Dutch boundaries
Creators: name: Hoekstra, Rixt
Publisher: name: archimaera
Year: 2013
Subjects: 1960-1990
Ad Habets
Aldo van Eyck
Delft
Dromocracy
Dutch architect.intellectuals
Felix Guattari
Gilles Deleuze
Hermann Hertzberger
Jan de Graaf
Manfredo Tafuri
Meten en regelen
Michel Foucault
Paul Virilio
Rixt Hoekstra
Technical University of Delft
Western urbanism
Wim Nijenhuis
alternative studies
architectural history
architectural theory
border
boundary
city walls
communication theory
discourse
intellectual history
language
mobility
modern architecture
modernity
poststructuralist philosophy
rebel-students
rebellious identity
social critique
theoretical history
urban history
Architektur (DDC 720)
Philosophie und Psychologie (DDC 100)

description: In many schools of architecture the 1970s have been an important watershed for the way in which architecture was taught. For example, recent studies have stressed the importance of Aldo Rossi for the changes in the teaching of architec-ture at the ETH in Zürich that before was based on orthodox modern principles. A similar struggle between an orthodox conception of modernity and its criticism took place at the architectural faculty of Delft, in the Netherlands. Although Delft is an important European school of architecture, the theoretical work produced during this period is not largely known outside the Netherlands. This is perhaps due to the fact that most studies were published in Dutch. With this article, I intend to make the architectural theory developed during this period known to a larger public. The article describes the intellectual journey made by Dutch stu-dents of architecture in the 1970s and 1980s. This was the quest to receive recognition for the intellectual substance of architecture: the insight architecture could be a discourse and a form of knowledge and not only a method of building. Specifically, the work of the architectural theoretician Wim Nijenhuis is highlight-ed. However, as I point out in this article, the results of this journey also had its problematic sides. This becomes clear from the following sentence taken from the dissertation of Wim Nijenhuis: "The search for metaphysical fiction and the tendency towards a technological informed absolute through fully transparent and simultaneous information, should be contested by a fantasy dimension, that does not wish to 'overcome' a given situation and that does not rely on 'creativi-ty' (that would still be historical and humanistic)." Texts like this have a hermet-ic quality that is not easy to comprehend for an architectural public. Even more, there is an important debate looming behind these sentences. As an important outcome of their quest the architectural students in Delft asked themselves: how do we give form to architectural theory once its claim to truth is exposed as an illusion? For Nijenhuis, the discourse about architecture is a mere 'artful game with words': a fiction, besides other forms of fiction like poetry or literature. The question is then if we have not entered the realm of total subjectivity and relativ-ism with this position. From what can the discourse of architecture derive its authority after the death of God?
description: archimaera, Nr. 5 (2013): grenzwertig