A CRITICAL READING OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURAL LITERATURE ON FORM AND FUNCTION: THE OBJECT OF DESIRE IN ANALYZING CONCEPTUAL, DISCURSIVE, AND CONTEXTUAL SHIFTS SINCE THE 1960s

Date

2023-5-23

Author

YOLTAY, ECE

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This thesis offers a critical reading of the contemporary literature by analyzing the conceptual, discursive, and contextual formations of architecture since 1960. The successive paradigm shifts in which architectural theories and practices were constantly de/reconstructed in the course of these decades are explored. In this respect, this thesis examines the cause and consequence of each paradigmatic change that occurred in the academic, intellectual, and professional realms, benefiting from Lacanian psychoanalysis theory. Lacan’s theory is applied to understand an ontological issue, namely the relationship between form and function, regarded as one of the most fundamental disputes of architecture through a thematic reading and taxonomic mapping of the related literature. In this comprehensive rereading of the literature, the terms “form” and “function” are reformulated in line with the Lacanian notions of “image” and “symbol” for encoding and decoding the probable ontologies of architecture over the last six decades. The underlying reasons, continuities and discontinuities, and coherences and contradictions in the interpretations of form and function are studied within the framework of the changing contextual conditions of the period. Drawing upon Lacan’s conceptualization of desire as a will that is generated externally to the subject but internalized by the subject, this thesis argues that these paradigm shifts have stemmed from the desires of architects to attain “status” and “recognizability” within disciplinary networks. The main argument of this thesis is that the desire in question is specifically a desire to cause the reification of architectural symbols through the manipulation of function as well as the objectification of architectural images through the sublimation of forms. This constitutes an ontological crisis due to the contextual needs and demands dictated to architecture, which undermines the possible capacities of autonomy in the discipline in “the real,” according to Lacanian terminology.

Subject Keywords

Form-Function, Image-Symbol, Ontological Crisis, Contemporary Architectural Literature, Desire (jouissance), Lacanian Psychoanalysis.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104536

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis