Sociology of architecture

In the sociology of architecture is a special sociology, whose subject is the social significance of architecture.

Objects and aspects of the sociology of architecture

The architecture ( and generally the built environment ) is in respect of each company significant: it is omnipresent, inescapable, mostly created on expressivity and thus on social communication. At the same time it creates each concrete material spaces in which to run the social interactions that surrounds our body permanently, evokes and directs its movements and glances. Architecture is perceived not only visually but also physically; it not only has an expressiveness and affectivity, but also our daily life environment. It shapes our perceptions of space, holds all the generations and vanished societies present and makes the subsystems of society visible. As art, it often has a special affectivity, a fascination.

In all this it is sociologically highly relevant; and all this applies to before - and not modern ( almost ) as well as for modern societies. The sociology of architecture revolves around these built form of society to the architecture in urban dimensions to interior architecture, historical or contemporary perspective.

In a second sense, the sociology of architecture would be an architect sociology: it is more about the profession and the special knowledge of the architect to architecture and construction policy.

The architecture is a complex subject. Accordingly, there are different aspects or different sub-disciplines that are interested in the architecture; and different ways of thinking, from which one can observe the architecture of a society.

Sociology of Culture

In architecture, sociology as cultural sociology primarily comes the phenomenality of what is built into view: or, talked to Simmel, the "skin " of society.

In modernity, the built form differs in the social sphere ( residential architecture; consumption architecture, mobility architecture, political and religious architecture). There are many different types of buildings (factories, prisons, theaters and Kinobauten etc.), which can each be objects of architecture sociological observation - eg with respect to the socio- diagnostic question to what extent a particular architecture ever one aspect of the structure of this society - or the entire company structure as in the analysis of court society of Norbert Elias - ' expresses ', stressed or only makes it present and more powerful. The analysis of each specific architecture would sustainment in all aspects: not only at the floor plan, but also in the formal language, the dimension, the materials of construction, equipment and also to the accompanying discourses.

Classics of Architectural Sociology

Such architecture sociological analyzes of the built form of the company can be found - but always implicitly, is not reported as such - even at the classics of sociology: among others, Marcel Mauss ( double the architecture of the Eskimos ), Walter Benjamin ( passages as birthplaces of the consumer society ), Norbert Elias ( courtly structures as indicators of courtly society structure), Michel Foucault ( prisons and other architectures as birthplaces of the disciplinary society ) as well as Ernst Bloch, Siegfried Kracauer, Pierre Bourdieu, Maurice Halbwachs, or Karel Teige.

Artifact sociology

From the Sociology of Technology forth, there are approaches to the sociology of the artifacts, which, however, initially based on technical things, while the architecture rises by no means in the art. The perspective of a sociology of architecture as an artifact sociology would be impossible for the question of the ' interaction ' between architecture and the actor, so the question of how a concrete architecture ever certain ways of acting, movement modes, modes of perception and suggests possible and others. You would then have less visual form as conditioning the body in view.

Spatial and Urban Sociology

The term " social space " is used in Pierre Bourdieu and other sociologists in a more abstract sense, as in the sociology of space, which was founded by Georg Simmel. Among others, Michel Foucault ( other spaces, heterotopias ), Dieter Läpple, Martina Löw and Markus Schroer have taken up the theme of the sociology of space ( see there).

By Georg Simmel also from urban sociology, from the question of the specific way of life and mentality of city dwellers ( " The Metropolis and Mental Life", 1903) unfolds. The urban sociology since then is primarily concerned with urban social structures (as opposed to the municipality in the country ), with segregation processes, urbanization and shrinking of cities. The architecture is far more likely not in the foreground; Rather, it comes to social interactions in the city. Recently, however, unfolds against this ( the big city life generally analyzed ) research towards an observation of the "margin of Cities" (Martina Löw, Helmuth Berking ), which will also build on its architecture.

Occupational sociology, sociology of intellectuals, Sociology of Utopia

It is also informed by a knowledge and a sociology of intellectuals architects. When it comes to professional aspect of the sociology of Architects ( sociology of professions ) as a creative, academically institutionalized discipline (especially Florent Champy, Oliver Schmidtke ) as well as questions of the status of the architect in society. Another aspect of the complex object architecture is the sociology of intellectuals architects: the question of the role in which they engage themselves in society, and this against the background of a veritable socio- technical demands they formulated in the 20th century at the latest. It was from the perspective of the avant-garde to nothing less than the alternative of " architecture or revolution" ( Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture, 1923): to the order of society. In analogy to the sociological question of the social location of a thought ( Karl Mannheim) and the free-floating intellectuals would work out the location of attachment for the architects. Similarly, architectural utopias would ask you about: the historical context, the criticism of the company to which proposals for solutions to the potency.

Economic and Political Sociology

Sociology has to care as well as for issues of building policy and the Construction Industry: 's the construction of the resources invested her ( besides the war) not only, but also an area of " unproductive expenditure " (Georges Bataille ): Public Works say as society projects this from something yourself.

Current trends and theoretical approaches

Currently an explicit re-establishment of the sociology of architecture, also observed with a stronger theoretical sociology, research conducting interest. As different perspectives are enabled on the relation between architecture and society from different theoretical approaches and areas of interest out ( multi paradigmatic science sociology accordingly). It should be mentioned at least: Gender Studies, the civilization theoretical approach of Norbert Elias, the dispositive theoretical approach of Michel Foucault, the approach of critical theory and historical materialism, the symbolic approach of Pierre Bourdieu, the approach of Cultural Studies, the Social Morphology ( Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Maurice Halbwachs ) or the development of the French ' life sociology ' (Deleuze, Castoriadis ) for the sociology of architecture. One possible view is also philosophical anthropology with its consideration of the body; still others a systems theory with regard to the communication media of the Company; or the approach to the symbolic interaction between the socially aware people by designing spaces.

Researcher

• In Germany, from a more urban sociological direction, inter alia, Gerhard Grohs Harald Bodenschatz, Herbert Schubert, Uwe -Jens Walther and Bernhard Schäfer stated; a contribution from an urban sociological perspective also provided Christine Hannemann with her ​​work " The plate " for industrialized housing in the GDR.
• From a more cultural sociology and social theory towards research, among others Walter Prigge, Michael Makropoulos, Joachim Fischer, Heike Delitz and Thomas Gieryn, Paul Jones and Richard Sennett in the Anglo-American world.
• Of this distinction is the contribution of gender studies, including by Kerstin Dörhöfer, Ulla Terlinden, Susanne Frank, Catherine Weresch, Barbara Zibell.
• An introduction to the discipline is just establishing itself also suggested the Berlin architectural critic and theologian Dieter Hoffmann- ax handle.
• Working from a sociological perspective come to architecture sociological analyzes Martina Löw, Silke Steets, Markus Schroer.
• On the Sociology of landscape architecture are Ulf Jacob and Stefan Kauffmann mentioned.