Back in my early nineties undergrad days, a few of my colleagues embraced Benedikt’s extended essay as something of a Bible. Inspired, I ran out, located it in a used bookshop, purchased it, and promptly sat down to read all 68 pages about 18 years later. This was, therefore, a tad out of date (as is this “review” since I read it like three months ago and I’ve been to Vegas since…). However, as I was somewhat conscious around the time this was penned and I have indeed read a few books in the int

Back in my early nineties undergrad days, a few of my colleagues embraced Benedikt’s extended essay as something of a Bible. Inspired, I ran out, located it in a used bookshop, purchased it, and promptly sat down to read all 68 pages about 18 years later. This was, therefore, a tad out of date (as is this “review” since I read it like three months ago and I’ve been to Vegas since…). However, as I was somewhat conscious around the time this was penned and I have indeed read a few books in the interim, I can both understand its place within that time and propose that it still has a certain, perhaps even equal amount of validity within our globe-hopping, “starchitect” milieu.



Contextually speaking, this is an obvious reaction against the prevailing modus operandi of “Post Modern” architecture that, circa 1988, had a certain acceptance, amazingly, in both the academic and practical realms of the profession as well as in the field of general developer-developments. Think of all the kitche, dryvit-clad, historicistoid suburban strip malls, non-strip malls, and housing developments thrown up coast-to-coast. Furthermore, the rumblings out of/in/with Columbia, Zaha’s office, OMA’s increasingly “real” work, a number of SoCal offices, and Eisenman’s embrace of digital technology were soon to lead (officially, I suppose, in 1989) to a new, dramatic reaction to PoMo that Benedikt’s essay also could poignantly counteract. In short, this parallels Kenneth Frampton’s “Critical Regionalism” but is composed in a more experiential, less acerbic/academic manner that was certainly easier to digest.



Positioning such “un-real” constructs as Johnson’s School of Architecture building in Houston and work of the Venturis and Graves against old masonry walls, various vernacular Texan and Mexican markets, cafes, and churches, and an Agrest Gandelsonas building in Argentina (and, coincidentally I’m sure, a house under construction and designed by one Michael Benedikt), the author stays away from direct prescriptions. This is more about the experiential, haptic, and I guess, weighty content of a building that serves a particular purpose in a particular context. There’s a tendency to approach this as pieces - edge, staircase, street sign, shadow, roof - that tilts towards Christopher Alexander’s “patterns” published some time before. However Benedikt keeps this more abstract. The tone and proclamations are more metaphysical than specifically physical (and the images representing the physical corollaries aren’t exactly glossy, full page money-shots). Despite the poetic demeanor of this, there’s a definite clarity and groundedness. My guess is that Benedikt’s short book should prove engaging to those who locate this in a used bookshop and promptly sit down to read tomorrow, or in 2029.

