CONTENTS
Undertaking i
Certificate iii
Acknowledgements v
Abstract vii
Table of Contents ix
List of Figures xi
1.Introduction to the dissertation 1
Selection of texts
Scope and limitations
2. Mapping the zeitgeist 11
Social and cultural upheaval
Important events and its impact on society (1945 to 1989)
Role of media in mass communication
1960-1990: A period of transition
3. Reconstructing the background 25
Challenges to architecture after the Second World War
Architectural Histories and their Focus
Ideas that shaped architectural thinking in the twentieth century
The Shift - From the crisis to the spurring of new ideas
Writings in Architecture - A marker of the shift
Ideas - On thinking about architecture
Theoretical Practice
4. Textual discourse in architecture 53
Print as a medium of communication
An emergence of the public sphere in the discipline of architecture
Theory institutions as public spheres
Discourse in architecture
Pluralist approaches to architecture
Interdisciplinarity and rhetoric - an investigation of concepts with reference to the architectural texts
Rhetoric as a mode of peruasion
Interdisciplinarity
Rhetorical analysis : a method of decoding text
The situation and the strategy : concepts for rhetorical investigation
5. Rhetorical analysis of texts in architecture 91
Complexity and contradiction in architecture by RobertVenturi - An architectural response to the crisis within modernism
The timeless way of building by Christopher Alexander - A journey towards achieving the essence
Genius loci: towards phenomenology of architecture by Christian Norberg Schulz - A theory of place
Explorations into meanings 129
The birth of an alternative practice
Intertextuality
References 147
Illustration Credits 153
Appendix 1 - Major socio-political events and publications 155
Appendix 2 - Chronological List of writings in architecture 157