Chris Abel

"I have always enjoyed the writings of Chris Abel. They are full of surprising insights and provocative connections between such diverse issues as history, technology and ecology"

Norman Foster, Founder, Foster + Partners

"Chris Abel is a nomad in the intellectual as well as the geographical sense. The result is always unconventional and challenging, and sometimes impressively prescient"

Colin Davies, The Architectural Review

"Abel does the work of a horde of architectural critics writing all at the same time from all over the globe’

Ken Yeang, Hamzah & Yeang

"For anyone interested in actually understanding the radical responses of architecture to the changing times, Abel offers a powerful perspective built over many years of reflection that is more relevant than ever"

Anthony Burke, University of Technology Sydney

"‘Having been taught by Chris I can testify to his passion and knowledge. VAST is amongst the very best in advanced tall building studios internationally"

Antony Wood, Executive Director, CTBUH

"This exhibition and book come at a crucial moment in the development of our cities…not because such approaches are the ultimate expression of the Modernist project or of a particular aesthetic, but because they can help to solve the problem of the growth of our cities"

Norman Foster, Founder, Foster + Partners

"It really makes me look at nearly everything I do with a critical eye; everything from the products I consume, to my design choices. It has added an entirely new dimension to the way I analyse architecture and lifestyles"

Student Andrews, on a climate change seminar, UNL

Deconstructivism

What are missing in the projects described above are the multiple independent decisions, conflicts and dialogues between different individuals and interest groups which underlie real-life growth and development. The use of techniques like superimposition, also favoured by Rem Koolhaas, Jeffrey Kipnis and many others, does nothing to hide the essentially exclusive nature of their designers' approach, which is as much determined by professional ideology as any logocentric practice's. Hailed by Charles Jencks as 'a kind of ultimate democratic method', superimposition is nothing of the sort, and opens up the design process not one iota to any circle or value outside of the architects' own. Nor do the method or the designs originate in any self-generated pattern of human activity. Rather, they point to a deep malaise in architecture. Unable to give up their elite status or prima donna ways, or to accept the loss of whatever influence their profession once exercised over urban form, these architects disguise their narrowing concerns by contriving sham images of complexity. Instead of genuine human development or dialogue, what we get is a poor substitute, usually dressed up in obscure language to resist detection. Rather than the open design process which has been claimed for the movement, we get increasing mystification and self-obsession.

From: 'Visible and invisible complexities'. The Architectural Review, February 1996, p. 82.