ABSTRACT
In Buildings and Power, Thomas Markus writes: ‘Buildings are treated as art, technical or investment objects. Rarely as social objects.’1 Markus argues (contra Louis Sullivan) that, of the three architectural elements, form and space are permanent, but function is ‘the social practice of use “inscribed” into the building’ (p. 9) and can change. The implication that architecture is in this sense shaped by its users-by visitors and residents in the past, and by us as soon as we arrive-and that a building is not so much a product as a process, a story constantly unfolding, is one that would surely be welcomed by the editors of Strangely Familiar, who have begun a wide-ranging exploration of ‘narratives of the city’.
