While much of architecture theory has become dominated by the shifting definitions and tensions among various media, certain contemporary architectural practices challenge notions of the uniqueness and autonomy of individual arts but, at the same time, question the fruitfulness of construing architecture simply as “one medium among others.” In China, recent architects often revived study and analysis of the ancient arts of calligraphy and landscape painting while completely bypassing the semiotics-based theory of earlier generations. In the Americas and Europe, architects have turned to material assemblies and analysis of vernaculars to underpin boldly inventive expressions. Much of this production, despite its implementation across geographic and linguistic barriers, can be categorized as “architecture’s inscriptions.”

This class will study the practices of marking and scripting as the techné of contemporary architecture by situating architectural analysis within the broader domain of artistic practices in China and poststructuralist thought in Europe and America. Methodologically, the class will conduct a comparative “materialistic historiography” (W. Benjamin) of recent architecture through the cultural techniques of inscription, investigating what precedes and often determines architectural figuration: inscription, technicity, materiality, the virtual, and the mnemonic. The concepts and categories of poststructuralist and post-semiotic thought will be used to organize the investigations.

Through formal analysis, Lacanian theory, symptomatic reading, and comparative study, we will examine a series of recent case studies by Chinese and American architects hypothesizing that these architects employ various forms of practices based in the concept of trace and the action of marking to move beyond semiotic constructions and simplistic narratives about contemporary identity forms. Like classical Suzhou gardens, their designs go beyond just text, image, or graphic ekphrasis, operating instead on the coalescence of different modes of making rooted in a longstanding tradition and the shared techné of imbricated inscriptive practices–such as calligraphy, poetry, painting, and garden-making.

Requirements include intense reading mainly from poststructuralism and recent media theory; lectures by instructors; weekly research and writing; several short projects, including graphic analysis and presentation of recent architecture; and research visits to the Fogg Museum collection.