1st Edition
The Efficacy of Architecture Political Contestation and Agency
Introduction: The Return to Politics. Part 1: Critique, Reformism and Co-Optation Critique and Change. The Ascent of Reformism. The Integration of Critique Part 2: The Architecture of Radical Democracy The Post-Fordist City. Theories of Participation. Theories of Contestation. Praxis Part 3: Languages of Architecture The Political as the Symbolic. Urban Form. ‘Vulgar’ Architecture, ‘Vulgar’ Politics. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
Biography
Tahl Kaminer is Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and Theory at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He co-founded and edited the journal Footprint. His publications include the monograph Architecture, Crisis and Resuscitation (Routledge, 2011) and the co-edited anthologies Houses in Transformation (2008), Urban Asymmetries (2011) and Critical Tools (2012).
‘The Efficacy of Architecture: Political Contestation and Agency is a book like no other I have come across. Equally familiar with architectural projects, the media’s use of those projects, and theories past and present that guide and critique those projects – it offers an insight into how socially motivated architects, urbanists, and theorists have been misrepresented and marginalized. In essence, this book is an in-depth examination of architectural ideology: how media, theory, philosophy, criticism, and design intertwine and morph as need be to silence politically engaged, participatory architecture. That this examination brings together actors not normally associated with each other around specific (largely Western) historical, intellectual and economic events is, to a large extent, its novelty; that the groupings nevertheless seem so obvious when explained by Kaminer, is proof that his argument (the obscuring of architectural critical history) is spot on. This book is insightful about the co-optation of publicly-minded work, but its analysis is ultimately not depressing; it offers precise direction for those so-minded to maneuver dexterously through our complex 21st century politico-economic system.’ - Peggy Deamer, Yale University, USA
