ownawareness of difference is a necessary or even desirable component in that equation.
Volume Editors
Julie Larsen & Roger Hubeli