Description
Book SynopsisAlbena Yaneva is Professor in Architectural Theory at the University of Manchester, UK, Director of the Manchester Architecture Research Centre, UK and Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Architecture, USA. She is the author of
Mapping Controversies in Architecture (2012),
The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to Architecture (2009), and
Made by the Office for Metropolitan Design: An Ethnography of Design (2009).
Trade ReviewFive Ways to Make Architecture Political is a careful, engaging, and timely work. The title belies its most superb contribution, which is the development (and deployment) of a methodology, a practice, by which architecture might be engaged. * Architectural Theory Review *
How is architecture political? What is the agency of buildings? Because of contemporary social, political and environmental challenges, these questions have become crucial. Using Actor-Network Theory in an innovative way, Albena Yaneva disrupts received answers by giving priority to what buildings really do, instead of focusing on what they are supposed to mean to their designers, owners or users. * Antoine Picon, Director of Research at Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA *
Albena Yaneva’s wonderful book asks us, above all, to take the study of architecture’s politics slowly. Rather than jump to easy and ready-made political conclusions, she shows us both how it is possible and why it is necessary to take time to describe the politics of architecture in process, weaving theory and fieldwork together into a compelling synthesis.
Five Ways to Make Architecture Political is a vital intervention, for students, practitioners and theorists alike. * Andrew Barry, Head of the Department of Geography at University College London, UK *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Architecture and Politics 2. How to Study Ecology of Practice? 3. Political Objects (The first way of becoming political) 4. Experiments in Practice (The second way of becoming political) 5. The Multiple Natures of a City (The third way of becoming political) 6. Sites of Politics (The fourth way of becoming political) 7. Urban Publics (The fifth way of becoming political) Conclusion Bibliography
