Exteriorless Architecture: Form, Space, and Urbanities of Neoliberalism (Routledge Research in Architecture)

Synopsis

The current phase of capitalist development manifests itself through a very diverse range of spatial byproducts: data centers, warehouses, container terminals, logistics parks, and many others. Generally considered as mediocre and banal examples that sit outside of pre-established disciplinary canons, these architectural episodes are extremely relevant. They are relevant not for their aesthetic or historic qualities but for what they represent – for the system of values these spaces embed. They express specific power relations, exacerbate issues of labor, and generate dramatic processes of subjectivity. Most importantly, these architectures, despite their formal and typological heterogeneity, belong to a common paradigm: the EXTERIORLESS. How can an architecture of the EXTERIORLESS be defined? How does it differentiate from examples and manifestations of the past? How do notions of legibility, form versus function, typological articulation come into play? In situating the spatialities of contemporary capitalism within the larger debate on Anthropocene, Post-Anthropocene, and Capitalocene, the book attempts to answer those questions by delineating three main characteristics for an architecture of the EXTERIORLESS: its physical and symbolic role as interface; its ambiguous condition of being at the same time local and global, isolated and connected, compressed and expanded; and, lastly, its contribution to new forms of urbanity in absence of the traditional city. These three defining aspects constitute the main sections of the book. Each section includes two chapters covering a wide spectrum of themes and examples. In its tripartite organization, the book describes the influence that the experimental architecture of the 1960s has exerted on late-capitalist spatial byproducts; it analyzes the impact of logistics on the redesign of the territory; and it introduces the radical processes of urban transformation generated by the EXTERIORLESS.

Copyright:

2023

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

168 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781000811087

Related ISBNs:

9781003251736, 9781032170824, 9781032170817

Publisher:

Taylor and Francis

Date of Addition:

05/19/23

Copyrighted By:

Stefano Corbo

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.