Primitive: Original Maters In Architecture

Primitive
This innovative edited collection of essays charts the rise, fall and possible futures of the word ‘primitive’ in architecture. The word ‘primitive’ is fundamental to the discipline of architecture in the West, providing a convenient starting point for the myth of architecture’s origins. With the advent of post-modernism and, in particular, post-colonialism, the word has fallen fromfavour in many disciplines. Despite this – curiously – architects continue to use the word, particularly to reify the practice of simplicity. Primitive includes contributions from some of today’s leading architectural commentators and practitioners, including Dalibor Vesely, Adrian Forty, David Leatherbarrow, Richard Coyne, CJ Lim and Richard Weston. Structured around five sections, ‘Negotiatingorigins’, ‘Urban myths’, ‘Questioning colonial constructs’, ‘Making marks’, and ‘Primitive futures’, the essays highlight the problems of ideas of the primitive, engage with contemporary debates in the field of postcolonialism and respond to a burgeoning interest in non-expert architecture. This controversial subject remains, for better or worse, intrinsic to the history of architectural ideas andembedded in both architectural modernism and contemporary practice, and as such cannot be ignored. Considering a broad range of approaches, this book provides a rounded past, present and future of the word ‘primitive’ in the architectural sphere. Jo Odgers is an architect and lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University and previously worked in architectural practice for fifteenyears. She is currently writing her Ph.D. on the work of John Wood of Bath in relation to the tradition of occult philosophy. Her next project (with Flora Samuel) is a book entitled Façades. She is an Associate Editor of arq. Flora Samuel is an architect and reader at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. She is currently writing Le Corbusier in Detail for the Architectural Press.She has a particular interest in the narratives implicit within the construction of buildings and was one of the original initiators of the primitive conference from which this book has evolved. She is an Associate Editor of arq. Adam Sharr is a lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture and principal of Adam Sharr Architects, both based in Cardiff. Previously, he was Lecturer in Architectureat the University of Nottingham and worked in architectural practice. He is Joint Secretary of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) and is also Associate Editor of arq (Cambridge University Press). His book Heidegger’s Hut will be published by the MIT Press in 2006.

Primitive
Original matters in architecture

Edited by Jo Odgers, Flora Samuel and Adam Sharr

Firstpublished 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 selection and editorial matter: Jo Odgers, Flora Samuel and Adam Sharr; individual chapters: the contributors

This edition published in theTaylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying andrecording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Primitive : original matters in architecture / edited by Jo Odgers, Flora Samuel and Adam Sharr—1st ed. p. cm. Includes...