This is Not Architecture: Media Constructions

Architecture’s relationship with its representations is peculiar, powerful and critical. Though driven by belief in the characteristics of physical reality, architecture is identified, discussed, and explained almost entirely through representations. Indeed, the representations are often described as though they were architecture itself. The status of the imaginary project, and the shifts in media technology which affect how we make and see architecture, are part of a construct of media representations, including photographs, exhibitions, journalism, books, critical theory, by which we define what is architecture. This is Not Architecture assembles architectural writers of different kinds - historians, theorists, journalists, computer game designers, technologists, film-makers and architects - to discuss the characteristics, cultures, limitations and bias of the different kinds of media, and to build up an argument as to how this complex culture of representations is constructed. James Ackerman, Philip Campbell, Beatriz Colomina, Paul Finch, David Greene, Alberto Perez Gomez, Charles Jencks, Patrick Keiller, William Mitchell, Alan Powers, Kester Rattenbury, Pier Luigi Serraino