Violated perfection

by Aaron Betsky

This critical survey of current architecture analyzes the work and thought of the most important architects of today, such as Peter Eisenman, Steven Holl, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, John Hejduk, Morphosis, SITE and Robert Venturi, whose diverse methods resist and subvert the leveling effect convention and tradition exert on their discipline. The author discusses how and why architecture, by its very nature, re-affirms the social and economic status quo. He then shows, through the work of architects who resist this situation, how they rework the fundamentals of architectural language to reveal new meaning of the social and physical structures of our society. Qualities such as harmony, beauty, and function are no longer the primary guiding forces of design for these architects. The designs represented in this book often seem pointedly aggressive, deliberately unresolved, distorted, disassembled, and fragmented. They denounced the stagnant limitations of architecture to encourage a more ope