Context is a crucial concept in architecture in spite of the frequent ambiguity around its use. Although the consideration of context is intrinsic to the process of architectural design, in contemporary theory, little attention is paid to it. By way of contrast, in the 1950s, various architects, theorists, and teachers cultivated several perspectives on context as a way of addressing some of the ill effects of modern architectural orthodoxy. Although a topic of layered and productive debate in the post-war years, context fell into disrepute in the critical architectural discourse of the 1980s. This paper provides an archaeology of the “context debate” in the hope that it may be possible to reveal its forgotten dimensions and flexibility.@en

Context is a crucial concept in architecture, despite the frequent ambiguity around its use. It is present in many architectural thoughts and discussions, while a critical discursive reflection is absent from contemporary architectural theory and practice. Situated within this schizophrenic condition in which the notion is both absent and present, this study aims at creating a historical and theoretical basis for a contemporary discussion on context. Discussions on context or alike notions had always existed in the field of architecture but the debate intensified and developed as a multi-layered body of knowledge in the 1950s, when various architects, theorists and teachers cultivated several perspectives on context as to address some of the ill effects of modern architectural orthodoxy and the destructive effects of post- war reconstructions. Despite being a topic of layered and productive debate in the post-war years, context lost popularity in the critical architectural discourse of the 1980s when it was absorbed by postmodern historicism and eclecticism, co-opted by traditionalists and conservationists, and consequentially attacked by the neo-avant-gardes for its blinkered understanding. This research presents a critical archaeology of the context debate, aiming to reclaim the notion by uncovering its erased, forgotten and abandoned dimensions. To do so, it challenges the governing paradigm of 1980s postmodern architecture by making inquiries into the history and genealogy of its particular trajectories with a criticism from within. Taking 1980 as a starting point, coinciding with the First Venice Architecture Biennale, the research traces the debate on context back to the 1950s through an in-depth study and interpretation of the ideas and works of Aldo Rossi, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and Colin Rowe. This reverse chronology reveals that in the works of these protagonists the understanding of context has shifted from “place to memory”, from “spatial to iconographic” and from “layers to object”, where the former categories still hold the capacity to recover the notion as a critical concept that is intrinsic to the architectural design process. In brief, by drawing upon the vast resources available in different media, such as exhibitions, archival materials, student projects, publications, buildings, etc., the study constructs an outline of “the context thinking” as it was articulated in architectural culture in the period between 1950s and 1980s.@en

Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter's book Collage City has been one of the most inspiring works in the field of architecture with its elaborate and stimulating critique of Modernist and Post-war architecture and city planning. Published first as an article in 1975 and later as a book in 1978, Collage City has been one of the cornerstones of postmodern architectural and urban theory since. Philosopher Karl Popper's ideas on historicism, utopia, tradition, liberal society, etc. had a great influence in shaping the urban architectural theory and design model of Colin Rowe and his pedagogical approach. Karl Popper's impact is very obvious in the book and at its preceding Rowe's Cornell urban design studio. However, little attention has been paid to his legacy on Collage City. This paper traces Karl Popper's legacy on Rowe's urban design theories and methods through an in-depth comparative reading of Collage City and Popper's seminal publications. I argue that a thorough understanding of the context and the content of the collage city argument, and therefore this specific episode in architectural thinking and its contemporary remnants, can only be grasped truly through this intertextual reading. Hence, the intertextual reading in this paper reveals the social, political, and philosophical basis of the collage city argument, which has been approached mainly as a formalist premise so far. In conclusion, the paper aims to reveal the difficult, ambiguous, even blurred, but also productive relationship between the ideas of Colin Rowe and Karl Popper, between architecture and philosophy.@en