Directly confronting the nature of contemporary architectural work, this book is the first to address a void at the heart of architectural discourse and thinking. For too long, architects have avoided questioning how the central aspects of architectural “practice” (professionalism, profit, technology, design, craft, and building) combine to characterize the work performed in the architectural office. Nor has there been a deeper evaluation of the unspoken and historically-determined myths that assign cultural, symbolic, and economic value to architectural labor.

The Architect as Worker presents a range of essays exploring the issues central to architectural labor. These include questions about the nature of design work; immaterial and creative labor and how it gets categorized, spatialized, and monetized within architecture; the connection between parametrics and BIM and labor; theories of architectural work; architectural design as a cultural and economic condition; entrepreneurialism; and the possibility of ethical and rewarding architectural practice.

The book is a call-to-arms, and its ultimate goal is to change the practice of architecture. It will strike a chord with architects, who will recognize the struggle of their profession; with students trying to understand the connections between work, value, and creative pleasure; and with academics and cultural theorists seeking to understand what grounds the discipline.

Edited by:

Peggy Deamer

Contributors Include:

Pier Vittorio Aureli, Franco Bernardi, Philip G. Bernstein, Richard Biernacki, Alicia Carrio, Peggy Deamer, Thomas Fisher, Norman M. Klein, Neil Leach, Metahaven, Joan Ockman, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Manuel Shvartzberg, Michael Sorkin, Katie Lloyd Thomas and Tilo Amhoff, Paolo Tombesi, Mabel O. Wilson, Jordan Carver and Kadambari Baxi.

For more information on The Architect as Worker: Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design, contact the Architecture Lobby at info@architecture-lobby.org

Visit ArchitectureNow to read a book review by Sam Aislabie.

The Architect as Worker
Immaterial Labor, the Creative Class, and the Politics of Design
Edited by: Peggy Deamer
New York: Bloomsbury; 2015
ISBN: 9781472570499