“The transnational capitalist class and contemporary architecture in globalizing cities”

The 1990s and 2000s marked the emergence of “starchitects”—a small group of elite architects very much sought after by both private and public clients to design signature buildings. Starchitects and their designs can have tremendous branding effect in marketing properties. The corporate fraction of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) in architecture consists of the major globalizing architectural, architect–engineering and architect–developer–real estate practices, in terms of fees and fee-earning architects employed. The state fraction of the TCC in architecture comprises globalizing bureaucrats and politicians who promote and award contracts for important subnational, national and sometimes transnational projects in global competitions. The consumerist fraction of the TCC in architecture consists of those who use their control of and/or access to the commercial sector and the media to promote the idea of contemporary architecture as a transnational practice in the realm of culture-ideology.