Chora, Vol. 2: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture

James A. Love is an associate professor of environmental design at the
University of

Calgary.

Alberto Pérez-Gуmez is Saidye Rosner Bronfman Professor of the History
of Architecture at McGill University. Stephen Parcell is associate
professor of architecture at the School of Architecture in Halifax. This
volume, an impressive display of intellectual horsepower, is mainly a
collection of the thesis work produced by Pérez-Gуmez’s students.

The essays range over a variety of esoteric issues. Although the
preface states that Chora “offers a forum for pondering other
possibilities” with reference to “empty formalism,” the reader
would be hard-pressed to find such guidance. There is unrealized
potential in Karsten Harries’s consideration of Martin Heidegger, an
essay that would have been much more fruitful and relevant had it dealt
with the circumstances of the contemporary “dweller” rather than
those of the Black Forest farm family or postwar German society. Two
essays leave the reader wondering at their inclusion in a book whose
declared subject is architecture.

Those with a serious scholarly bent may find this volume to be of
interest.