Latour for Architects

#actor-network-theory #modernity #hybrids #nonhumans #cosmopolitics #gaia #controversies

Latour for Architects

Author: Albena Yaneva
Year: 2022
Source type: book
Raw file: raw/books/yaneva_2022_latour_for_architects.md

Summary

Yaneva presents Bruno Latour (1927-2022) as one of the most influential thinkers of our age, whose Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has gained popularity in architecture over the past two decades. The book critically discusses how Latour's methods and insights can inspire new thinking in architecture and design pedagogy. Key concepts include: critique of modernity (we have never been modern), symmetrical anthropology, science in the making, socio-technical approach to objects, ANT methodology, spacing vs. space, invisible cities, object-oriented politics, cosmopolitical design, and Gaia. Latour's sociology is realistic, pragmatist (oriented around things), and remains "in this world" — providing useful conceptual framework for architectural scholars and practitioners to tackle realities of design.

Key Claims

Actor-Network Theory (ANT) has gradually gained popularity among researchers in architecture and design studies within past two decades
Latour's sociology is realistic, pragmatist (oriented around things), and remains "in this world"
Modernity requires constant work of purification (separating nature from culture), but the more purification happens, the more it creates conditions for growth of hybrids
"We have never been modern" — acknowledging hybridizations means we stop being modern and our future/past changes
Principle of symmetry: take position in middle of events, paying attention to both humans and nonhumans simultaneously
Nonhumans (objects, animals, technologies, regulations) can be active participants in social life, just like subjects
There is no "context out there" beyond what is happening in course of events — everything is "in the making"
Postmodernism is devalued version of modernism; instead, suspend key features of modernism and engage in reversed exoticism
Architecture facilitates production of social relations and helps shape societies
Latour's theory of new climatic regime (Gaia) demands architectural response to climate change
Koolhaas is "never been modern" architect par excellence; his work distorts and pushes notion of "modern architecture" to its limits

Connections

Concepts: actor-network-theory, modernity, hybrids, nonhumans, cosmopolitics, gaia, controversies, translation, purification, symmetrical-anthropology, spacing, oligopticon, parliament-of-things, object-oriented-politics, critical-zone, modern-constitution

Authors: latour-bruno, yaneva-albena, koolhaas-rem, deleuze-gilles, garfinkel-harold, bourdieu-pierre, callon-michel, boltanski-luc, thevenot-laurent, serres-michel, tarde-gabriel, james-william, dewey-john, souriau-etienne, cronon-william, boyle-robert, hobbes-thomas, shapin-steven, schaffer-simon, knorr-cetina-karin, lynch-michael, pickering-andrew, whitehead-alfred-north

Debates: modernity-and-architecture, nature-vs-culture, nature-vs-culture, cosmopolitanism-vs-cosmopolitics, climate-change-and-architecture

Direct Quotes

"It is not a coincidence that Actor-Network Theory (ANT) associated with the name of Latour, has gradually gained popularity among researchers in the fields of architecture and design studies within the past two decades." (p. 2)

"The greatest advantage of Latour's sociology is that it is realistic, pragmatist (oriented around things) and remains in this world." (p. 2)

"There is a fundamental uncertainty in the way we understand ourselves as moderns. This is especially clear when we are in the midst of a practice, whether it is the making of an artefact or an experiment." (p. 6)

"Modernity requires a constant work of purification, and namely that modernity requires a constant work of separating nature from culture, the more that purification happens and the more it attempts to prevent the production of hybrids, the more it actually creates the conditions for the growth of hybrids." (p. 9)

"As soon as we direct our attention simultaneously to the work of purification and the work of hybridisation, we immediately stop being wholly modern, and our future begins to change." (Latour 1993a, 11, quoted p. 10)

"It is not possible to perform this filtering or externalisation because there is no context 'out there' beyond what is happening in the course of events. Instead we are all left with the work of hybridisation." (p. 13)

"'Modernism', Latour claimed, 'could go forward by emancipation [liberating], the "non-modernism" (there is no exact term for this) obliges us to take seriously the key question of change of scale imposed by the simple fact that we cannot externalise any longer'." (p. 13)

Open Questions

How might ANT methodology be applied to study architectural controversies in practice?
What would "cosmopolitical design" look like as built form?
How can architecture respond to Gaia and the new climatic regime?
What does it mean for architects to act as diplomats between different natures-cultures?