Four Conversations on the Architecture of Discourse

Follow-up to "Architecture on Display: On the History of the Venice Biennale Architecture", published by the Architectural Association in 2010. This volume contains discussions with writers, architects and academics in Chicago, Venice, London and New York on theme on display.
ON ARCHITECTS AS EDITORS:
"Architecture has a fundamental and deep-rooted problem with the idea of having an audience, to the point that this conversation was rehearsed almost 100 years ago, when the founders of what we think of as modern architecture today were curators and certainly not builders. People like Mies or Corb, for example, either as editors or curators learned to invent an idea of modern architecture long before they went on to build it. The idea that architecture remains trapped in that kind of a dichotomy is a striking record of this difficulty we have with audience." (1)
ON WHO DETERMINES ARCHITECTURAL EXCELLENCE
"Now the issue is, should we continue to fund the aesthetic of Ira Glass because he's excellent, or should we as an organization try to be proliferating multiple stories, multiple forms of discourse? And we should. But if you were to constantly ask us the question of who's the most excellent, you will always end up with Ira Glass... You shouldn't be relying so much on experts to have a vision...You should be responding and responsible." (2)
ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF ACCESSIBILITY
"Exhibitions are a really important part of architectural discourse, in the sense that they are one way in which ideas about architecture might be conveyed to the public who may otherwise be ignorant of them, if they're not involved in occasions like tonight." (3)
ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
"[There is] a back door through which a kind of censorship is re-emerging...It is not that you are going to be prosecuted; rather, that it will do damage to your public reputation. At a larger level, it represents a hideous discourse of humanism." (4)
References: 
(1) Brett Steele, quoted in Four Conversations on the Architecture of Discourse (Architectural Association, London, 2012), p. 30.
(2) Lisa Lee, quoted in Four Conversations, p. 159.
(3) Sean Griffiths, quoted in Four Conversations, p. 94-95.
(4) Mark Cousins, quoted in Four Conversations, p. 99