Reflections on Architecture, Society and Politics ― Social and Cultural Tectonics in the 21st Century

Reflections on Architecture, Society and Politics brings together a series of thirteen interviews by editor Graham Cairns in collaboration with some of the most prominent polemic thinkers and critical practitioners from the fields of architecture and the social sciences, including Noam Chomsky, Peggy Deamer, Robert A. M. Stern, Daniel Libeskind, and Kenneth Frampton, amongst others. Each chapter explores the relationship between architecture and socio-political issues through discussion of architectural theories and projects, citing specific issues and themes that have led to, and will shape, the various aspects of the current and future built environment. Ranging from Chomsky’s examination of the US-Mexico border as the architecture of oppression to Robert A. M. Stern’s defence of projects for the Disney Corporation and George W. Bush, this book places politics at the center of issues within contemporary architecture.

Graham Cairns is an internationally recognized academic, practitioner, and author. Currently based at Columbia University, New York, he is also Senior Honorary Research Associate at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London. He is director of the international research organization, AMPS (Architecture, Media, Politics, Society) and executive editor of its scholarly journal,Architecture_MPS. The author and editor of six books on architecture as visual culture, and as a socio-political construct, he has delivered keynotes talks internationally and has published multiple articles in peer-reviewed journals.