Eating Oysters, Naked: Realizing Critical Architectural Discourse

Abstract

George Baird’s “Les Extrêmes Qui se Touchent?” was published in 1977 in the Architectural Design special issue on the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). It was republished as “Les Extrêmes Qui se Touchent” in Baird’s 2015 edited volume, Writings on Architecture and the City. Both publications feature a figure drawn by Madelon Vriesendorp: “Eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked.” The re-presentation of the text is a kind of review. Its reader witnesses Baird looking back, siting and contextualizing the work and its construction. This paper critiques the framing and prefacing of “Les Extrêmes Qui se Touchent” in Writings on Architecture and the City. “Eating oysters with boxing gloves, naked” provides the key lens for this inspection. Through this critique, the paper generates specific commentary on the text(s), as well as making broader arguments regarding architectural authorship, the discursive term “critical,” and the moment and tradition associated with that term.