ABSTRACT

What if the house you are about to enter was built with the confessed purpose of seducing you, of creating various sensations destined to touch your soul and make you reflect on who you are? Could architecture have such power? This was the assumption of generations of architects at the beginning of modernity.

Exploring the role of theatre and fiction in defining character in architecture, Louise Pelletier examines how architecture developed to express political and social intent. Applying this to the modern day, Pelletier considers how architects can learn from these eighteenth century attitudes in order to restore architecture's communicative dimension.

Through an in-depth and interdisciplinary analysis of the beginning of modernity, Louise Pelletier encourages today's architects to consider the political and linguistic implications of their tools. Combining theory, historical studies and research, Architecture in Words will provoke thought and enrich the work of any architect.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

part |2 pages

Part 1: Character and expression: staging an architectural theory

chapter 1|14 pages

Architecture as an expressive language

chapter 2|21 pages

Character theory in theatrical staging

part |2 pages

Part 2: Play-acting and the culture of entertainment: architecture as theatre

part |2 pages

Part 3: Language and personal imagination: an architecture for the senses

part |2 pages

Part 4: Plotting an architectural program: the space of desire

chapter 9|14 pages

Staging an architecture in words

chapter 10|23 pages

The narrative space of desire