The Resistant Object of Architecture A Lacanian Perspective

Architecture’s role is becoming increasingly limited to serving the all-pervasive system of globalised capitalism and becoming a constituent, complicit part of its mechanism. The Resistant Object of Architecture addresses this problem, and does so in a way that represents a marked departure from predominant responses which, as the book shows, do not address the core issue. The book addresses this problem by focusing on the question "what is architecture?," and responds to this question by developing the immanent structural logic of architecture that enables it to work not only as an instrumental thinking practice, but as a practice of creative thinking. This means that it alone determines its issues, problems, and priorities, and precisely because of that it has the capacity and cogency to destabilise, indeed pierce holes in the system in which it operates. The Resistant Object of Architecture draws on various theoretical sources, from the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan and the philosophy of Alain Badiou, to contemporary architectural theory. In contrast to the predominant view of today, it demonstrates that architecture has an affirmative, transformative capacity. This book is an ideal read for those interested in architectural theory and history, analysis of contemporary architecture, and philosophy of architecture.

Introduction; 1. The Four Positions in Architecture ; 2. Towards the Fifth Position; Architecture in Crisis; Destruction and Re-Composition; The Architectural Moral Code; An Architecture of Piercing Affirmation ; 3. The Structural Logic of Architecture; The Architectural Triad I; The Lacanian Triad; The Subject of Psychoanalysis; Anamorphosis; The Headless Subject of Architecture; 4. The Four Structural Elements of Architecture; 4.1. The Architectural Condition; The Condition of the Possibility of Architecture; 4.2. The Architectural Act and Architecture as Subject; The Opening Up of a Place; Enacting the "Cause of Architecture" in the World; The Subjectification of Architecture; 4.3. The Architectural Object; The Architectural Triad II; The Structural Joint: An Elementary Particle of Architecture ; The Gigantic Joint: Constructing a Place for Architecture; 5. In Lieu of a Conclusion; Buildings-Machines and the Posthumanist Subject; Extended Rationalism and the Human Factor

Petra Ceferin is an architect practising architectural theory and philosophy of architecture and is Associate Professor of Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, where she teaches architectural theory and history.