Not Interesting: On the Limits of Criticism in Architecture

Not Interesting proposes another set of terms and structures to talk about architecture, without requiring that it be interesting. This book explores a set of alternatives to the interesting and imagines how architecture might be positioned more broadly in the world using other terms: boring, confusing, and comforting. Along with interesting, these three terms make up the four chapters of the book. Each chapter introduces its topic through an analysis of a different image, which serves to unpack the specific character of each term and its relationship to architecture. In addition to text, the book contains over 50 case studies using 100 drawings and images. These are presented in parallel to the text and show what architecture may look like through the lens of these other terms.

• Rem Koolhaas. Elements of Architecture
• Manual of Section
• Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession
• 44 Low-resolution Houses
• MOS: Selected Works
• Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
• Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design
• New Investigations in Collective Form: The Open Workshop
• S M L XL
• Solid Objectives: Order, Edge, Aura