Asymmetric Labors: The Economy of Architecture in Theory and Practice
In between teaching, writing, and researching, this book emerged while working outside of work: it is the product of nearly six months of dialogue and debate, over 500 essay-length e-mails exchanged, a half-dozen group calls, and coordination across three different time zones. As members of the US-based Architecture Lobby, the book was initiated from the position of architectural workers advocating for the value of architectural work in the general public and in the discipline. Interested in how the Lobby’s stance on architectural practice might apply to questions of history and theory both in the US and globally, we drafted and circulated a call for submissions. We sent follow-up requests—some never replied, others were too busy—and insisted that the essays be personal and polemical. The end result, Asymmetric Labors: The Economy of Architecture in Theory and Practice, is a book with nearly fifty texts by workers who discuss the social, economic, and political value of their labor. They are architectural historians, writers, researchers, professors, students, and practitioners.
Edited by:
Aaron Cayer, Peggy Deamer, Sben Korsh, Eric Peterson, Manuel Shvartzberg.
Contributors:
Felipe Aravena, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Daniel A. Barber, Chris Barker, Nick Beech, Joaquin Díez Canedo, Aaron Cayer, Dariel Cobb, Kieran Connolly, Joe Crowdy, Tobias Danielmeier, Peggy Deamer, Kirti Durelle, Eva Hagberg Fisher, Gary Fox, Frabrizio Gallanti, Curt Gambetta, Anna Goodman, James Graham, Gevork Hartoonian, Andrew Herscher, Mark Jarzombek, Tahl Kaminer, Hanan Kataw, Anne Kockelkorn, Sben Korsh, Christos Kritkos, Nadir Lahiji, James Longfield, Yasser Megahed, Jacob Moore, Joan Ockman, Daniel Fernández Pascual, Eric Peterson, Joanne Preston, Peg Rawes, Eric Wycoff Rogers, Andreas Rumpfhuber, Susanne Schindler, Jack Self, Adam Sharr, Manuel Shvartzberg, Brent Sturlaugson, Meredith TenHoor, Stefano Tornieri, Alessandro Toti, Norihiko Tsuneishi, Tijana Vujosevic, Who Builds Your Architecture? (Kadambari Baxi, Jordan Carver, Laura Diamond Dixit, Mabel O. Wilson), Yang Yang.