Values and Surfaces

In a plea for more speculative, experimental, and performative historiography, Philip Ursprung draws upon historical and contemporary cases to show how architecture, art, and economics are intertwined. By using the multilayered terms "value" and "surface," he offers alternatives to measurable categories such as "price" and "space." Is it legitimate to interpret Herman Melville's Moby Dick and London's Crystal Palace as two manifestations of industrial grandeur, their monumentality and incomprehensibility as exemplary symbols of early industrial capitalism? How should Adolf Loos's essay "Ornament and Crime" be interpreted alongside economic pressure on the architectural profession? To what extent is the Bologna reform of European higher education reflected in the design of Lacaton & Vassal's Nantes School of Architecture? The answers shed new light on buildings and works of art, encouraging a revision of customary views on history.