Umstrittene Methoden

Umstrittene Methoden. Architekturdiskurse der Verwissenschaftlichung, Politisierung und Partizipation im Umfeld des Design Methods Movement der 1960er Jahre

The Design Methods Movement was an unpopular movement—so unpopular that even its founders soon distanced themselves from it. Persistent disputes about the way of designing led to the conclusion that extensive participation and a political dimension of design were necessary. The design methodology questioned itself and the neutral expert role of designers in favour of more open and intensive relationships with social reality - a thoroughly destructive demand at the end of the movement.

The book traces the conflicts surrounding the justifiability of design - from the HfG Ulm, Horst Rittel and Christopher Alexander to the Design Methods Movement and the architects involved there, such as John Habraken and the S.A.R, Yona Friedman or the Architektur Machine Group. A repressed committed and (self-)critical design practice can be reconstructed there as well as within the german discourse on methods around 1968 shaped by Jürgen Joedicke and the newly founded Arch+ and the barely researched field of methodologically motivated advocacy planning—from the Architects' Renewal Committee Harlem and Urban Planning Aid Boston to the Portuguese SAAL.
With a total of 658 illustrations