New Publication: On the Symmetry of the Joke
If Immanuel Kant describes humor as a “cloak for reason,” then even the solemn discipline of architecture could embrace its comic aspects. At least from a philosophical and historical perspective, a wide range of facets emerge. In addition to pointed spatial and semantic phenomena, ornamentation and caricatures also provide amusement. The contributors trace the theme—beginning with Michel de Montaigne’s “ridiculous beings”—through Early Romanticism to the present, focusing on discourses surrounding indigenous spaces and, in some cases, playful design processes and appropriations of architecture. This broad spectrum of approaches ultimately offers a new answer to the question: Why don’t architects laugh?
