Bell Duncan, Zacka Bernardo (eds.) Political Theory and Architecture

New York; London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. — 328 p. — ISBN-10 1350096598; ISBN-13 978-1350096592.What can political theory teach us about architecture, and what can it learn from paying closer attention to architecture? The essays assembled in this volume begin from a common postulate: that architecture is not merely a backdrop to political life but a political force in its own right. Each in their own way, they aim to give countenance to that claim, and to show how our thinking about politics can be enriched by reflecting on the built environment.The collection advances four lines of inquiry, probing the connection between architecture and political regimes; examining how architecture can be constitutive of the ethical and political realm; uncovering how architecture is enmeshed in logics of governmentality and in the political economy of the city; and asking to what extent we can think of architecture-tributary as it is to the flows of capital-as a partially autonomous social force.Taken together, the essays demonstrate the salience of a range of political theoretical approaches for the analysis of architecture, and show that architecture deserves a place as an object of study in political theory, alongside institutions, laws, norms, practices, imaginaries, and discourses.Introduction, Duncan Bell (University of Cambridge, UK) and Bernardo Zacka (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)Architecture and Political RegimesWhat (If Anything) is 'Democratic Architecture'? Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton University, USA)
Fortification and Democracy in the Ancient Greek World, Josiah Ober (Stanford University, USA) and Barry Weingast (Stanford University, USA)
Plato's Magnesia and Costa's Brasilia, Gabor Betegh (University of Cambridge, UK)Architecture as Constitutive of Political SpaceWhat's in a Balcony? The In-Between as Public Good, Bernardo Zacka (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
Durability and Citizenship: Towards an Arendtian Political Philosophy of Architecture, Ronald Beiner (University of Toronto, Canada)
The Soft Power of Neighbors: Proximity, Scale, and Responses to Violence, Nancy Rosenblum (Harvard University, USA)Architecture as Infrastructure: Governmentality and Political EconomyScripting the City: J. G. Ballard Among the Architects, Duncan Bell (University of Cambridge, UK)
Architecture as Government, Ali Aslam (Mount Holyoke College, USA)
Making Superstar Cities Work: Jane Jacobs in Toronto, Margaret Kohn (University of Toronto, USA)
Whose Right to the City? Lessons from the Territorial Rights Debate, Benjamin Hofmann (Princeton University, USA)The Political Agency of ArchitectureCan Architecture Really Do Nothing? Lefebvre, Bloch, and Jameson on Utopia, Nathaniel Coleman (Newcastle University, UK)
The Architecture of Political Renewal, Mihaela Mihai (University of Edinburgh, UK)
The Modesty of Architecture, Randall Lindstrom (University of Tasmania, Australia) and Jeff Malpas (University of Tasmania, Australia)
Architecture, Materiality and Politics: Sensations, Symbols, Situations and Decors, Antoine Picon (Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA)Epilogue: Top-Down / Bottom-Up: Co-Producing the City, Fonna Forman (UC San Diego, USA)