Rehabilitating Operative Criticism: The Return of Theory against Entrepreneurialism

Coleman, N

doi:10.4324/9781003292999-6

Rehabilitating Operative Criticism: The Return of Theory against Entrepreneurialism

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Nathaniel Coleman ORCiD

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Abstract

By nature reflective, theory represents an obstacle to the unfettered productivism of anti-theoretical entrepreneurialism, from banal practices to the so-called architectural neo-avant-gardes. In the age of neoliberal consensus, theoretical reflection represents a commercial liability for auteur and conventional architectural practices alike. Arguably, the limited, largely negative, perceptions of theory that dominate architecture education and practice are a consequence of perpetually weakening conceptions of architecture as a discipline, in favor of the dominance of (commercial) practice. Dissociated from its own disciplinary knowledge (as a practical necessity in an age of populist consensus and capitalist production), theory as sets of principles (in)forming architectural imaginaries and practices largely dissolves into shorthand for the antithesis of building; affirmed and denigrated as preoccupied with that which does not happen. Yet, because theory is speculative in a philosophical sense, while entrepreneurialism is speculative in a commercial sense, the latter is limited to capitalizing on discoveries, whereas the former makes discoveries by reaching beyond the limits of the present. The first pushes against the given, the second is opportunistic. As such, entrepreneurialism necessarily neutralizes theory. In the event, recovering architectural theory is an open question, unresolved by claims or appearances. To make a start, recuperating Sigfried Giedion’s operative history and criticism holds great promise, so long as it is redirected from his cheerleading specific forms of modernist architecture toward his neglected ideas about social purpose (use), as architectural and urban questions. Ultimately, Giedion was far more complex than the unsophisticated ‘operative critic’ Manfredo Tafuri made him out to be.