The politics of a minor architecture

© 1999 Janet Kay McGawThe subject of this thesis developed from an observation that at first appeared paradoxical: poststructuralism, which has framed a significant school of architectural theory over the past three decades, has deeply socio-political origins, yet the architecture that has arisen from this theory seems remarkably a-political. Socio-political critique had framed the architectural polemic of the 1950s and 1960s at the Architecture Association (AA), led by the Smithsons, Team X and Cedric Price, yet it seemed to evaporate when poststructural theories superseded them. This thesis seeks to establish reasons why this may have been so. By way of example, the work of four architects, and the four poststructural theorists who have been most influential to them in the development of their theoretical approach, is reviewed. The thesis contends that the shift away from an interest in socio-political processes in their architecture is in part a consequence of a biased reading of poststructuralism but also a limitation of poststructural theory’s applicability to architecture. It concludes by proposing an alternative architectural methodology that is informed by poststructuralism but reinvigorated by new developments in systems theory. The thesis will contend that this methodology has greater utility for architecture as well as greater ability to respond to its socio-political context than a theory informed by poststructuralism. (From Introduction