By Francisco González de Canales

Art critics between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries imprinted a long-standing derogatory meaning to the word “mannerism”. Even though scholars such as John Shearman or Wolfgang Lotz rehabilitated the term to a certain degree during the twentieth century, it is still uncommon nowadays to find the expression “mannerist” used without certain pejorative connotations—connected to everything which is affected and contrived, or characterized by unnecessary gestures and excessive self-references. While the term has barely been revised within the shared vocabulary of architects, the presence of an attitude that may be identified as mannerist is more evident than ever within a significant range of design decisions of the architecture that is produced in Europe today, including practices such as Lutjens Padmanabhan, architekten de vylder vinck taillieu, Ted’A, 6a architects and Office KGDVS, among others. The Mannerist Mind: An Architecture of Crisis provides a contemporary revision of the mannerist attitude for the present, creating a framework to shed light not only on the work that these practices are carrying out, but also on the less evident filiations and affinities, as well as on their deeper implications.