ABSTRACT

Globalization has shifted architects’ attention to the world at large. Even though many architects have worked outside their home countries (or adopted lands) in the past, transnational practice has become a common routine in the architectural oce today, due to the new legal arrangements, international trade agreements and advanced communication technologies. Architectural services are now designated by the World Trade Organization as globally tradable commodities. Yet, more often than not, architects nd themselves unprepared for such a task due to the relative lack of theoretical sophistication and historical knowledge about architecture beyond European and North American countries. Moreover, as common as the words globalization, multinational and cross-cultural might be, the future remains unclear, since the forces of history are acting in contrary directions about opening and closing borders. Postcolonial theories aspire for an architecture better equipped for a global future, so that globalization does not unfold as a new form of imperial imagination.