Life Without Buildings!? The phrase Life Without Buildings!? appears on all WHAT_architecture communications (emails, drawings…) and in doing so promotes the idea that architecture can be understood not only through walls, floors, roofs and buildings directly but more commonly through mass media such as books, magazines, websites. Following from Beatriz Colomina’s Privacy and Publicity: Architecture and Mass Media, the legitimate expression of contemporary architecture is, today, not building but publication. For example, Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp is universally understood (by architects) not through any site visit to Êpinay-sur-Orge in France but through a mass of publication. So… what is the building in this photograph?

Life Without Buildings!? might be a counter productive strapline for an architectural office that seeks to build. Is WHAT_architecture shooting its clients in the feet? For 2015, WHAT_architecture will now look for: Life Within Buildings!?

So… what is the building in this photograph? The image is of Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp yet has been deliberately published back to front, that is left-to-right reflected…yet ‘how would you know?’ Go to Epinay and have a look!

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