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be critique because critique is predisposed; it operates from a moral high ground. The problem is that this cre-ates vast blind spots before the theorizing even begins.

Here we arrive at the problem concerning the relationship between theory and practice, which I’d like to introduce with an anecdote. In March 2006, I was involved in the organization of a conference entitled Projective Landscape, which aimed to deal with the landscape of ideas that was bubbling in architectural discourse around the term projective. Thus we invited theorists from all over the world, and several practi ti-oners. We had hoped for more, but most practicing architects seem to be hesitant to join these highly intellectual circuses. At the closing forum, Willem-Jan Neutelings (architect) asked of the theorists, ‘When I get to my offi ce again Monday morning, what can I take from today’s conference and put into practice?’ The room remained silent; the theorists had no answers for Neutelings. With this simple question, Neutelings laid bare the troubled relation between the theory and practice of architecture. Theorists and practitioners seem to live on different planets, because even when the architecture theorist is asked directly by the archi-tect, ‘What should I do?’ the theorist can provide the architect with little guidance. Apparently those who think about architecture cannot guide those who make it. When the theory and practice exponents of a disci-pline doesn’t make sense to each other, there is a prob-lem. It begs the question: are these actually exponents of one and the same discipline? Is there even a com-mon ground where they can meet?

There was a time when practice was guided by a sense of legitimacy, as opposed to pragmatism, and acted in accordance to a moral truth instead of mining contradictions of reality. Legitimization in architecture was acted out through rituals in which the sacred rules of an ancient craft were transmitted from master to ap pren tice. The professional truth was determined by the guilds and later by elaborate catalogues containing precedents and style-rules that function as the holy scripture of architecture. Then came the mani festo; archi tecture went from being legitimized by the tra di tions of the craft, to being legitimized by novel ideol ogies. In the late twentieth century, these ideological premises shifted from a 5-point manifesto to the import of -isms such as deconstructivism, structuralism, and rationalism. These -isms evolved from the domains of post-modern philosophy into ideals that legitimized architectural practice and form. Paper architects brought theory and practice together in the arena of art galleries and lecture halls, but this convergence ended when the market regained momentum and building commenced once again. Consequently, theory remained in academia while practice followed the money. Now we’re left with an academic discourse that produces ideologically (anti-capitalist) charged theory for a practice operating in hyper-capitalist con-ditions. While practice is driven by market opportunism, all theory can suggest is for practice to negate the market. This is not to say we shouldn’t be involved in criticizing capitalist society – though criticism is a branch of theory, some have mistaken critique for instruction – but buildings themselves cannot be instruments of criticism. Besides, not all theory should

ARCHITECTURE LEFT TO ITS OWN DEVICESor How theory stopped guiding architectural practiceEdwin Gardner

Michael Kubo’s Publishing Practices project shows a beautiful overview of where the architectural discipline looks for guidance. The presented collection of canonical publications function as guidebooks for the discipline, books that instruct how to practice, aid our understanding of reality, and show us the way towards a makeable future. But alas, now that ‘history has ended’ and all the grand narratives that offered us a set of principles to live by and utopia’s to hope for have muted, the books we are left with to guide us are those that help us get a grip on reality – to not get crushed by its forces, but to surf its waves (S,M,L,XL). Instead of manuals for the future or anchors in the past, all that is left are coping mechanisms for the now.

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precedents, typology and proportion systems, but also explanations of how to carve stones and how to make wooden joints. I am not promoting a conservative argu-ment for a return to some sort of rendering of a pre-modernist architectural craft, but rather a contemporary craft that has less to do with the ‘art of building’ and much more with the ‘design of building’. It has little to do with mastering the stylebook and the drafting table, but all the more with mastering the diagram and the computer. While the tools are not the same, and the ideas of the profession have shifted, architects are still extremely intimate with their tools, their processes, their thoughts, and how they turn them into reality.

There are so many very specifi c processes in architec tural practice, and the hands-on experience in the studio is of the utmost importance. Especially now, when legitimation through grand narratives has evap orated, there is room to reconstitute confi dence in practice by drafting a theory which is instrumental in obtaining a deeper understanding of practice, one that can provide architects with insight in their actions. When architects start building a deeper understanding of what it is that they’re doing, they can progress the architectural process, and with it architectural thinking. It could provide a solid ground from which architecture would engage and collaborate with other fi elds and disciplines more confi dently, without becoming pseudo-professionals of those disciplines.

Ultimately, understanding informs doing. (Schön talks about our ‘repertoire’ that informs how we see and act in situations.) Architecture needs a theory of what it is that architects actually do, a theory that provides the architect with more insight into their practice and that creates a common ground on which practice and theory can interact productively.

