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Buildings are not benign; rather, they commonly manipulate and abuse their human users. Architectural Agents makes the case that buildings act in the world independently of their makers, patrons, owners, or occupants. And often they act badly.

Treating buildings as bodies, Annabel Jane Wharton writes biographies of symptomatic structures in order to diagnose their pathologies. The violence of some sites is rooted in historical trauma; the unhealthy spatial behaviors of other spaces stem from political and economic ruthlessness. The places examined range from the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes Católicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino resorts. Recognizing that a study of pathological spaces would not be complete without an investigation of digital structures, Wharton integrates into her argument an original consideration of the powerful architectures of video games and immersive worlds. Her work mounts a persuasive critique of popular phenomenological treatments of architecture.

Architectural Agents advances an alternative theorization of buildings' agency--one rooted in buildings' essential materiality and historical formation--as the basis for her significant intervention in current debates over the boundaries separating humans, animals, and machines.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Architectural Agency
• Part I Death
• 1 Murder
• 2 Spoils
• Part II Disease
• 3 Amnesia
• 4 Urban Toxicity
• Part III Addiction
• 5 Gambling
• 6 Digital Play
• Conclusion: Buildings/Things, Bodies/Texts, History/Theory
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index

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CHOICE Review

In this unprecedented exploration of agency in architecture, Wharton (Duke Univ.) has organized six architectural sites into three parts, including two provocatively titled chapters: part 1: Death (Murder and Spoils), part 2: Disease (Amnesia and Urban Toxicity), and part 3: Addiction (Gambling and Digital Play). The sites, the Cloisters, the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem, Las Vegas, Hostal de los Reyes Católicos, and the digital site Second Life, are subjected to deep historical analyses that reveal how they have been altered and manipulated over time for political, social, psychological, and economic reasons. The digital realm functions as a foil in that it is not a conventional "space" and has only quasi-agency. This fascinating study is highly accessible to lay readers up to the conclusion, wherein Wharton, who is thoroughly informed about pre- and post-modernist theory and philosophy, demonstrates how the influence of phenomenologists, thing theorists, and mythologists has turned attention away from the reality of buildings even as such post-modern philosophers, sociologists, and materialist literary scholars as Michel Foucault, Fredric Jameson, Henri Lefebvre, and Gilles Deleuze have returned attention to the role of space in the globalized world. This is an important book for architectural historians and preservationists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --Jack Quinan, emeritus, independent scholar

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Annabel Jane Wharton is William B. Hamilton Professor of Art History at Duke University. Her most recent books include Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture , selected by Economist as one of the best books of 2001, and Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks .