Building Change: Architecture, Politics, And Cultural Agency [Hardcover]

Product Details

• Hardcover: 225 pages
• Publisher: Routledge
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0203601491
• ISBN-13: 978-0203601495
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

More About the Author

LISA FINDLEY is an architect, writer and teacher who has an academic background in architecture, environmental studies and political theory. She is a Professor of Architecture at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, where she chairs the BArch Program and teaches design studios and seminars. Previously, she has taught at Arizona State University, the University of California at Berkeley, the Universiti Sains Malaysia and the University of Queensland in Australia.

Lisa serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Architectural Education and is a contributing editor for Architectural Record. As an architectural journalist, she has written for Record and numerous other publications including Architecture, Harvard Design Magazine, World Architecture, Architecture Australia and Baumeister. She has contributed to several monographs profiling the work of architecture firms, and is the author of "Building Change: Architecture, Politics and Cultural Agency" (2005, Routledge). (See the paperback edition for best images and price.)

She is also author of essays in the following edited volumes: "South of Cancer", ed. By Fernando Lara (upcoming) 2010, from Routledge Press; "The Green Braid: Towards and Architecture of Ecology, Economy and Equity", edited by Rafael Longoria and Kim Tanzer, 2007, Spon Press; and "Judging Architectural Value", A Harvard Design Magazine Reader vol. 4 edited William S. Saunders2007, University of Minnesota Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Architecture, January 19, 2010

By 

Kato (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Building Change: Architecture, Politics and Cultural Agency (Paperback)

For those interested in understanding the relationship between politics/culture and architectural form, look no further than this book. This is one of the best, in fact one of the very few, that clearly defines the relationship between the form and effect of buildings and the political and cultural forces that shape them.

Written in clear, highly readable but thoughtful language, this is a book appropriate for both architectural academics and professionals as well as laypersons. It has proven highly useful for university seminars and also as an introduction to architecture for the uninitiated.

Its comprehensive illustrations aptly support the text and provide a clear sense of the power of poetic architecture. Finally the book's conclusions detail the power and limitations of the architect: the structures that shape the maker but the buildings that ultimately result in change.