ABSTRACT
When discussing the idea of a conference on critical architecture, the sheer complex-
ity of the subject was immediately apparent. Nagging away was the issue of whether
critical architecture could ever be in any sense reduced to a homogenous and all-
embracing category. We of course realised it could not, but equally it seemed wrong
to assume there was not some form of linkage between the different understandings
of critical architecture. In our eyes, to reject the critical function in architecture would
only mirror the worst tendencies of the ‘post-critical’ position in the United States.
