Architecture, Ethics, and the Personhood of PlaceGregory Caicco Architecture and environmental design are among the last professional fields to develop a sustained and nuanced discussion concerning ethics. Hemmed in by politics and powerful clients on one side and the often unscrupulous practices of the construction industry on the other, environmental designers have been traditionally reluctant to address ethical issues head on. And yet the rapid urbanization of the world's population continues to swell into new megacities, each less healthy, welcoming, secure, or environmentally sustainable than the next. Green, carbon-reduced, and sustainable building practices are important ways architects have recently responded to the symptoms of the crisis, but are these efforts really addressing the core issues? Taking the Dine (Navajo) "Hogan Song"--a song used to protect and nourish the personhood of newly constructed dwellings--as their inspiration, the architects, philosophers, poets, and other contemporary scholars contributing to this volume demonstrate that a deeper, more radical change in our relationship to the built world needs to occur. While offering a careful critique of modernist, corporate, or techno-enthralled design practices, these essays investigate an alternative "relational ecology" whose wisdom draws from ancient and often-marginalized voices, if not the whisperings of the earth itself. Contributors include: Richard Kearney, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Juhani Pallasmaa, Karsten Harries, Edward Casey, Susan Stewart, David Abram, Stacy Alaimo, Jace and Laura Weaver, Philip Sheldrake, and Sebnem Yucel Young. |
Contents
David Abram | 15 |
Cities of Contemplation | 18 |
Philip F Sheldrake | 50 |
Edward S Casey | 66 |
Richard Kearney | 91 |
Susan Stewart | 104 |
Alberto PérezGómez | 119 |
Karsten Harries | 134 |
Stacy Alaimo | 151 |
Some Thoughts on the Sentience of Matter | 173 |
Sebnem YucelYoung | 204 |
Contributors | 231 |
Common terms and phrases
action aesthetic already American animals architects architecture beauty become beginning body building built called Cambridge Center century collective concern considered construction contemporary continue create critical culture desire earth environment environmental essay ethics event example existence experience fact Famine function future give given ground human identity imagination important individual Irish issues kind land landscape language lives London material matter meaning mind Native nature never notes objects offers once original particular past person philosophy physical planning poetic political possible practice present production public memory questions reality reason reflection relation remembering responsibility sacred sense shared social space spirit stone stories Studies suggests things thinking thought tion tradition trans turn understanding University Press urban values vision walls Western writes York