Architecture as Cultural and Political Discourse: Case Studies of Conceptual Norms and Aesthetic Practices

Abstract

In an world where understanding the applications, implications and parameters to do with discipline is becoming ever-more important, there are very few books dedicated to scrutinizing the relations between governing and space through a case by case study of architecture. Daniel Grinceri’s Architecture as Cultural and Political Discourse: Case Studies of Conceptual Norms and Aesthetic Practices is a text that precisely does that. The thematic of this monograph was grounded in his PhD dissertation from the University of Western Australia; in eight chapters he maps the assertions and consequences of power and violence across well-known and recognised buildings such as Notre Dame de Paris to those less visible spaces, such as detention centres in Australia. The analysed case studies are thematic and chronological, demonstrating the ways in which particular ways of constructed thinking and knowledge accommodate not only the possibility, but also the permissibility of using architecture to regulate interpretations, meaning and advertently, people.