TOWARDS A THEORY OF PRACTICE From Legitimating to Understanding Practice

If the conclusion is that thinking cannot guide doing anymore, that theory doesn’t guide practice, what does? Human intelligence is based on two operations; abstracting knowledge from the world, generally known as learning, and projecting knowledge we have already obtained back on the world (this argument is elaborated by Jeff Hawkins in On Intelligence as the foundation of intelligence). Thus, ‘theorizing and prac-ticing’ is synonymous with ‘constructing knowl edge and applying knowledge’. Most bodies of knowledge are organized along these lines. Theorists are housed in academic institutions where the accumulation of knowledge is cherished and where it is disseminated among the students of the trade. Practitioners reside in the offi ce, where one executes the trade. While knowl edge may accumulate in the offi ce, it often re-mains intangible and ephemeral because it travels in heads, not in books. In the offi ce it’s all about applying knowledge. Where academia judges knowledge on originality, rigor, argumentation and referencing, prac-tice is only interested in knowledge’s effects. Where the aim of knowledge in theory is truth, or let’s say ‘deeper understanding’, the aim of knowledge in the pragmatic world of practice is ‘usefulness’; it is only true and applicable if it works. Truth in pragmatism is not a moral construct where the virtuous ways to act exist isolated from reality in a metaphysical universe, the pragmatist truth is deeply intertwined with reality, its only touchstone. The abstract can only be true if it proves effective in dealing with reality.

Contemporary architecture theory doesn’t seem sincerely interested in the dirtiness, the messiness and opportunism of practice, or in what it is that architects actually ‘do’ (as investigated in Reyner Banham’s ‘Black Box’ essay, see below). Theory has the responsibility to make explicit what is implicit, to surface what is la tent. Theory should hold up a mirror to practice, mak ing prac titioners see more clearly what it is they actually do. Insight into one’s own private processes of design and activities of architectural conception is a prerequisite to progressing practice itself. Banham argued for the need to bring anthropological and sociological inves ti-gation into architectural culture.

The branch of theory that I would like to promote in architecture is the theory that seeks to understand phenomena, theories that are judged by their explan-atory power. I’m interested in theory that pursues what is known in philosophy of science as verisimilitude, as popularized by Karl Popper. The informative and predictive power of theory is what counts, and this is how competing theories should be judged. To be clear, by no means do I want to suggest that we should convert architectural design to a science, or a science-based discipline. Design is not a science, and it never will be, as there will always contradictory and ambiguous involved in its process.

Besides renewing the relationship between theory and practice for the reason of making theory relevant again for practice (and vice versa), there is also a nec-essity to taking this path. Before the ideological legi-tima tions of practice that came with modernism, theory had a much more intimate relation with practice. The theories associated with the craft of architecture were deeply involved with production. They provided

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Step 3. On Intelligence (2004) – Jeff Hawkins

Jeff Hawkins, a computer architect turned neurologist, is interested in making truly intelligent machines, but believes one can only do so when we understand how the brain produces intelligence. He states that in the cognitive sciences, intelligence is judged by the wrong parameter: behavior. To Hawkins, behavior is simply a manifestation of what intelligence really is, and puts forward a theory that intelligence is determined by pre-diction. According to him, the brain makes continuous predictions about the world it sees through its senses. It makes these predictions by analogy to the past, what is already stored in our memory. Hawkins’ theory shows many parallels with Schön’s ‘refl ection-in-action’, which give Schön’s observations of practice additional grounding. Hawkins’ theory also opens up other avenues for theoretical research of practice.

A PRELIMINARY GUIDE TO WHAT ARCHITECTS ACTUALLY ‘DO’

Step 1. A Black Box: the Secret Profession of Architecture (1990) – Reyner Banham

In his last essay, Reyner Banham, an architecture his-torian and critic, argues for an investigation into the ‘black box’ that produces architecture, stating we can’t fi nd defi nitive answers about what architecture actually is by only studying its products. Banham argues that sociological and anthropological research into the black box’s content is needed to understand how archi tec-ture could be a discipline in its own right, different from the humanities and the sciences, and that we must articulate how the architectural mode is different from other modes of design or manufacturing.

Step 2. The Refl ective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (1983) – Donald Schön

In The Refl ective Practitioner, Donald Schön, a design researcher trained as philosopher, observed practicing architects and succeeds in describing ‘how designers think’ in a way that designers can actually recognize. Schön’s work is interesting because of the kind of categories he introduces, which are at once open and adaptable, and yet defi ned enough to have explanatory power for the entire design discipline. His theory, ‘refl ection-in-action’ describes how professionals ‘see’ and ‘do’ in certain situations similarly, not the same, as in situations in their ‘repertoire’. Consequently the ‘situation’ and ‘talk back’ is re-framed accordingly; this process is then iterated. The differences in repertoire largely infl uence the differences in design process and output. Schön positions his theory in opposition to practice being, guided by a theory of technological rationality.

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