ABSTRACT
The American architectural discourse has been in a special sort of turmoil for the last
few years, one that bluntly challenges the accepted disciplinary boundaries of the field.
This is on account of three primary factors: first, a quantum growth in the power of
computational technology; second, a discursive engagement with theoretical concepts
that problematise architecture’s relationship to culture; and third, an interrogation of
the ethics, on cultural and political terms, of architecture’s operations (this last as a
result of, on the one hand, new evidence of the symbolic power of architecture
through the destruction and proposed re-creation of the World Trade Center, and, on
the other, an increased cultural awareness of environmental pressures). These three
factors have led many to propose a new potential for social engagement in architec-
tural theory and practice. However, as I will indicate in what follows, the theoretical
modes that have attempted to articulate new terms of architecture remain, despite
their claims to the contrary, resolutely invested in familiar disciplinary assumptions.
