The Dictionary of Received Ideas wishes to investigate both Practice and Ideas, or Theory and Design, that is ideas that have an effect on your design.

For this project Enrique was inspired by two writers in particular:

Georges Perec, relative to self imposed and volontary constraints, resulting in a different way of producing, in this case architecture;

And Gustave Flaubert, relative to looking at what we take for granted without critically processing it.

This of course applied to the architectural field, that is to examine clichés in the world of architecture, ideas that we take for granted, but with regards to design techniques.

The Dictionnaire des ideés recues by Flaubert, project from which Enrique’s research gets its name, was an inventory of ready made phrases that you had to use in 19^th Century France to be socially accepted. Flaubert wanted people to start thinking before talking. He provided instructions rather than giving definitions.

Enrique aims to chart clichés used in architecture in his Dictionary of Received Ideas…

But what is a Received Idea in Architecture? What is an architectural Cliché?

It is a technique that had intensity and was effective, that then gets used excessively, deleting it of its efficiency through its abuse. Or a solution to a problem that is no longer there.

Through his work Enrique hopes to give new use to these clichés…

Enrique Walker at the IaaC

Enrique Walker is an architect and Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, where he also directs the Master of Science program in Advanced Architectural Design. His publications include, Tschumi on Architecture: Conversations with Enrique Walker (Monacelli, 2006) and Lo Ordinario (Gustavo Gili, 2010).

The Dictionary of Received Ideas is a decade-long project (2006—) whose aim is to examine received ideas—in other words, ideas which have been depleted of their original intensity due to recurrent use—in contemporary architecture culture. Based on Gustave Flaubert’s unfinished project, Le dictionnaire des idées reçues, this ongoing series of design studios and theory seminars proposes to disclose, define, and date—and in the long run archive—received ideas prevalent over the past decade, both in the professional and the academic realm, in order to ultimately open up otherwise precluded possibilities for architectural design and architectural theory.

In his lecture entitled ‘Ending Poverty in 10 Years’, Mr. Negroponte talked about how technology can help developing countries fight against poverty by teaching kids means to educate themselves.  ”If you can learn to read, you can read to learn”.