Buildings are not benign; rather, they commonly manipulate and abuse
their human users. Architectural Agents makes the case that buildings
act in the world independently of their makers, patrons, owners, or
occupants. And often they act badly.
Treating buildings as bodies, Annabel Jane Wharton writes biographies of
symptomatic structures in order to diagnose their pathologies. The
violence of some sites is rooted in historical trauma; the unhealthy
spatial behaviors of other spaces stem from political and economic
ruthlessness. The places examined range from the Cloisters Museum in New
York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the
Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes
Católicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino
resorts. Recognizing that a study of pathological spaces would not be
complete without an investigation of digital structures, Wharton
integrates into her argument an original consideration of the powerful
architectures of video games and immersive worlds. Her work mounts a
persuasive critique of popular phenomenological treatments of
architecture.
Architectural Agents advances an alternative theorization of
buildings' agency--one rooted in buildings' essential materiality and
historical formation--as the basis for her significant intervention in
current debates over the boundaries separating humans, animals, and
machines.
