Ruptures in Architecture: Toward an Alternative Post-Fordism

This thesis is a broad historical exploration of the nature and social function of architectural facades. In particular, the thesis examines the influence of Le Corbusier’s universal structure of Maison Dom-ino on the subsequent development of post-Fordist facades designed to achieve a seamless interface between life in the buildings they adorn and streets given over to the automobile, an index of economic production. The thesis argues that this seamless interface between exterior and interior reduces human experience to the isolating anti-social perspective of the car window. In theorizing a rupture of the post-Fordist illusion of seamless space, the thesis cites the work of Le Corbusier’s contemporaries: Loos, Mies van der Rohe and Hejduk. Their architectural designs support the development of an alternative life-enhancing post-Fordism, allowing people to experience the rich difference between interior and exterior, public and private. The project’s design realizes the thesis’ post-Fordism in a folly.