2010
Kwinter is one of the theorists that I absolutely adore, whether or not I agree nor understand the specific point of an essay; he is one of the few writers that allows my own mind to parse my limited knowledge and question my own thinking. Much like a rather thick bowl of oatmeal Kwinter's style relies on some personal asides (requiring some extra curricular examination of historical styles or events) and wordplay that may require some extra trips to a handy dictionary. This is no "Theory for Dummies" book and for that I am rather thankful. Kwinter manages to hold erudite discourse without "talking down" to the reader and structures the essays in classic logical styles making leaps of faith easy to undertake.
"Requiem" is a small collection of essays based primarily upon the idea of the city that celebrate a seemingly modernist take of putting the architectural expression of the city under a critical lens (and like Eisenman, pulls no punches).
This is no manifesto for urban manifest destiny, rather an exploration of the pragmatic goals of urban design set against the experiential intent of the designers. Kwinter relies on an heightened awareness of socio-economic impacts upon architectural styles coupled with the new constraints and releases of social technologies. While there seems to be a tone of hesitant fear (warning?) of the mechanations of social techonlogy they center mostly on possible misuse and a disconnection of the tangible idea of "real".
But this is the constant theme of the collection. What is a city? A mere collection of housing that allows for the concentration of density or rather a collective of thought and ideas that has formed it own and powerful identity? This was the rabbit hole the collection warrants chasing.
As for the book itself, it is a small read, much less dense then FFE in scope and breadth of coverage. The little white book fit well inside my jacket pocket, to be retrieved during lulls in the day. While this is the second Actar book I have received that has been printed out of order (why is there 20 pages or so before the table of contents?) that alone was not the causation for reading a second time. For educators out there who would pass along essays to students, I highly suggest having them create comments or questions during their reading so you can ascertain on which ideas they find problematic. Of course that is a post for another day.
book image from Actar
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