The Architecture of Neoliberalism : How Contemporary Architecture Became an Instrument of Control and Compliance

With their elegant looped and landscaped structures, the buildings of contemporary architectural practices promote free circulation between private and the public, work and pleasure, education and business. Conceived according to the same models of networking and fluid interaction which are found in management theory, this is an architecture announcing itself as highly progressive and attuned to the contemporary imperatives of connectivity, flexibility and mobility. However, the architecture of the ‘new spatiality’ has in fact alarmingly allied itself with a neoliberal agenda – with important implications for our understanding of architectural design and its relationship with politics and control. The Architecture of Neoliberalism presents a critical intervention, exploring what this alliance means for architecture and the inhabitants and users of buildings. We see for instance, how ‘elegance’ serves to obscure conditions of labour, and ‘organic formations’ work to naturalise financial imperatives. Evidence is drawn from detailed critiques of contemporary projects, including Zaha Hadid's BMW Central Building, OMA's CCTV headquarters in Beijing and SOM's Roosevelt Island Tech Campus.The use of key theories is also examined, from Foucault to autopoiesis. Certainly, the questions this book asks of the architectural discipline – of its relationships to power and control, and of the real significance of its aesthetic strategies – demand serious reflection. Title Page Copyright Page Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: Architecture, Neoliberalism and the Game of Truth Chapter 1 Necessary Ignorance: The Art of Neoliberal Governmentality Foucault and governmentality Neoliberalism, human capital and the entrepreneurial self Hayek, Polanyi and cybernetics Spontaneous orders and complex systems Neoliberalism as the ‘form of our existence’ Chapter 2 The Spatial Constitution of the Neoliberal Subject Hamilton, Pollock and Kaprow THX 1138 and Alphaville The counterculture and the technical mentality Banham, Baudrillard and McLuhan Chapter 3 Architectural Theory: From May 68 to the ‘Real’ of the Market Post-theory and the post-political Architecture and Deleuze The new agenda for architecture Architecture and the market DeLanda, Latour and Luhmann The real subsumption of theory Chapter 4 Labour Theory: Architecture, Work and Neoliberalism Architecture and the image of labour Ubiquitous workspace Boltanski and Chiapello, Postone, and the thesis of ‘immaterial labour’ Zaha Hadid Architects and BMW Leipzig The urban diagram of the new factory Koolhaas, OMA and CCTV Architecture as infrastructure Circulation as labour and image Chapter 5 Festivals of Circulation: Neoliberal Architectures of Culture, Commerce and Education The Pompidou as Fun Palace Crowd modelling Citizen-consumers: FOA’s Meydan Retail Complex Student-entrepreneurs: Formatting the subject of education Ravensbourne College: The ‘learning landscape’ and the ‘univers-city’ Chapter 6 Neoliberalism and Affect: Architecture and the Patterning of Experience Architecture and the affective turn Jameson, architecture and the totality Aesthetics, aisthesis and cognition Pattern recognition: The ‘period eye’ of neoliberalism Conclusion: The Necessity of Critique Notes Introduction Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Conclusion Bibliography Index 'The Architecture of Neoliberalism' pursues an uncompromising critique of the neoliberal turn in contemporary architecture. Spencer reveals how a self-styled parametric and post-critical architecture serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself, at the same time, as progressive. The Architecture of Neoliberalism pursues an uncompromising critique of the neoliberal turn in contemporary architecture. This book reveals how a self-styled parametric and post-critical architecture serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself, at the same time, as progressive. Spencer's incisive analysis of the architecture and writings of figures such as Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Rem Koolhaas, and Greg Lynn shows them to be in thrall to the same notions of liberty as are propounded in neoliberal thought. Analysing architectural projects in the fields of education, consumption and labour, The Architecture of Neoliberalism examines the part played by contemporary architecture in refashioning human subjects into the compliant figures - student-entrepreneurs, citizen-consumers and team-workers - requisite to the universal implementation of a form of existence devoted to market imperatives "The Architecture of Neoliberalism pursues an uncompromising critique of the neoliberal turn in contemporary architecture. This book reveals how a self-styled parametric and post-critical architecture serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself, at the same time, as progressive. Spencer's incisive analysis of the architecture and writings of figures such as Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Rem Koolhaas, Greg Lynn and Alejandro Zaera-Polo shows them to be in thrall to the same notions of liberty as are propounded in neoliberal thought. Analysing architectural projects in the fields of education, consumption and labour, The Architecture of Neoliberalism examines the part played by contemporary architecture in refashioning human subjects into the compliant figures - student-entrepreneurs, citizen-consumers and team-workers - requisite to the universal implementation of a form of existence devoted to market imperatives" -- Amazon "Neoliberalism is a project to remake us, and our world, according to a purely economic rationality. In societies where the logic of the market reigns unopposed we must fashion our lives as entrepreneurial endeavors. We must be networked, in constant circulation, opportunistic. The Architecture of Neoliberalism pursues an uncompromising critique of architecture's part in this neoliberal turn. This book reveals how a self-styled parametric, post-critical and projection architecture serves mechanisms of control and compliance while promoting itself as progressive."--Provided by publisher.