Architecture in the Age of Pornography: Reading Alain Badiou

Description

Architecture, and its pedagogy in the academy, is dominated by the technology of image production that veils the ‘naked power’ behind its operation. It conforms to the principles of cultural logic of the society of the spectacle, consistent with neoliberal capitalism. The problem with this dominant pedagogy is that it violates the fundamental ethical imperative, putting architecture in direct contradiction with the ‘common good’. In addition, it has let architecture enter the brothel of pornographic capitalism which turns every object into an object of obscene gratification of the senses. In this book, Nadir Lahiji adopts Alain Badiou’s thesis from The Pornographic Age to demonstrate that contemporary architecture is in absolute complicity with the pornographic present. The traits that Badiou identifies in this age are manifestly visible in architectural surfaces which are subordinated to the same ‘regime of images’. Similarly to Badiou’s political indictments of the society which has given rise to the pornographic present, the book condemns the architecture that has lent its service to the same society with a license to consummate its transgression to better cater to the imperative of the ‘regime of images’. Transposing the conceptual categories in Badiou’s analysis to the critique of architecture’s pornographic turn in contemporary society, the book constructs a conceptual framework by which to demonstrate the specific manifestations of pornography in building. The book is aimed at architecture students at higher graduate and post-graduate levels. Cover Endorsement Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Figures Foreword Preface Acknowledgments Part I Philosophical Thoughts On Pornography Chapter 1 Visibility of the Invisible: Pornography and Utilitarianism Chapter 2 Profanation and Pornography Chapter 3 The Society of Pornography Chapter 4 Pornography and the Society of Spectacle Part II Badiou and the Pornographic Present Chapter 5 The Fetish of Democracy Chapter 6 The Reign of the Image and the Phallic Fetish of Our Time Chapter 7 The Brothel and the Chief of Police Part III The Architecture of the Pornographic Age Chapter 8 Appearance and Schein Chapter 9 Building Between Nudity and Clothing Chapter 10 Digital Tattooists, Or, the New Criminals Chapter 11 The Obscene Surplus of Drapery Chapter 12 Veiling and Unveiling Chapter 13 Pornography and Exhibition-Value Part IV Architecture and Political Truth: Critique of Pornographic Capitalism Chapter 14 Utilitarianism, Happiness, and the Use of Pleasure Chapter 15 Philosophy and Happiness Chapter 16 Political Truth, Ideology, and the Camera Obscura Chapter 17 Architecture, Capitalism, and the Pornographic Apparatus References Index