Overview

Michael Benedikt teaches, practices architecture, and writes in Austin, where he is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas. His second book, Deconstructing the Kimbell (0-930829-16-6), is also published by Lumen. Benedikt has written a bold theoretical essay, with stirring cultural implications, that argues to restore the missing sense of reality to architecture and insists on 'the direct esthetic experience of the real.' . . . a timely manifesto. Thought-provoking and eminently quotable, it succeeds admirably in what it sets out to do: to recall architecture, and not only architecture, to those all but mute meanings so often passed over and yet inseparable from our everyday existence.--Karsten Harries This book will still be useful when this year's round arches have all been remodeled (isn't it inevitable?) into pointed. And because it is so vividly -and thoughtfully--written, it will still be a pleasure to read. --Charles Moore Every literate architect should take an afternoon off to read and ponder this brief and thoughtful and thoroughly engaging book. . . . Benedikt says more about some central aesthetic and philosophical issues confronting contemporary architecture than many celebrated pundits manage to squeeze into a shelfful of books. . . . He offers a straightforward account of his own struggle to understand the pleasures and responsibilities of architecture in an age when aesthetic pleasure is all but indiscernible from entertainment, and responsibility is often a cover for thoughtless conformity. --Roger Kimball, Architectural Record Benedikt marches bravely into the philosophical thicket to find a working definition of reality. . . . In his sensibilities, he is quite transcendental, much like a Thoreau or an Emerson in a hotel lobby of potted ficus trees. --Howard Mansfield, Small Press . . . the book of the decade in Texas architectural circles. . . -- Texas Architect

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