Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech

Michael K. Hays and Andrew Holder eds. Harvard University Press 2022 SKU S04138 Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech presents a theory of contemporary architecture that spans the work of 112 practices in 750 images. Against the popular characterization of contemporary architecture as a centerless field where anything goes and everything is possible, this book argues that much recent work belongs to a collective undertaking. Underneath the impression of kaleidoscopic difference produced by the rapid circulation of design images is a shared mechanism, an agreement about how architectural objects emerge from the procedures of design. This mechanism, which we call inscription, manages to both offer fundamentally intelligible form to architecture’s audiences and advance the field toward novel outcomes. The ensuing work is nothing less than democratically optimistic in its wide appeal and challenging in its cuts against convention. 624 pages, 8-1/2 x 11 inches, hardcover.