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We are living through a radicalized, unsettling 
moment in Western politics as what seemed 
the drift of  history towards democracy, greater 
individual freedoms, increased fairness and greater 
international cooperation is at least temporarily 
reversed. As we finished production of  this 
issue, ISPA was also concluding its 4th Biennial 
conference at a most overtly political venue—
The United States Air Force Academy—which is 
simultaneously a Mecca for modern architecture 
lovers as well as an indisputable seat of  the 
projection of  American power. This fact was 
underscored as our philosophical discussions were 
occasionally interrupted by fighter jets buzzing the 
campus. Thus, it should make sense that even in 
the slow-moving world of  applied philosophy, the 
times would lead us to produce this most overtly 
political issue. This development was not by design 
but rather by accretion—but one we eventually 
embraced as a legitimate extension of  the 
exploration of  the conjunction of  architecture and 
philosophy. The issue begins at a broadly theoretical 
level but gradually becomes more pointedly critical 
culminating in a first-ever (for Architecture Philosophy) 
open letter to the architecture establishment. 
 To begin, Sean Akhane-Bryen and Chris 
L. Smith take up the concept of  abjection in “The 
Space of  the Lacerated Subject.” As theorized 
by Julia Kristeva, abjection is the necessary 
demarcation process, one that begins in infancy, of  
distancing oneself  from what is not true and proper 
to the individual. But this process is susceptible 
to cooption. Architecture can be pressed into the 

OUR 
PHILOSOPHICAL 

DISCUSSIONS WERE 
OCCASIONALLY 

INTERRUPTED 
BY FIGHTER JETS 

BUZZING 

THE CAMPUS

“

”

ARCHITECTURE AND THE POLITICAL

TOM SPECTOR



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service of  abjective strategies to banish difference or conversely, to create 
totalizing environments that serve power. Architecture, they argue, is not 
only a “potential abject, but also the instrument or vector of  abjection.” 
Bataille’s writings on architecture and abjection are employed to craft an 
alternative to bad abjective strategies.
 In a related vein, Matt Waggoner discusses Adorno’s solution 
to the problem of  living in a system of  unfair power relations as the 
imperative “How Not to be at Home in One’s Home.” Adorno made no 
real distinction between the problems of  dwelling and morality. Waggoner 
argues that, for Adorno, “The proper relation (to property in an age of  
inextricable entanglement with illegitimate power relations is)…to refuse 
the logic of  possession and of  exclusive habitation by assuming the status 
of  a visitor in one’s own home.” Given the many truly awful immigrant and 
refugee crises across the world, this imperative applies at least as pointedly 
to the dilemmas of  international immigration as it does to making room 
for strangers in more intimate settings. 
 Given Loos’ famous assertion that “only a very small part of  
architecture belongs to the realm of  art: The tomb and the monument” we 
thought it both appropriate and, given events in Charlottesville, Virginia 
in 2017, timely, to include Roger Paden’s thoughtful proposals for the 
treatment of  Confederate monuments in American towns in “The Use 
and Abuse of  Historical Monuments for Life.”  Here, Paden resources 
Nietzsche, perhaps an initially unlikely choice, to help him propose a way 
out of  the dichotomy presented between the antiquarians (who engage 
history as connoisseurs) and the revisionists (who advocate removal 
of  such monuments altogether) with an approach that “serves life” by 
incorporating such monuments into larger works.
 While the  APDSR (Architects Planners and Designers for Social 
Responsibility) has urged the American Institute of  Architects to take an 
ethical stance against the design of  prisons for solitary confinement and 
capital punishment, the Institute has resisted getting drawn into what it 
sees as a divisive issue. For Dominique Moran Yvonne Jewkes and Colin 
Lorne, this situation is just another example of  architects’ aversion to moral 
introspection. “Designing for Imprisonment,” discusses the current state 
of  architects’ capacity for moral leadership by using the controversy over 
prison design as centerpiece. In the spirit of  their essay, the open letter to 
the American Institute of  Architects following Moran’s essay written by 
one of  the editors and a group of  his students makes a moral case that the 
Institute should come down decisively against the design of  prisons for 
the torturous practice of  long-term solitary confinement. The intention 
of  this piece is not to create a litmus test for readers but to explore 



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legitimate implications of  moral philosophy applied 
to architecture. We hope it opens new avenues for 
reader response.
 Following this plea to the architecture 
profession, Brian Irwin’s “Architecture as 
Participation in the World: Merleau-Ponty, 
Wölfflin, and the Bodily Experience of  the Built 
Environment” brings the essays back to a more 
serene, hope-filled tenor as he invites the reader to 
consider the renewed possibilities for participating 
in, instead of  visually consuming, architecture by 
combining insights by the great phenomenologist 
with those of  the great architectural historian. The 
issue concludes with two book reviews: a review of  
David Wang’s The Philosophy of  Chinese Architecture by 
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein and a review of  Steven 
Vogel’s Thinking Like a Mall. 
 Taken together, these essays make a case 
for the benefits of  the philosophical consideration 
of  the political dimensions of  architecture. They 
also form something of  a bridge between the 
Bamberg essays in volumes 3.1 and 3.2, focussed 
on the human in architecture, and the next planned 
volume emanating from the Colorado Springs 
conference. They have certainly helped demarcate 
new areas from which to explore the conjunction 
of  architecture and philosophy.

Tom Spector 

TAKEN 
TOGETHER, THESE 

ESSAYS MAKE 
A CASE FOR THE 
BENEFITS OF THE 

PHILOSOPHICAL 
CONSIDERATION 

OF THE POLITICAL 
DIMENSIONS OF 
ARCHITECTURE

“

”



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