Multiplicity: On Constraint and Agency in Contemporary Architecture

Today, the field of architecture faces a reckoning. While there is no longer consensus on what defines an architectural work, theorists, historians, and practitioners are grappling with urgent issues—among them the impact of climate change, the dynamics of power and race in relation with the built environment, and the technological, practical, and ethical dimensions of architecture. As established practices, academic objectives, and professional expectations come under scrutiny, architecture is in search of new definitions, identities, and voices.

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s memos about literature in the twenty-first century, this volume—the second in a series— situates architecture within a broad framework, exploring its complex interactions with environmental, cultural, political, social, artistic, and technological forces. The editors’ objective is to spur conversation across the boundaries that divide architecture’s theorists and historians from practitioners. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Sanford Kwinter, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Jennifer Mack, Rahul Mehrotra, Charles Waldheim, Kristi Cheramie, Jesse Reiser, Julian Harake, Jenny E. Sabin, Charles Davis, Esra Akcan, and David Karmon.

PARI RIAHI is a registered architect and associate professor of architecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is author of Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s Drawings.

LAURE KATSAROS is professor of French at Amherst College, where she is also affiliated with the program in architectural studies. Most recently, she is author of New York–Paris: Whitman, Baudelaire, and the Hybrid City.

MICHAEL T. DAVIS is professor emeritus of art history and founder of the program for architectural studies at Mount Holyoke College. He has published extensively on French Gothic architecture.