Book Description
There are sweeping changes in the dynamics of political and cultural power throughout the world. Indigenous peoples, minority peoples and smaller political actions groups are fighting to regain their voices as they refuse to remain on the cultural fringes any longer. The broadening of power brings with it the opening up of who has a voice in cultural and spatial production. This book focuses on the role architects and architecture are playing in that process of political and cultural negotiation.
Synopsis
Building Change investigates the relationships between power, space and architecture in this time of rapid change. It discusses the dynamic between power and building and lays out the spatial strategies those in power use to manipulate and control the physical world. These include segregation, marginalization, colonialism and globalization. In the past fifty years, with the shifting of power throughout the world, the motivations behind such strategies have been vigorously challenged. Resistance has come in part through the reassertion of agency by subject peoples: through political and economic action as well as cultural production. However, the reallocation of power alone cannot erase the spatial imprint of previous attitudes. Altering the organization of space, and opening up access to those represented in it, is a long-term endeavor. Lisa Findley argues that architecture, as a primary participant in the production of space, has an important role to play in supporting these changes.
To explore this role, Findley describes and analyzes four recent building projects embedded in complex historical, political, cultural and spatial circumstances: the Tjibaou Cultural Center in New Caledonia; the Uluru-Kata Tjuta Cultural Center in Australia; The Museum of Struggle in South Africa; and the Southern Poverty Law Center in the United States. While the context of each project is unique, Findley draws from them common lessons about both process and practice. Invention and innovation, as well as translation and transformation were used in each case to intentionally further the larger political and spatial role of the project. As power shifts continue to spread at all political and territorial scales, the demand for these kinds of buildings will increase. This book provides a vision of a revitalized role for architecture as a critical cultural and spatial practice.
