The Generic Sublime

The Generic Sublime: Organizational Models for Global Architecture recognizes the normative consistency across prevailing developmental forms in the age of globalization and explores how a contemporary notion of the sublime emerges out of the generic.

By abstracting the organizational protocols of skyscraper collectives, high-rise housing agglomerations, mixed-use conglomerates, new central districts, outstretched suburban enclaves, and instantaneous satellite cities, architect and theorist Ciro Najle, together with students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, develop new architectural models for encompassing the unprecedented potential of the extra-extra-large.

Visionary in nature and awe-inspiring in scale, The Generic Sublime anticipates groundbreaking territorial forms of architecture, complex in their organization and singular in their presence Ciro Najle is Dean at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Architecture and Urban Studies, and Design Critic at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

This book features design research and projects developed under the direction of Ciro Najle by graduate students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design between 2010 and 2013, as part of the Generic Sublime studio series.

Co-published by Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Actar, Fall 2016.

400 pages, hardcover, $44.95
ISBN 978-1-940291-75-8

Available for purchase from the Frances Loeb Library and Amazon.com.