Review by Choice Review
The "architectural" of Princeton's Vidler is not the architectural of the hard-hat job site. It is the architectural occasionally academic debate of critics and designers who link contemporary architecture to literature, philosophy, and psychology as these in turn try to deal with the uncanny, which Vidler calls a metaphor "for a fundamentally unlivable modern condition." The preface clearly states the content of the 15 essays. They deal with the psychological, philosophical, aesthetic, and literary aspects of the uncanny and "unhomely" Vidler's word starting with 19th-century thinking. The second part examines the relations between buildings characteristic of the shifting of conventions of traditional architecture. A third group of essays deals with the city as a place of anxiety and attempts to think beyond the simplistic solutions of modern urbanism. In its erudition and incisiveness The Architectural Uncanny is a tour de force hard to cover in a short review. The academic users most likely to benefit from Vidler would be architectural historians, critics, and the literate and advanced students in architecture interested in its theoretical aspects. P. J. Mitarachi; Boston Architectural Center
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
