Timely Meditations, vol.2: Architectural Philosophy and Hermeneutics

Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949, where he studied architecture and practiced. He did postgraduate work at Cornell University, and was awarded an M.A. and a Ph.D. by the University of Essex (England). He has taught at universities in Mexico, Houston, Syracuse, Toronto, and at London’s Architectural Association. In 1983 he became Director of Carleton University’s School of Architecture. Since January 1987 he has occupied the Bronfman Chair of Architectural History at McGill University, where he founded the History and Theory Post-Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs. Pérez-Gómez has lectured extensively around the world and is the author of numerous articles published in major periodicals and books. His book Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Hitchcock Award in 1984. Later books include the erotic narrative theory Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (1992), Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (co-authored with Louise Pelletier, 1997), which traces the history and theory of modern European architectural representation, and most recently, Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (2006). This last book examines points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy drawing important conclusions for contemporary practice. Perez-Gomez is also co-editor (with Stephen Parcell) of a well-known series of books entitled CHORA: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture. The seventh volume in this series appeared in February 2106. His most recent work titled Attunement, Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT, March 2016) examines connections between phenomenology, recent cognitive science and emerging language, seeking attunement in architecture and the urban environment.