Xenoaesthetics: A Posthumanist Approach to Architectural Cognition

(Hardback)

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Xenoaesthetics: A Posthumanist Approach to Architectural Cognition examines our relationships with architecture beyond human-centric perspectives.

It challenges conventional views of architectural design and space inhabitation by exploring these experiences within the framework of the architectural project as an autonomous entity. Weaving insights from philosophy and architecture, this book delves into the conditions, roles, and implications of architectural encounters, contending that our definitions and interactions with it while actively contributingcannot solely determine its nature. This book conceptualizes the architectural project as a unity-multiplicity tension, introducing the concept of xenoaesthetics as a cognitive mode attuned to this structure. This approach invites readers to reimagine architectural experience as a dual action that reveals the project to us and realizes itself through us. This context not only implies disciplinary consequences for design questions but also holds socio-political significance for our everyday architectural interactions, contributing to the quest for practices and discourses on equality. Methodologically, the argument draws from Object-Oriented Ontology and the architect Enric Miralles, offering an additional retrospective crossover that enriches both references.

Xenoaesthetics serves as a resource for students, architects, scholars, and enthusiasts interested in exploring new insights on architecture beyond assumptions and prescribed value systems. It encourages a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the architectural project.

Author Bio

Gonzalo Vaillo is a Postdoctorate Researcher at the Department of Experimental Architecture - Building Design and Construction at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and founder principal of the architectural office MORPHtopia.