Political Theory and Architecture

Duncan Bell is Professor of Political Thought and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, UK.Bernardo Zacka is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.

This marvelous collection, teeming with imagination and critical intelligence, shows how exciting it can be when political theorists go beyond using architectural metaphors to think literally about the built environment—from the aesthetics of individual architectural elements, to the political economy of whole cities, to the political concepts embedded in architectural practice (and beyond). Inspiring and essential.

• Introduction, Duncan Bell (University of Cambridge, UK) and Bernardo Zacka (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)Part One: Architecture and Political Regimes1. What (If Anything) is ‘Democratic Architecture’? Jan-Werner Müller (Princeton University, USA)2. Fortification and Democracy in the Ancient Greek World, Josiah Ober (Stanford University, USA) and Barry Weingast (Stanford University, USA)3. Plato’s Magnesia and Costa’s Brasilia, Gabor Betegh (University of Cambridge, UK)Part Two: Architecture as Constitutive of Political Space4. What’s in a Balcony? The In-Between as Public Good, Bernardo Zacka (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)5. Durability and Citizenship: Towards an Arendtian Political Philosophy of Architecture, Ronald Beiner (University of Toronto, Canada)6. The Soft Power of Neighbors: Proximity, Scale, and Responses to Violence, Nancy Rosenblum (Harvard University, USA)Part Three: Architecture as Infrastructure: Governmentality and Political Economy7. Scripting the City: J. G. Ballard Among the Architects, Duncan Bell (University of Cambridge, UK)8. Architecture as Government, Ali Aslam (Mount Holyoke College, USA)9. Making Superstar Cities Work: Jane Jacobs in Toronto, Margaret Kohn (University of Toronto, USA)10. Whose Right to the City? Lessons from the Territorial Rights Debate, Benjamin Hofmann (Princeton University, USA)Part Four: The Political Agency of Architecture11. Can Architecture Really Do Nothing? Lefebvre, Bloch, and Jameson on Utopia, Nathaniel Coleman (Newcastle University, UK)12. The Architecture of Political Renewal, Mihaela Mihai (University of Edinburgh, UK)13. The Modesty of Architecture, Randall Lindstrom (University of Tasmania, Australia) and Jeff Malpas (University of Tasmania, Australia) 14. 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)Index