Form Follows Libido

Form Follows Libido
Author :
Publisher : MIT Press
Total Pages : 193
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780262622134
ISBN-13 : 0262622130
Rating : 4/5 (34 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Form Follows Libido by : Sylvia Lavin

Download or read book Form Follows Libido written by Sylvia Lavin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-09-28 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How modern architecture came to embrace the urges and fears of the affective unconscious. "Eight million Americans a year cool their heels in psychiatric waiting rooms. Design can help lower this nervous overhead."—Richard Neutra, 1954 Sylvia Lavin's Form Follows Libido argues that by the 1950s, some architects felt an urge to steer the cool abstraction of high modernism away from a neutral formalism toward the production of more erotic, affective environments. Lavin turns to the architecture of Richard Neutra (1892-1970) to explore the genesis of these new mood-inducing environments. In a series of engaging essays weaving through the designs and writings of this Vienna-born, California-based architect, Lavin discovers in Neutra a sustained and poignant psychoanalytic reflection set in the context of a burgeoning psychoanalytic culture in America. Lavin shows that Neutra's redirection of modernism constituted not a lyrical regression to sentimentality but a deliberate advance of architectural theory and technique to engage the unconscious mind, fueled by the ideas of psychoanalysis that were being rapidly disseminated at the time. In Neutra's responses to a vivid range of issues, from psychoanalysis proper to the popular psychology of tele-evangelical prayer, Lavin uncovers a radical reconstitution of the architectural discipline. Arguing persuasively that the received historical views of both psychoanalysis and architecture have led to a suppression of their compelling coincidences and unorthodoxies, Lavin sets out to unleash midcentury architecture's hidden libido. Neither Neutra nor psychoanalysis emerges unscathed from her investigation of how architecture came to be saturated by the intrigues of affect, often against its will. If Reyner Banham sought to put architecture "on the couch," then Lavin, through Neutra, leaps beyond Banham's ameliorative aim to lure contemporary architecture into the lush and dangerous liaisons of environmental design.


Form Follows Libido Related Books

Form Follows Libido
Language: en
Pages: 193
Authors: Sylvia Lavin
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-09-28 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How modern architecture came to embrace the urges and fears of the affective unconscious. "Eight million Americans a year cool their heels in psychiatric waitin
Form Follows Feelings
Language: en
Pages: 321
Authors: Pramod Beri
Categories: Architects
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Form Follows Feeling
Language: en
Pages:
Authors: TERRENCE M. CURRY
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-06-13 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This PhD thesis addresses learning to design and to propose a theoretical framework that explains how design expertise is acquired and why a highly developed se
Experiencing Architecture, second edition
Language: en
Pages: 260
Authors: Steen Eiler Rasmussen
Categories: Architecture
Type: BOOK - Published: 1964-03-15 - Publisher: MIT Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A classic examination of superb design through the centuries. Widely regarded as a classic in the field, Experiencing Architecture explores the history and prom
Eternal Erasure
Language: en
Pages: 290
Authors: Pieter van Bogaert
Categories: Fashion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It's easy to rant about the fashion industry. Nowadays, a large part of it is based on producing and consuming gigantic amounts of clothing. Collections are man