TY  - BOOK
AU  - Sorkin, Michael 
TI  - Exquisite Corpse: Writings on Buildings
SN  - 9780860916871
U1  - VSCL 
PY  - 1994///
CY  - London
PB  - Verso
KW  - Architecture
KW  - Building
KW  - Modern architecture
KW  - Postmodern architecture
N1  - ‘Exquisite Corpse’ was a game played by the surrealists in which someone drew on a piece of paper, folded it and passed it to the next person to draw on until, finally, the sheet was opened to reveal a calculated yet random composition. In this entertaining and provocative book, Michael Sorkin suggests that cities are similarly assembled by many players acting with varying autonomy in a complicit framework. As unfolding terrain of invention, the city is also a means of accommodating disparity, of contextualizing sometimes startling juxtapositions. Sorkin’s aim is to widen the debate about the creation of buildings beyond the immediate issues of technology and design. He discusses the politics and culture of architecture with daring, often devastating, observations about the institutions and personalities who have dominated the profession over the past decade. Their preoccupation with the empty style of ‘beach houses and Disneyland’ has consistently trivialized the full constructive scope of contemporary architecture’s possibilities.
ER  -