The Latent World of Architecture: Selected Essays

This book features thirteen essays by the late architect, philosopher and teacher Dalibor Vesely (1934-2015). Vesely was a leading authority on philosophical hermeneutics and phenomenology in relation to architecture worldwide, and influenced a generation of thinkers, teachers and practitioners. This collection presents the full range of his writing, drawing primarily from the history of art and architecture, as well as philosophy, theology, anthropology and ecology, and spanning from early antiquity to modernism. It composes a multifaceted and globally relevant argument about the enduring cultural role of architecture and the significance of its history. The book, edited and introduced by Vesely’s teaching partner at Cambridge Peter Carl and former student Alexandra Stara, and with a foreword by David Leatherbarrow, brings to light new and hard-to-access material for those familiar with Vesely’s thought and, at the same time, offers a compelling introduction to his writing and its profound relevance for architecture and culture today.

Peter Carl taught graduate design and the graduate programme in the history and philosophy of architecture at the University of Cambridge with Dalibor Vesely, for thirty years. He then established the PhD Programme in architecture at London Metropolitan University, where he was professor until his retirement. He has lectured and taught internationally, publishing a body of work that interprets architectural and urban order in terms of phenomenological hermeneutics.

Alexandra Stara is associate professor and reader in the history and theory of architecture at Kingston University London and a qualified architect in her native Greece, with Masters degrees from UCL and the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of Oxford. She has been lecturing and publishing on art and architecture for the past three decades.