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Beatriz Colomina

Valéry Didelon
Translated by Simon Pleasance
p. 97-99
This article is a translation of:
Beatriz Colomina
X-Ray Architecture
Beatriz Colomina, X-Ray Architecture

Zurich : Lars Müller, 2019, 200p. ill. en noir et en coul. 20 x 16cm, eng

Biogr. Index

ISBN : 9783037784433. _ 35,00 €

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Beatriz Colomina © Ana Nance

  • 1 Colomina, Beatriz. La Publicité du privé : de Loos à Le Corbusier, Orléans : HYX, 1998
  • 2 Colomina, Beatriz. Jankovic, Nikola. L’Univers Playboy, Paris : Editions B2, 2016
  • 3 Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196x -197x, Barcelona: Actar, 2011. (...)
  • 4 See her online bibliography on the Princeton University website : soa.princeton.edu/content/beatriz (...)

1Since the mid-2000s, Beatriz Colomina has been a quintessential figure in the world of the history and theory of architecture, known as much for her writings, several of which have been translated into French, as for the many exhibitions she has curated. Her academic career began in Spain, where she trained as an architect first in Valencia, and then in Barcelona, where her intellectual horizon broadened through contact with figures such as Ignasi Solà-Morales and Josep Quetglas. She settled in the United States in the early 1980s, spending time with Richard Sennett at the New York Institute for the Humanities. From then on her works would all be marked by interdisciplinarity. She explored the theory and history of architecture by the road less traveled, through the lens of sexuality, feminism, the media, or medicine, as in the book X-Ray Architecture, in the introduction to which she asserted having a keen eye for the “unexpected” within the canon of modern architecture. In her own words, she did her utmost to give “footnotes” a consistency that revealed what architects and historians have repressed. A famous example is her analysis of the nothing if not complicated relation that Le Corbusier had with the Villa E. 1027, designed by Eileen Gray.1 Beatriz Colomina’s propensity for gender studies also prompted her to study modernism’s most unexpected diffusion channels, such as Playboy magazine2—she supervised Paul B. Preciado’s PhD on the subject. She also developed an interest in the fanzines that appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, with the exhibition Clip/Stamp/Fold, which travelled all over the world and gave rise to the publication of a successful book of the same title.3 Her exploration of the sidelines of the discipline led her lastly towards experimental if not alternative pedagogies. Her own teaching is dispensed at the Princeton University School of Architecture, where she’s the head of graduate studies. The approach to history and theory developed by her here is above all cultural, with political, economic and social factors catching less her attention. With an innate sense of provocation, Beatriz Colomina thus distils, year after year, her micro-histories4 of architecture, positioning herself as tireless critic of the great edifying narratives of the modernist gesture. Her presence in the Anglo-Saxon academic arena is overwhelming to the point of making her a media-friendly figure, who quite naturally plays her part in the processes which she has been helping to bring to the fore.

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Notes

1 Colomina, Beatriz. La Publicité du privé : de Loos à Le Corbusier, Orléans : HYX, 1998

2 Colomina, Beatriz. Jankovic, Nikola. L’Univers Playboy, Paris : Editions B2, 2016

3 Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196x -197x, Barcelona: Actar, 2011. Edited by Beatriz Colomina and Craig Buckley

4 See her online bibliography on the Princeton University website : soa.princeton.edu/content/beatriz-colomina

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List of illustrations

Caption Beatriz Colomina © Ana Nance
URL http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/docannexe/image/53792/img-1.jpg
File image/jpeg, 5.4M
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References

Bibliographical reference

Valéry Didelon, « Beatriz Colomina », Critique d’art, 53 | 2019, 97-99.

Electronic reference

Valéry Didelon, « Beatriz Colomina », Critique d’art [Online], 53 | Automne/hiver, Online since 26 November 2020, connection on 28 March 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/critiquedart/53792 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/critiquedart.53792

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Copyright

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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