By Jan Turnovsky

The book presents for the first time Turnovsky previously unpublished Master’s thesis at the AA – The Weltanschauung as an Ersatz Gestalt as a facsimile-reprint of his illustrated and highly original typo-script. The text focuses on a philosophy of open systems , which Turnovsky applies to the architectural design process. He relates the psychological term "gestalt" to the philosophical weltanschauung: A collective, contemporary, etc. "weltanschauung" always affects our perception of a "gestalt", in this case a work of architecture.Turnovsky questions conventional thinking both critically and constructively and presents his strategy of reading architecture and its elements in new contexts. Jan Turnovsky (1942-95), born and educated in Prague, emigrated to Austria in 1966 and worked for various architectural firms in Vienna.