Annabel Jane Wharton

Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings Annabel Jane Wharton

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Table of Contents: ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Architectural AgencyPart I. Death1. Murder2. SpoilsPart II. Disease3. Amnesia4. Urban ToxicityPart III. Addiction5. Gambling6. Digital PlayConclusion: Buildings/Things, Bodies/Texts, History/TheoryNotesBibliographyIndexBiographical Note: Annabel Jane Wharton is William B. Hamilton Professor of Art History at Duke University. Her most recent books include "Building the Cold War: Hilton International Hotels and Modern Architecture," selected by "Economist" as one of the best books of 2001, and "Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks."Publisher Marketing: Buildings are not benign; rather, they commonly manipulate and abuse their human users. "Architectural Agents" makes the case that buildings act in the world independently of their makers, patrons, owners, or occupants. And often they act badly. Treating buildings as bodies, Annabel Jane Wharton writes biographies of symptomatic structures in order to diagnose their pathologies. The violence of some sites is rooted in historical trauma; the unhealthy spatial behaviors of other spaces stem from political and economic ruthlessness. The places examined range from the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes Catolicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino resorts. Recognizing that a study of pathological spaces would not be complete without an investigation of digital structures, Wharton integrates into her argument an original consideration of the powerful architectures of video games and immersive worlds. Her work mounts a persuasive critique of popular phenomenological treatments of architecture."Architectural Agents" advances an alternative theorization of buildings' agency--one rooted in buildings' essential materiality and historical formation--as the basis for her significant intervention in current debates over the boundaries separating humans, animals, and machines.

Contributor Bio:  Wharton, Annabel Jane Annabel Jane Wharton is the author of Tokali Kilise, Tenth Century Metropolitan Art in Byzantine Cappadocia, Dumbarton Oaks Studies XXII, and, with A. P. Kazhdan, of Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries in the series Transformations of the Classical Heritage. She is on the art history faculty at Duke University.