Luxury has been associated with superficiality, consumerism and meaninglessness throughout the history of serious philosophical thought. How could something so obviously about the external possibly be existentially significant or even a profound concept? Luxury Philosophy carves out alternative modes of understanding the luxurious arguing that the negative characterization by 18th- and 19th-century philosophers of luxury as dissatisfaction or as an evil enjoyed by...

From couture fashion to opulent perfumes and decadent food, the luxury goods and services industry has grown at an unprecedented rate even in the context of a global recession. But in contemporary digital culture does luxury still reside in material things, or rather the look of things?In this first study of luxury through the lens of visual culture, Armitage argues that luxury is undergoing a shift from material culture to the immaterial culture of the visual, offering new forms of luxury...

On 29th March 2020, the Bishops of England will formally rededicate our country as the Dowry of Mary. This booklet explores this beautiful tradition and its importance for a rekindling of the historically famous Marian piety of England centred on the shrine at Walsingham.

Paul Virilio is an innovative figure in the study of architecture, space, and the city. Virilio for Architects primes readers for their first encounter with his crucial texts on some of the vital theoretical debates of the twenty-first century, including:Oblique Architecture and Bunker ArcheologyCritical Space and the Overexposed CityThe Ultracity and Very High BuildingsGrey Ecology and Global HypermovementIn exploring Vir...

In a world that is obsessed with luxury, critical luxury studies is a rapidly emerging field. This is the first book to explore the interplay between the real and imaginary realms of luxury, considering the most significant developments in the theories and practices of luxurious places and spaces over the last fifty years.Providing a critical approach to contemporary interpretations of luxury, the book interrogates the distinction between real places and imaginary spaces. Bringing ...

This collection of 13 original writings, including a newly translated piece by Virilio himself, is the first genuine appraisal of Virilio's contribution to contemporary art, photography, film, television and more. Paul Virilio is one of the leading and most challenging critics of art and technology of the present period. Re-conceptualising the most enduring philosophical conventions on everything from technology and photography to literature, anthropology, cultural, and media studies throu...

A provocative look at the architecture of the future and the challenges of learning from the past.Open Source Architecture is a visionary manifesto for the architecture of tomorrow that argues for a paradigm shift from architecture as a means of supporting the ego-fueled grand visions of "starchitects" to a collaborative, inclusive, network-driven process inspired by twenty-first-century trends such as crowd-sourcing, open access, and mass customization. T...

Widely used in architectural circles in the heat of discussion, the recurrent use of particular words and terms has evolved into a language of design jargon. Commonly found in architectural literature and journalism, in critical design debate and especially in student project reviews, Archispeak can seem insular and perplexing to others and -- particularly to the new architectural student -- often incomprehensible.There is a need to translate architectural design concepts into spok...

The constant in architecture's evolution is change. Adaptive Architecture explores structures, or environments that accommodate multiple functions at the same time, sequentially, or at periodically recurring events. It demonstrates how changing technological, economic, ecological and social conditions have altered the playing field for architecture from the design of single purpose structures to the design of interacting systems of synergistically interdependent, distributed build...

This book tells the history of the many analogies that have been made between the evolution of organisms and the human production of artefacts, especially buildings. It examines the effects of these analogies on architectural and design theory and considers how recent biological thinking has relevance for design.Architects and designers have looked to biology for inspiration since the early 19th century. They have sought not just to imitate the forms of plants and animals, but to f...