In this book, Nikos A. Salingaros sets the stage for a new thinking about the current status of architecture. This is through a collection of twelve essays in the form of a compilation that critically analyzes evolutionary aspects of modernism and post-Modernism, while heavily criticizing the resulting end-style of these two movements: Deconstructivism. Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction encompasses an interview with Christopher Alexander, and contributions and comments from well-known writers and scholars including James Stevens Curl, Michael Mehaffy, and Lucien Steil, among others.The main argument of this manuscript lies in Salingaros’ belief that architectural deconstruction is not a new thing. It has started since the 1920s from the Bauhaus, the international style, and modernism, going through new brutalism and late and post modernism. Each of these “ISMS” is regarded as a cult that had tremendous negative impacts on they way in which we think about or approach architecture in pedagogy and practice. Salingaros argues, and rightly so, that deconstructivists have disassociated themselves from the lessons derived from history and precedents, while distancing themselves from basic human needs and cultural contexts.While many critical statements are made by Salingaros in different parts of the manuscript, one should note his criticism of the critics, the articulate and fancy rhetoric and writings of Charles Jencks and Bernard Tschumi. In this respect, in two important essays, Salingaros made valid arguments where the manuscript refers to Jencks as a “phrase maker and style tracker.” He points out that Jencks’ understanding and use of scientific concepts to justify and celebrate deconstructivist architecture is simply superficial. On the other hand, Bernard Tschumi’s two major writings titled “The Manhattan Transcripts” and “Architecture and Disjunction” were closely examined by Salingaros. He concluded that Tschumi’s work is a collection of meaningless images that resembles advertising and a false claim of knowledge of mathematics in analogizing it to architectural form.
architectureurbanism.blogspot.com/2007/05/anti-architecture-and-deconstruction-by.html