This book addresses the complex relationship between architecture and public life. It's a study of architecture and urbanism as cultural activity that both reflects and gives shape to our social relations, public institutions and political processes.
Written by an international range of contributors, the chapters address the intersection of public life and the built environment around the themes of authority and planning, the welfare state, place and identity and autonomy. The book covers a diverse range of material from Foucault's evolving thoughts on space to land-scraping leisure centres in inter-war Belgium. It unpacks concepts such as 'community' and 'collectivity' alongside themes of self-organisation and authorship.
Architecture and Collective Life reflects on urban and architectural practice and historical, political and social change. As such this book will be of great interest to students and academics in architecture and urbanism as well as practicing architects.
About the Author: Penny Lewis is Programme Lead for the University of Dundee and Wuhan University Architectural Studies Programme, a job which involves teaching in China. From 1999 to 2007 she was editor of Prospect, the Scottish architecture magazine and a regular contributor to national papers and architectural journals. Her PhD on The impact of ecological thought on architectural theory from 1968 remains an ongoing research interest alongside work on the city.
Lorens Holm is Reader in Architecture and Director of the Geddes Institute for Urban Research at the University of Dundee, where he runs the design research unit rooms+cities. His written work focuses on reconciling Lacanian thought on subjectivity with contemporary architectural/urban practice. Publications include Brunelleschi Lacan Le Corbusier (2010) and, with John Hendrix, Architecture and the Unconscious (2016). His papers have appeared in Architecture and Culture, ARQ, Journal of Architecture, Perspecta, Critical Quarterly, Architecture Theory Review, and Assemblage.
Sandra Costa Santos is an architect and academic with research in the fields of architectural theory and architectural design with a particular interest in housing and the home. She is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Architecture and Urban Planning, School of Social Sciences, University of Dundee.
