ABSTRACT
The Al Qaeda network has been likened to the Barbary pirates, the North African corsairs of the early nineteenth century. Like the Al Qaeda, the pirates received temporary support from various regimes and were brought to justice by a coalition of nations believing themselves to be ethically and technologically superior. Yet our own politicians and businessmen sail a strikingly similar pirate sea, slipping between legal jurisdictions, leveraging advantages in the differential values of labor and currency, brandishing national identity one moment and laundering it the next, using lies and disguises to neutralize cultural or political differences. Indeed, the sea has become a favorite metaphor for globalization, not only for its transnational networks and shady offshore activities but for the potential political power of its citizens to identify responsibilities as well as opportunities in global currents. On September 11, a terrorist network inhabiting this familiar, denationalized territory declared architecture—as building structure and as urbanism—to be a primary adversary or rival on the pirate seas. By translating the static envelopes of buildings and the conventions of urbanism into an apparatus of war, the attacks revealed a latent political agency for architecture. Buildings and cities, now clearly more than just national icons, were suddenly cast as active players in global markets and political conflicts, to be assessed for their weakness and resilience, their potential for aggression, and their ability to collude and resist.
