In search of architectural quality

What is good architecture? The answer is as complex as the question is simple. OASE investigates the assumptions behind existing value models by having the question ‘what is good architecture?’ answered by people whose ‘preoccupation’ is architecture.

Although architecture is the subject of much writing and debate, architects, critics and historians seem to assume that an unequivocal value model for architecture does not exist. Moreover, the last models for architecture evaluation (modernism and postmodernism) have been followed by perversions (supermodernism, retromodernism) or by science-focused ideals (sustainability, computing models). Yet many problems in the world of architecture would disappear if what is meant by ‘good architecture’ were made clearer.

Of course the question of good architecture cannot be answered unequivocally and definitively, but OASE is convinced that it is impossible to deal with architecture, with design, criticism, theory or history, without making assumptions about architectural quality, and that it is crucial to make these assumptions explicit.

CONTENT:

Editorial, Véronique Patteeuw, Hans Teerds, Christophe van Gerrewey
A Spectacle of Deepest Harmony, Pier Vittorio Aureli
An Architecture Close to its Inhabitants, Patrick Bouchain
Intentions, Inventions, Kersten Geers
Half an Hour of Silence, Christophe van Gerrewey
Social Space and Structuralism, Herman Hertzberger
Speaking Through the Silence of Perceptual Phenomena, Steven Holl
A Possible Architecture, Anne Holtrop
Friendly Architecture, Lucien Kroll
Huh? Wow ≠ Wow! Huh?, Andrew Leach
Does 'Good Architecture' Deal with the Truth?, Philippe Morel
Richards's Alternative, Steve Parnell
Good Architecture?, Bob Van Reeth
Wandering, Elsbeth Ronner
Simply Good, Bart Verschaffel
Drawings, Eva Le Roi