Architectures of Life and Death

Reviews / Votes

Andrej Radman and Stavros Kousoulas' Architectures of Life and Death: The Eco-Aesthetics of the Built Environment is a joyous probing of the complex and often unknowable ecologies that come to constitute architecture. The chapters collectively assemble a logic whereby the 'ethico' becomes the 'eco' of an architectural aesthetics which wavers restlessly between the living and an equally lively inorganic. -- Chris L. Smith, professor of architectural theory, Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning Caught up in the dynamic throes of life and death, shot through with light, darkened by shadows, and following the flow of materials, this collection tracks the effects of architecture in unexpected situations. From temples to mine sites and disappearing towns, immanent powers of expression mix meaning with sensation giving rise to strange ecologies that conjoin subjectivities with environmental milieus. This collection will take you on a wild journey through conceptual and affective twists and somersaults. -- Helene Frichot, professor of architecture and philosophy, The University of Melbourne Just as matter passes into sensation and sensation into matter, this volume reveals how the affective forces, inertias, and fluxes of death and life continually pass through and inhabit each other. Rather than an architecture that imagines itself stringing a high wire between life on one side and death on the other, these authors traverse an immanent milieu where every moment is saturated by their mutual imbrication. -- Gregory J. Seigworth, Professor of Communication Studies in the Department of Communication and Theatre, Millersville University, USA; Co-editor of the The Affect Theory Reader