X-Ray Architecture - (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book explores the impact of medical discourse and diagnostic technologies on the formation, representation, and reception of modern architecture.

Book Synopsis

"A new theory of architecture is on the horizon." -Ashley Simone, Bomb

How our medical obsessions and the image of the body influence modern architecture. This book explores the impact of medical discourse and diagnostic technologies on the formation, representation and reception of modern architecture. It challenges the normal understanding of modern architecture by proposing that the architecture of the early 20th century was shaped by the dominant medical obsession of its time: tuberculosis and its primary diagnostic tool, the X-ray. If architectural discourse has from its beginning associated building and body, the body that it describes is the medical body, reconstructed by each new theory of health. Modern architects presented their architecture as a kind of medical instrument for protecting and enhancing the body. X-ray technology and modern architecture were born around the same time and evolved in parallel. While the X-ray exposed the inside of the body to the public eye, the modern building unveiled its interior, inverting the relationship between private and public. Colomina suggests that if we want to talk about the state of the art in buildings, we should look to the dominant obsessions about illness and the latest techniques of imaging the body--and ask what effects they may have on the way we conceive architecture.

Beatriz Colomina is founding director of the program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University and Professor in the School of Architecture. She has written extensively on the interrelationships between architecture, art, media, sexuality and health.

Review Quotes

A new theory of architecture is on the horizon.--Ashley Simone "Bomb"

After years of research, the book by Beatriz Colomina explores the impact of medical theories and diagnostic technologies on the formation, representation and reception of modern architecture--Elena Sommariva "Domus"

Beatriz Colomina is one of the most exciting voices in architecture, bringing her unfailing canny perspective to topics as broad as Playboy, domesticity, the bed, and even what it means to be human--AD EditorialTeam "ArchDaily"

You don't have to be passionate about architecture to be engrossed in this book. The text is witty, clear and packed with anecdotes. [...] In short, the book might be entertaining but it also does a great job at highlighting how the architectural discipline is capable of assimilating and reflecting changes in society.--Régine Debatty "We Make Money Not Art"

X-Ray Architecture, contends that the interrelated phenomena of the tuberculosis pandemic and the discovery of the X-ray were the progenitors of European Modernism and its exports. With a minimum of six feet distance between us, Colomina recounted the glossed-over history of glassy architecture as a cure-all.--Drew Zeiba "PIN-UP"

About the Author

Beatriz Colomina is founding director of the program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University and Professor in the School of Architecture. She has written extensively on the interrelationships between architecture, art, media, sexuality, and health.