Is There an Object Oriented Architecture?: Engaging Graham Harman

Bringing Graham Harman’s philosophy into direct confrontation with contemporary architectural theory in new and creative ways, Is There an Object-Oriented Architecture? provides a dialogue between Harman and six of the world’s leading architectural thinkers, Adam Sharr, Lorens Holm, Jonathan Hale, Peg Rawes, Patrick Lynch and Peter Carl.

Harman’s object-oriented philosophy is one that sees the universe as a carnival of equal ＂objects＂ with no hierarchy between humans and nonhumans. In his model, unicorns, triangles, bicycles, neutrons, and humans are all things with enduring essences that outlast their partial transformations. It is a strikingly democratic vision of the universe that knocks humans off their ontological pedestal as arbiters of what is real. It also radically challenges the very precepts of architectural theory, the structure of which remains stubbornly human-centric as it seeks to give form to the human being’s place at the centre of the cosmos.

In this new book, each thinker develops the implications of Harman’s philosophy for the future of architecture by entering into a direct exchange with the philosopher and his thinking, both questioning him and questioning with him.

Joseph Bedford is Assistant Professor, school of architecture and design, Virginia Tech University, USA. He is an historian, theorist and architectural educator. He was trained in architecture at Cambridge University, The Cooper Union and Princeton University, and is the holder of the 2008-2009 Rome Prize at the British School in Rome.

Graham Harman is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, USA and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School. His work on the metaphysics of objects led to the development of object-oriented ontology and he is a central figure in the speculative realism trend in contemporary philosophy. His most recent books include Object-Oriented Ontology: A New Theory of Everything (2018) and Speculative Realism: An Introduction (2018)