Timely Meditations, vol.1: Architectural Theories and Practices (Selected Essays on Architecture) - Softcover

This remarkable collection brings together a selection of essays by Alberto Pérez-Gómez, originally published in diverse periodicals and as chapters in books, over a period of twenty-five years. The essays have been revised and updated by the author, sometimes substantially modified to reflect more accurately the state of contemporary questions in the field of architecture. While the writing deliberately blurs the edges of history and theory, the essays have been collected in two separate volumes: the first focusing on architectural theories and practices both historical and recent, and the second on more general aspects of architectural philosophy. The untimeliness of these texts on architecture, history, and philosophy is a welcome departure from today’s incessant demand for timely innovation. These articles engage with central and marginal figures from architecture’s past, converse with contemporaries who hold a sympathetic stance, and engage diverse philosophical positions. The essays draw from other fields of inquiry: philosophy, theatre, literature, art, dance, and neuroscience, to name a few. It is through these interdisciplinary conversations and the questions they generate that the works manifest their full power, rendering visible many currently-ignored issues. Against some of our most assured convictions and protocols, Pérez-Gómez consistently seeks meaningful sites in which to re-negotiate the architect’s task of imagining the world otherwise. This is done without affectation or pretense, acknowledging the task’s difficulty in our late-modern world. By joining past, present, and future, the texts offer their gift: the hopeful shaping of a time to come. This remarkable collection is a testament to three decades of thinking, whose untimeliness will challenge and reward readers, placing the search for dwelling, belonging and love at the heart of architecture (Foreword by Peter Olshavsky).

Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949, where he studied architecture and practiced. He did postgraduate work at Cornell University, and was awarded an M.A. and a Ph.D. by the University of Essex (England). He has taught at universities in Mexico, Houston, Syracuse, Toronto, and at London’s Architectural Association. In 1983 he became Director of Carleton University’s School of Architecture. Since January 1987 he has occupied the Bronfman Chair of Architectural History at McGill University, where he founded the History and Theory Post-Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs. Pérez-Gómez has lectured extensively around the world and is the author of numerous articles published in major periodicals and books. His book Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Hitchcock Award in 1984. Later books include the erotic narrative theory Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (1992), Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (co-authored with Louise Pelletier, 1997), which traces the history and theory of modern European architectural representation, and most recently, Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (2006). This last book examines points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy drawing important conclusions for contemporary practice. Perez-Gomez is also co-editor (with Stephen Parcell) of a well-known series of books entitled CHORA: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture. The seventh volume in this series appeared in February 2106. His most recent work titled Attunement, Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT, March 2016) examines connections between phenomenology, recent cognitive science and emerging language, seeking attunement in architecture and the urban environment.