Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Jargon Affects Understanding of Architecture


Why Don’t We Read About Architecture? asks Allison Arieff in a recent blog post for the New York Times.

Among the many reasons she suggests (including the difficulty of bloggers about architecture to think critically with the pressure of posting as many as 5 entries per week) is language:

“Writing about architecture is like mangling language, and far too often the experience of reading architectural writing feels about as pleasurable as tooth extraction.”

She elaborates on the ways that critics make their work unbearable to read. 

Although Arieff focuses on the challenges of writing architectural criticism in a way that compels the general public, I’m reminded of the many ways that academics in my own disciplines make their research and theory inaccessible to the practicing professionals whose work the researchers want to influence.    

Check out Arieff’s post at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/why-dont-we-read-about-architecture/?hp.



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