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Vol.12 Love
Love is a concept which does not sit comfortably within mainstream architectural discourse, perhaps regarded as too trivial or intangible for serious academic attention. This theme however carries considerable potential to reframe issues that have pervaded architectural thought in recent decades and foster deeper connections between practitioners and the people and environments influenced by their work. Inflection vol.12 invites contributors to reconsider these relationships and the relevance of love to the discipline of architecture.
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Since Vitruvius defined the three characteristics of good architecture as firmness, commodity and delight, architecture has been expressed as a source of pleasure and by extension a legitimate subject of love. In Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499), the anonymous author long assumed to be Leon Battista Alberti told the tale of Poliphilio (meaning “lover of many things”). The protagonist professes his love not only for his partner, Polia, but for architecture itself. Space in the novel operates as both a metaphor for desire, but also as a direct source of Poliphilio’s visceral pleasure.[1]
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Some contemporary architects have however resisted this blinkered pursuit of pleasure or pure beauty – l'art pour l'art – which is often dismissed as self-indulgent, decadent, or even morally corrupt. Bernard Tschumi, in The Pleasure of Architecture (1978), notes: “The idea that architecture can possibly exist without either moral or functional justification, or even responsibility, has been considered distasteful.”[2] He argues instead that architecture operates between the sacred and the profane, between “Apollo's ethical and spiritual mindscapes and Dionysus' erotic and sensual impulses.”[3] From this perspective, architecture is both an object of beauty, and therefore a legitimate subject of love, and also ethically charged.
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This idea is maintained by contemporary architectural discourse which is not limited to notions of romance or beauty but instead demands a more critical investigation. Alberto Pérez-Gómez asks: “Can we imagine an architecture that is both beautiful and contributes to the common good?” What is the architect’s ethical responsibility beyond the demands of budget and client? For Pérez-Gómez, the answer is love – a force in architecture that transcends mere beauty or function, positioning itself as an ethical and poetic act.[4]
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Love, in this sense, becomes an act of care and the very means through which architecture engages with both place and purpose. Yet in the age of the Anthropocene (or the Capitalocene), this volume poses the question: has the possibility of an architecture of love been lost? Donna Haraway’s conception of the Chthulucene begins to imagine an alternative epoch – one grounded in care, within which human beings are no longer a dominant force but are instead “with and of the earth.”[5] Perhaps by adopting this view an architecture of love and ethical responsibility could prosper, and encourage other professions of the built environment to begin to address the looming environmental concerns of today?
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Human sexuality is another topic inherently intertwined with both discussions of love and space. Its relevance to architecture is evident in the history of the built environment, from nunneries to brothels, which make explicit their ascetic or carnal purposes. Today however it is acknowledged that sexuality in the built environment is not always so overt but also implicit in the architecture of the quotidian. Toward the turn of the 21st century, editor of Sexuality and Space (1992) Beatriz Colomina highlighted that “the politics of space are always sexual, even if space is central to the mechanisms of the erasure of sexuality.”[6]
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In 2011, Philip Hubbard in his study of prostitution highlighted that sexual expression is a localised phenomenon, influenced by the quality of place and its implicit value systems.[7] The built environment, then, both communicates cultural values and moulds the way sexual identities are expressed in both public and private. Acknowledging both this symbiotic relationship between sexuality and place and the extent to which understandings of gender, sexuality, and identity have shifted in recent years, Inflection vol.12 might ask: has the built environment adapted to accommodate these newfound attitudes? Or does contemporary architecture continue to reflect and encourage longstanding biases of discrimination and heteronormativity?
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Contributors:​
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Tony Birch
Simona Castricum
Vinu Daniel
Celeste de Clario Davis
Fatou Kiné Dieye
Garry Emery & Jane Mooney
Thomas Essex Plath
Hélène Frichot
Felix Garner Davis & Nina Nervegna
Lina Ghotmeh
Greg Girard
Bradley Kerr & Kaylie Salvatori
Jimenez Lai
Iggy Licup
Samiha Meem
Anna Nervegna & Toby Reed
Alberto Pérez-Gómez
Sarah Robinson
Alex Selenitsch
Robyn Sweaney
James Urlini
William Ward
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