There are has two distinct, though related trajectories to my research:

1. Research on the history of architectural theory and criticism: I explore theory and criticisms’ covert roles as requisite vehicles of cultural appropriation and regulation of architecture. I am in particular interested in the discursive and critical strategies and modes of self-validation in theoretical discourse on architecture, as deeply rooted in Western metaphysics and a broader humanist attempt to give that metaphysics the aura of physics and to culture the guise of nature.
   My intent is to make room for different critical trajectories and other formative possibilities than those the discourse on architecture has traditionally allowed.
   I am interested in articulating a mode of architectural criticism that does not seek to supplant one ideology with another, but acts as a force of resistance to the hegemony of any one particular worldview or ideational perspective.
   While on sabbatical in spring 2010, I completed the first draft of a new book titled: Architecture, Aesthetic Critique, and the Predicaments of Theory. The book has been reviewed and contracted for publication by Routledge.
   
   
2. Research on the history and genealogy of secular building types: I have a parallel interest in exploring the history of secular building types and the institutions they serve. I am in particular interested in the genealogy of building types that shelter various forms of representation and the historic link between their formal and experiential properties and western ideational stance on representation.
   I explore the contribution of each institutional building-type to the fabrication and perpetuation of a logocentric world view, including the presumption of a hierarchical relationship between such familiar dichotomies as authenticity and imitation, real and virtual, original and copy, memory and mimesis, etc.
   This year the research led to a  paper entitled "Constructing Borderlines: The Real and the Imaginary."  I presented the paper virtually at the "Somewhere in Between: Borders and Borderlands” International Conference sponsored by London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research.

 

Evaluation: Exceeding Expectation