The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design

This is an exceptionally carefully assembled book. Its editors have a well-defined purpose: they want to show how design can look to architecture and fine art for models of critical practice, and how architects and artists can see how they might learn from the ways design is socially contextualized. Criticism inhabits this book in Protean fashion: as a profession, an historical artifact, a philosophic position, a hope, a form of experimental writing, a family of theories, a material practice, and above all as conversation and a sense of community. James Elkins, School of the Art Institute, Chicago, USA 'Like,' Facebook's ubiquitous and reflexive sign of thumbs up affirmation, is as close as many people get to a critical discourse in the age of the Internet. So, it is timely, and critical (in all meanings of the word), that The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design offers readers a compelling array of essays on its topic. The book's organizing principle - considering criticality 'of,' 'through,' and 'in' - considers the roles of artifacts, the creative process, disciplinarity, media, historical precedent, theoretical basis and social, economic and political contexts. Informed, thoughtful criticism of the built environment and its implications, and of the interwoven systems it resides in, is necessary now more than ever. The Routledge Companion to Criticality in Art, Architecture, and Design will help scholars, faculty and students learn about criticality, and more importantly, to develop their own critical voices. Steven McCarthy, University of Minnesota, USA