ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at three contemporary novels, J. G. Ballard's High-Rise (1975), Michel Houellebecq's The Map and the Territory (2010) and Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves (2000), where the protagonists attempt to capture through various forms of representation – mapping, photography or documentary films – constructions of immeasurable amplitude. It focuses on the potential of fictional architecture to convey the social, political and even psychological critique of the context. As a counterpoint, mapping, documentation and various forms of description of architectural spaces in fiction highlight human presence charged with psychological obsessions, political ambitions or even artistic longings. Architectural representation in literature offers a potential alternative to imagine, describe and realize ambiguous places loaded with latent possibilities. Even though the tools used to design and modulate the authors physical environment are assumed to be objective and increasingly universal in architectural practices, the fictional constructions imagined by the authors reveal that the spaces inhabit they are all but neutral.
