Autorstvo i jezik u knjigama savremenih arhitekata

Abstract

This paper examines theoretical, graphical, and material dimensions of the contemporary print culture of architecture with a focus on one work from a variety of European practices. It regards the contemporary architect's book as a speculative and discursive design object. Michel Foucault, particularly in his works, What is an Author? (1969) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), criticises that while constructing an author's body of works, alternative and unclassified genres are omitted from the domain and the texts attached to the single name belong to a system of homogeneity, filiation, and reciprocal explanation. Yet the contemporary architect's book expands the borders of genres by comprising unconventional materials, such as musical notes, artistic photographs, paintings, technical and scientific diagrams, official reports, building regulations, newspaper articles, and advertisements, as well as combining texts and photographs from co-workers, partners, clients, and users, rather than emerging as the product of a single author. The paper interprets the use of various forms of graphical narration and the coalescence of novel terminology and jargon as a contribution to the power of language and discursive formation.