Irúsan, or, canting for architects
By: Nicholas Drofiak
Series: Architectural knowledge
Publisher: gta Verlag
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Zurich
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
ISBN-13: 9783856764081
Subjects: Vernacular architecture; History; Ket language; Grammar; Historical linguistics
Description: In 1931, architect Ivan Leonidov was sent 2,800 kilometres northeast of Moscow to assist in constructing the new Soviet Arctic port of Igarka. The city, though presented as an inscription of the future into the vast void of Siberia, in fact stood in the traditional territory of speakers of the indigenous language of Ket. Today spoken fluently by fewer than twenty people, the language isolate offers a grammatical model of reality unrelated to Indo-European language structures. This transdisciplinary work employs the Ket language as a medium of academic architectural discussion. It creates an encounter between Leonidov's fantastical architectural drawings (The City of the Sun) and native Ket speaker and linguist Dr. Zoâ Vasilevna Maksunova to reveal the uncertain, creative processes of hybridisation, fiction-making and translation as subjects and means of research practice. Linguistic theory is fused with historical eclecticisms to question diverse interpretations of Siberia, Igarka's landscape and indigenous positionality. The work's graphical elements and lyrical prose challenge conventional ways in which architectural history and knowledge are constructed.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-188) and index.

Texts in English, with contributions in French, Italian, German, Russian, and other languages.
Table of contents: title: Extracts: The city of the sun; title: Orthographies; title: Orientations; title: Oðerwheres; title: Standings; title: Phora: or, imperfective projections of perfective worlds; title: Canting caritive: or, revolutions around silence; title: Divers: or, a fable and a stance (in lieu of a conclusion), a plea for ðe architectural epic; title: Analytical table of contents; title: Acknowledgements; title: Abbreviations; title: Illustrations; title: Bibliography; title: Inventory; title: Index.