Leisure as criticism in architectural texts

Ideas around the concept of leisure, such as recreation, entertainment, education, culture, arts, happiness, and well-being are prevalent in culture today. On a planetary level, capital tends to organize and expand its course through these ideas in a continuous but changing fashion. Architectural practices operate in such contexts; they are not immune to capitalist relations. Often they work as motor forces behind capital oriented productions. This dissertation investigates different modes of criticism in architecture through the concept of leisure in the context of capitalism. I claim that (1) it is necessary to develop criticism in/of architecture constantly, since architecture continuously generates new ways of aligning with capital as power, and that (2) it is possible to attain such mission via leisure due to its rich and ever-changing connotations. Moving from the concept's etymology, I first look at the way critical theory addresses leisure. I bring together the connotations of the word, its interpretations, and criticisms delivered through it. This provides an advanced series of problems around leisure as well as a group of critical tools (or subsidiary concepts), all of which serve to deliver a criticism based on a demystification and a reconceptualization of leisure within socio-economic relations. Demystification stands for what criticisms reveal about existing relations, while reconceptualization allows for new ways of referring to and thereby discussing contradictions that stem from architecture's ongoing relationship with capital. With the framework of critical theory, I explore various texts from the literature of architecture that contain leisure and embody a criticism directed at architecture. I chose these texts through subsidiary concepts that critical theory on leisure presents. However, I group these texts according to the way they utilize leisure and the ideas around it (such as culture, education, recreation, entertainment, well-being). The first group renders leisure as a function, as a tool for classification to direct a criticism towards the context of architectural projects. The second group takes leisure as experimentation, as an idea that can challenge the limits of architecture. The final group of texts takes leisure as discourse, and use leisure and ideas around the concept to discuss and deliver meaning through architectural projects. These three approaches to the concept generate three different kinds of criticism: diagnostic criticism, reflexive criticism, and discursive criticism. These three modes of criticism are irreducible to one another, but they exist and operate together. It is possible to discuss the interconnectedness of the three spheres of criticism through recurring themes in these texts. These themes are public space, technology and spectacle, all of which provide a different modality in which spheres of criticism operate. They present the post-war conception of leisure, how this conception is used and how it is discussed in shaping criticism. Their successive discussion finalizes the pursuit of the dissertation, which is an inquiry on the concept of leisure as a tool for criticism of architectural practices. This includes detecting parallels and continuities, revealing contrasts and portraying the way architectural practices linger between becoming-spectacle and claiming autonomy, as well as taking architecture's ongoing relation with critical theory under a lens, joining other texts in the pursuit of a new quest for criticism in architecture.