Constructing Power - Architecture, Ideology and Social Practice

The present volume is aimed at contributing to an understanding of the architecture of societies from prehistory to the present day as a source for social history and sociology. This endeavour is based on a notion of architecture as both document and precondition of social realities, both platform for the self - projection of those in power and an arena for a continuing renegotiation of power, both a medium of codified messages and a means of spatial ordering. The representative aspects of buildings are not left undiscussed, but the focus is on an enquiry into how architectural space and social agency together not only communicated, but reproduced systems of values, views of the world and particular social roles.