Following Norberg-Schulz: An Architectural History through the Essay Film

Description

This book examines the 'window' in the life and work of the seminal architectural thinker Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926 - 2000). It draws new attention to his architectural designs and re-examines his acclaimed theoretical work on the phenomenology of architecture and place within the context of a biography of his life, linking him with other historical figures such as Helen Keller and Rainer Maria Rilke, and framing him within the modernist tradition of the latter. Taking a novel, experimental approach, the book also explores the potential of the essay-film as an innovative new approach to producing architectural history. Bridging archival research and artistic exploration, its ten chapters, written by an architectural historian who is also a film-maker, are each accompanied by a short documentary film, hosted online and linked from within the chapter, which use the medium of film to creatively explore and delve deeper into little-known aspects of Norberg-Schulz's theory of genius loci and the phenomenology of architecture. The book questions what it means to 'follow' those who came before, exploring the positionality of the architectural historian/filmmaker. Offering an insightful account of the life, work, and theory of a key thinker, Following Norberg-Schulz is also essential reading for those interested in practice-led research methodologies, particularly in the practice of film-making and the essay film, providing a highly innovative example of scholarly research which bridges the text-film gap.

Anna Ulrikke Andersen, Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, UK, is a Norwegian architectural historian and filmmaker.

Anna has demonstrated that to follow a fellow Norwegian architect of another generation, is to find similarities, to seek coincidences, to shadow, to re-enact, to track, to go along (often in faith), to act under the influence of, to act under the shadow of, to carry the weight of this person, and in so doing, to put her own writing self at risk. To follow is also to admire, to support, to understand. The book ... has qualities of a detective novel where clues are allowed to travel their distance, to expend their conclusions, and to spin more questions about the missing protagonist. * Site-Reading Writing Quarterly *