Perspecta 47 ─ Money

Money plays a paradoxical role in the creation of architecture. Formless itself,money is a fundamental form giver. At all scales, and across the ages, architecture is a product ofthe financial environment in which it is conceived, for better or worse. Yet despite its ubiquity,money is often disregarded as a factor in conceptual design and is persistently avoided byarchitectural academia as a serious field of inquiry. It is time to break these habits. In thecontemporary world, in which economies are increasingly connected, architects must creativelyharness the financial logics behind architecture in order to contribute meaningfully to thedevelopment of the built environment.

This issue of Perspecta-- the oldest and most distinguished student-edited architectural journal in America -- examines theways in which money intersects with architectural discourse, design practice, and urban form, inorder to encourage a productive relationship between money and the discipline. Contributions from adiverse group of scholars, practitioners, and artists create a dialogue about money's ambiguousposition in architecture, reflecting on topics that range from the aesthetics of austerity to theunderwriting of large-scale art projects to the economic implications of building informationmodeling.

Contributors The AOC, Phil Bernstein, Mario Carpo,Christo, Peggy Deamer, Keller Easterling, Peter Eisenman, Mark Foster Gage, Frank Gehry, ThomasGluck, Kevin D. Gray, Charles Holland, Hasty Johnson & Jerry Lea, Naomi R. Lamoreaux, MiraLocher, Vivian Loftness, Gregg Pasquarelli, Cesar Pelli & Fred Clarke, Nina Rappaport, ToddReisz, Brent Ryan & Lorena Bello, Michelangelo Sabatino, David Ross Scheer, Robert Shiller,Robert A.M. Stern, Elisabetta Terragni, Kazys Varnelis, Andrew Waugh & Michael Green, JayWickersham & Christopher Milford, Alejandro Zaera-Polo

James Andrachuk, Christos C. Bolos, Avi Forman, and Marcus Addison Hooks are graduates of the Yale School of Architecture.