Degree Zero in Architecture

Originally borrowed from literary studies, the term “degree zero” has evolved, since the 1960s, into a familiar trope in architectural theory and criticism. First conceptualized in Roland Barthes’s seminal book, Le degré zéro de l’écriture, it has been deployed as a discursive and conceptual tool for articulating diverse architectural practices—projectual, theoretical, speculative, critical, or academic. This edited volume, Degree Zero in Architecture, examines how the idea of degree zero, entangling the notions of form, value, and authorship, has catalyzed—and continues to deepen— critical reflections on architectural practices and their formalizations. The fifteen essays in this collection interrogate architectural forms and forms of architectural knowledge, examining their positioning in the field based on the set of values they embody and the nature of the forms they shape.

Lyna Bourouiba is an architect and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture (La Cambre Horta), ULB, Brussels. Wouter Van Acker is an engineer-architect and associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture (La Cambre Horta), ULB, Brussels.