ABSTRACT
Understanding of context in the field of architecture has been in a state of flux over the last century, affected by architectural discourse swinging between debates of autonomy and engagement. Numerous architects, historians, and teachers turned to context in the 1950s and 1960s to heal the ill effects of orthodox modern architecture and to overcome the destructive postwar reconstructions taking place in the United States and Europe. Following the 1980s, however, context lost popularity, after being absorbed by postmodern historicism and eclecticism, co-opted by traditionalists and conservationists, and attacked by the neo-avant-gardes. This essay identifies the background of this trajectory with particular reference to the works of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, whose definition of context shifted from a spatial to an iconographic emphasis early in their work. The intention here is to reclaim context by proposing a fresh definition of the term that could reinforce architectural practice and discourse as both critical and engaged.
