Advertisements for Architecture
Several early theoretical texts were illustrated with Advertisements for Architecture, a series of postcard-sized juxtapositions of words and images. Each was a manifesto of sorts, confronting the dissociation between the immediacy of spatial experience and the analytical definition of theoretical concepts. The function of the Advertisements —reproduced again and again, as opposed to the single architectural piece—was to trigger desire for something beyond the page itself. When removed from their customary endorsement of commodity values, advertisements are the ultimate magazine form, even if used ironically. Because there are advertisements for architectural “products,” the logic of the Advertisements for Architecture asks, Why not advertisements for the production (and reproduction) of architecture?
— Bernard Tschumi, in an episode of pretension so characteristic to his body of work
