A groundbreaking study of abstraction in architectural history, theory, and practice that challenges our assumptions about the meaning of abstract forms. In this theoretical study of abstraction in architecture—the first of its kind—Pier Vittorio Aureli advocates for the reevaluation of abstraction, its meanings, and its sources. Although architects have typically interpreted abstraction in terms of form—the deliberate reduction of design complexities to its essential elements—Aureli shows that abstraction arises from the material conditions of building production. In a vivid study influenced by Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx, Alfred Sohn-Rethel, and other social theorists, this book presents abstraction in architecture not as an aesthetic trend but as a movement stemming from modern divisions of labor and the ensuing social inequalities. These divisions were prefigured by ancient architecture, which established a distinction between manual and intellectual labor, placing the former in service of the latter. Further abstractions ensued as geometry, used for measuring land, became the intermediary between land and money, ultimately producing the logic of the grid. In our time, architectural abstraction serves the logic of capitalism and adopts the assumption that all things can be exchanged—even experience is commodifiable. To resist this shift, Aureli seeks a critique of architecture that does not begin from philosophical heights, but from the level of material practice.

Pages: 328, Dimensions: 13.7x13.7cm