Når eksemplifikation tager over: En æstetisk undersøgelse af fællestræk ved modernismens arkitektur set i lyset af modernismekritikken og analyseret ved hjælp af Nelson Goodmans symbolteori

The dissertation is guided by the thesis that Nelson Goodman’s notion of exemplification can explain the aesthetic uniqueness of modern architecture. It aims to identify a pattern in the accusations by critics of modern architecture such as Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Charles Jencks, and it analyses buildings critiqued by these authors (designed by Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright). The project argues that the formalist architecture of the Modern Movement is decisively different from premodern architecture, since exemplification becomes the only kind of aesthetic symbolisation available to architecture. This is interpreted as a partial cause of the aesthetic alienation that was felt by Venturi, Scott Brown and Jencks.