Architecture as System

Buildings are material objects. Architecture is the information that characterizes those objects and gives them a particular place and time. Architecture is the similarity between buildings and represents the shared experience of architects throughout architectural production. This information is a product of communication between architects. Treated as a process of communication the history of architecture can be usefully reframed to explain the emergence of dominant architectures, their development and finally their disintegration. It deals with communicational crises in architecture as a normal part of the functioning of the system. Also it explains the uses, necessity and different types of decoration giving examples and re-positions the avant-garde away from their assumed roles of 'heroes' who supposedly create new architectures. Architectures emerge from the interaction of many architects in differing social and economic environments and go through various understandable stages of development. Using ideas drawn from theories of language, complexity, psychology and anthropology backed up with examples from the history of architecture, this book opens up a whole new way of looking at architecture and its developments throughout history