Neil Leach

Neil Leach is an architect and theorist.^[1] He teaches at the University of Southern California and has taught at the University of Brighton, University of Bath, Architectural Association School of Architecture, University of Nottingham, Columbia University, Cornell University, SCI-Arc, Royal Danish Academy of Art, Dessau Institute of Architecture, and Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. He was the co-curator (with Xu Wei-Guo) of the A2 Exhibition of Avant-Garde Architecture at the Architecture Biennial Beijing 2004, the Emerging Talents, Emerging Technologies Exhibition at the Architecture Biennial Beijing 2006, the (Im)material Processes Exhibition at the Architecture Biennial Beijing 2008, and the Machinic Processes Exhibition at the Architecture Biennial Beijing 2010. He was also the co-curator (with Roland Snooks) of the Swarm Intelligence: Architectures of Multi-Agent Systems Exhibition in Shanghai in 2010, and (with Philip Yuan) of the DigitalFUTURE Exhibition in Shanghai in 2011.

Leach's position in regards to architectural theory was first set out in the "cultural reader" he edited, Rethinking Architecture (1997). The book contained a selection of well-known writings about architecture written by thinkers within Continental Philosophy, ranging from Hermeneutics and Phenomenology to Structuralism and Deconstruction, prefaced by Leach's own introductions. Among the authors included were: Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard and Andrew Benjamin. What the selection set out to represent was a rethinking of architectural practice; making it a critical activity, not simply accepting the given paradigm, while at the same time placing architecture within the realm of cultural studies.

His more recent work has developed in the direction of materialism and computation, inspired in part by the work of Gilles Deleuze and Manuel DeLanda but also by new scientific thinking. This informs his curatorial work and design teaching which engage extensively with scripting and digital fabrication. He is the co-recipient of a NASA grant to explore the potential use of the robotic fabrication technology, Contour Crafting, for building structures on the Moon.

Publications

• On the Art of Building in Ten Books with Joseph Rykwert (1988, 1991)
• Rethinking Architecture - editor (1997)
• Millennium Culture (1999)
• The Anaesthetics of Architecture (1999)
• Architecture and Revolution - editor (1999)
• Mars Pants with Oliver Froome-Lewis et al. (2000)
• Designing for a Digital World - editor (2002)
• The Hieroglyphics of Space - editor (2002)
• China (2004)
• Fast Forward>>, Hot Spots, Brain Cells - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2004)
• Digital Tectonics - co-editor with David Turnbull and Chris Williams (2004)
• Emerging Talents, Emerging Technologies: Architects - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2006)
• Emerging Talents, Emerging Technologies: Students - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2006)
• Forget Heidegger (2006)
• Camouflage (2006)
• (Im)material Processes: Architects - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2008)
• (Im)material Processes: Students - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2008)
• Digital Cities - editor (2009)
• Machinic Processes: Architects - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2010)
• Machinic Processes: Students - co-editor with Xu Wei-Guo (2010)
• Swarm Intelligence: Architectures of Multi-Agent Systems - co-editor with Roland Snooks (forthcoming)
• Fabricating the Future - co-editor with Philip Yuan (forthcoming)
• Scripting the Future - co-editor with Philip Yuan (forthcoming)

See also

Joseph Rykwert

References

1. ^ MIT Press, retrieved 14 May 2011

External links

• Neil Leach
• PARAsite
• ABB

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