- Reading Architecture with Freud and Lacan methodically outlines key concepts in psychoanalytic discourse by reading them against key modern and post-modern architects. It begins with what is arguably, the central concept for each discipline, by putting the unconscious in a dialectic relation to space.
- The text is cyclical, episodic, cloudlike, rather than expository; the intention is not simply to explain the concept of the unconscious but, to different degrees, perform it in the text.
- Psychoanalysis is one of the great humanist discourses of the 20th Century. This book will be of interest to the humanist in architects, planners, social scientists, whether they are students, professionals, or amateurs.
Lorens Holm teaches Architecture at the University of Dundee, where he runs a design research unit called rooms+cities. His published work focuses on reconciling Lacanian thought on subjectivity with contemporary architectural/urban practice. He recently organised the international conference Architecture & Collective Life.
Title: Reading Architecture with Freud and Lacan: Shadowing the Public Realm
Author:
ISBN: 9780367077990
Binding:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publication Date: 2022-09-30
Number of Pages: 160
Weight: 0.2951 kg
It is with a sense of urgency, but also a lightness of touch, that Holm draws on his intimate knowledge of Lacan's work to address architecture in this time of climate crisis. Aiming to 'reboot' architecture's ethical potential, Holm takes us through some of most challenging theoretical twists of psychoanalysis. Erudite and witty, 'wreck[ing] havoc with linear arguments, clear categories, and objective forms of research,' Holm dedicates his precise - and kind - intelligence to flagging our urgent need for Lacan's understanding of the unconscious as a space of inter-subjectivity. Holm argues that via Lacan we can change our culture - as one that values individuality above all else - 'all fantasies of the ego' - and instead grasp architecture's capacity for articulating the relation between individual and collective. This is Holms best book on architecture and Lacan yet, and makes for some gripping, yet vital reading.
Professor Jane Rendell, author of The Architecture of Psychoanalysis (2017), the Bartlett School of Architecture
Lorens Holm's highly informative primer on the relation between architecture and psychoanalysis will be much welcomed. The two disciplines have recently entered a productive dialogue and in this respect Reading Architecture with Freud and Lacan in its rigour and cogency is a major contribution to both.
Nadir Lahiji, author of the most recent Architecture in the Age of Pornography: Reading Alain Badiou
Lorens Holm's highly informative primer on the relation between architecture and psychoanalysis will be much welcomed. The two disciplines have recently entered a productive dialogue and in this respect Reading Architecture with Freud and Lacan in its rigour and cogency is a major contribution to both .
Nadir Lahiji, author of Architecture in the Age of Pornography: Reading Alain Badiou
It is with a sense of urgency, but also a lightness of touch, that Holm draws on his intimate knowledge of Lacan's work to address architecture in this time of climate crisis. Aiming to 'reboot' architecture's ethical potential, Holm takes us through some of the most challenging theoretical twists of psychoanalysis. Erudite and witty, 'wreck[ing] havoc with linear arguments, clear categories, and objective forms of research,' Holm dedicates his precise - and kind - intelligence to flagging our urgent need for Lacan's understanding of the unconscious as a space of inter-subjectivity. Holm argues that via Lacan we can change our culture - as one that values individuality above all else - 'all fantasies of the ego' - and instead grasp architecture's capacity for articulating the relation between individual and collective. This is Holm's best book on architecture and Lacan yet, and makes for some gripping, yet vital reading .
Jane Rendell, author of The Architecture of Psychoanalysis, Professor of Critical Spatial Practice, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
