Five Footnotes Toward an Architecture [Paperback]

Architect Mark Lee presents a body of work on the basis of five considerations: on history, on cadence, on autonomy, on America, and on point.

On the occasion of his fifth and final year as Chair of the Department of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, architect and educator Mark Lee strings together five “footnotes”—on history, on cadence, on autonomy, on America, and on point—to assess the relationship between architectural education, research, and professional practice. Evoking a similar position that marked his tenure, Lee delivers a lecture that embraces dialogue, context, and precedent, and rejects the notion of a heroic manifesto in favor of the footnote: “something ancillary, something used for referencing and providing citations for metanarratives that already exist.” And why five? “It’s a ubiquitous number in the culture of architecture. Five orders, five architects, five points.”

Copublished by Harvard Design PressTable of Contents

• On History
• On Cadence
• On Autonomy
• On America
• On Point

Afterwords

• Michelle Chang
• K. Michael Hays
• Andrew Holder
• Jeannette Kuo
• Jorge Silvetti

Mark Lee is principal and founding partner of the Los Angeles–based architecture firm Johnston Marklee. Since its establishment in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over thirty major awards. A book on the work of the firm, entitled HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE, was published in 2016. This followed a monograph on the firm’l“o