Praxis in architecture: the dialectical relationship between “thinking” and “making”

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2013

Author

Al, Meltem

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Being a concept that was first raised in the context of Ancient Greek, “praxis” indicates the association of theory and practice in any human activity. As a purposeful and meaningful activity, praxis requires a well-structured theory that leads to the whole production process. At this point, this thesis claims that architectural production should be considered as a purposeful activity and that it should be performed as “praxis”. In architectural production the theoretical knowledge that is supported by architecture’s inner or exterior sources supports the architectural design process and this process contributes to the production of architectural knowledge correspondingly. In architecture, there is a dialectical relationship between “thinking” and “making” activities that bring out “praxis”. In this work, that architecture’s autonomous properties stemming from its disciplinary specific rules, norms and qualities, and its relationship with other knowledge fields or exterior theory source lead to the rise of two different types of “praxes” is explored. The first one is “object oriented praxis” that produces the theoretical knowledge through architecture’s own sources, and the second is “context-oriented praxis” that produces its theory by considering the social and contextual factors. Kerem Yazgan and Ziya Tanalı’s theoretical and practical works in architecture will be investigated in order to comprehend these two notions.

Subject Keywords

Architecture., Architecture

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12616145/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22718

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

M. Al, “Praxis in architecture: the dialectical relationship between “thinking” and “making”,” M.Arch. - Master of Architecture, Middle East Technical University, 2013.