Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition

by Joshua Comaroff, Ong Ker-Shing

Horror in Architecture presents an unflinching look at how horror genre tropes manifest in the built environment. Spanning the realms of art, design, literature, and film, this newly revised and expanded edition compiles examples from all areas of popular culture to form a visual anthology of the architectural uncanny.

Rooted in the Romantic and Gothic treatment of horror as a serious aesthetic category, Horror in Architecture establishes incisive links between contemporary horror media and its parallel traits found in various architectural designs. Through chapters dedicated to distorted and monstrous buildings, abandoned spaces, extremes of scale, and other structural peculiarities, and featuring new essays on insurgent natures, blobs, and architectural puppets, this volume brings together diverse architectural anomalies and shows how their unsettling effects deepen our fascination with the unreal.

Intended for both horror fans and students of visual culture, Horror in Architecture turns a unique lens on the relationship between the human body and the artificial landscapes it inhabits. Extensively illustrated with photographs, film stills, and diagrams, this book retrieves horror from the cultural fringes and demonstrates how its attributes permeate the modern condition and the material world.

Genres: Nonfiction, Architecture, Horror, Art, Art History, Theory, Philosophy

264 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2013

Reviews

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone without an existing grounding in architectural history, theory and criticism. My own failing here was disregarding the title, something I only realised I’d done when I actually started reading the book: I wanted more architecture in horror and less horror in architecture. I’d anticipated at least some analysis of the ways in which buildings are used in horror films/lit, but Comaroff and Ker-Shing are concerned with the things we (typically) find visually or viscerally horrifying and how analogues of these can manifest in architecture. As a result, a lot of it flew over my head, especially where the approaches and specific buildings mentioned are not illustrated (a lot of googling was needed to make many of the arguments comprehensible to me). It’s nevertheless packed with fascinating observations and turns of phrase, my personal highlight being the description of the polymorphic body in art/film as ‘a disgusting little society’.

TinyLetter | Linktree

[Maddy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good resource, but burdened by the amateurish taking up of theory and a lot of very sloppy mistakes.

[Eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best Thing about this book is the categories that the authors developed. Very interesting way of dissecting the "genre" and framing the discussion. However, i am a bit underwhelmed by the architectures they put forward. I was certainly not expecting to spending most of my time reading about the same old examples of Venturi, Koolhaas, Chicago Tribune competition etc...it feels like a re-wrapped architecture 101. I was hoping for a more varied and surprising iconography, not yet another re-reading of the same 15 projects we've been talking about for the last 200 years. I appreciate the intellectual exercise, but the title is a bit...misleading or over-hyping the content.

[v]

Ridiculously fun.

[Brandon Woodward · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the strong premise and a number of unique insights, the lack of structure (pun) makes this book an aimless slog. I'm perfectly happy with a book that doesn't have a central thesis from front to back, but Horror in Architecture lacks a shared argument between two adjacent paragraphs. The general format is:

1a a brief outline of a common horror trope (The Exquisite Corpse)
1b a brief consideration of how this trope can manifest in architecture (stylistic disjuncture)
2a a paragraph about the trope in a specific work of horror (David Cronenberg's Videodrome)
2b a paragraph about a building which may or may not be loosely related to 2a (bulbous projections in Michel de Klerk's post office in Amsterdam)
2c a sprinkling of commentary on late stage capitalism for some reason ("The dissociated, anthropogenic character of such environments veers close to dystopia," "It embodies negative freedom without a check, a libertarian Babel in which all remaining vestiges of the social are removed")
3 repeat 2 for the length of the chapter

I enjoyed learning about unique buildings and their commonalities with horror films, but what I really want to know is why these ideas appear in architecture. Did the designers consider the strangeness and 'horror' inherent in their work? Should they? Are we, as building goers, supposed to feel a certain 'horror' and uneasiness when viewing or inhabiting these buildings? Does it play on our subconscious psyche in deleterious ways? Is this all just an arbitrary intellectual exercise? We may never know.

The content in this book would be better suited to a website: Each horror trope would get its own page, and each page would be a list of buildings that exemplify that trope, accompanied by multiple pretty photos. Sadly, the photos in the book (I read the most recent reprint "The Reanimated Edition") are all low quality black and white photos, and half the buildings don't get photos at all).

I wanted to love this book, but it just didn't come together for me. 2.5/5

[Matthew Chua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult read, but interesting metaphors in the comparison of elements of horror and how it translates and is reflected in architecture.

[nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

cool study of the fascination bound into the horrors of architectural structures and their representation of larger cultural discourses & anxieties.

3.5/5

[Alex Niederberger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very perplexing book. I believe that applying a radical lens to a field always proves interesting, but I also think these authors have scribbled a spooky monster on the glass and then gasp every time they look through it. And oh, what's that smudge? Really weird approaches to disability and race!

There's some generally interesting content here, but much of it boils down to examining some sort of physical disability (or other quirk in human development), then comparing that to tropes (or oddities) in architecture. At times "horror" feels more like euphemism. There's even interesting meat in there. In "Distortion: Deformity and Disproportion" (oof), they discuss how certain "deformed" buildings are a reaction to surroundings and the structure of cities. If you take that idea back to the original idea of disability, there's maybe a nugget that could be explored. Admittedly, I dunno if I'd want these authors to investigate that: their strength is obviously on the architectural side.

Furthermore, there's a lot of horror that's abstracted further from the human form. Chapters like "Incontinent Object" (probably my favorite section still) and "Trojan Horse" flirt with this idea, but tend to still drift towards human-centered ideas, which inevitably feel weird. There's also a lot of horror explicitly about architecture that could be interrogated here.

Idk this vexed me. It's still compelling in parts but yikes.

[Devin · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Horror in Architecture" is a fascinating survey of spatial features (both intended and accidental) which mirror horror tropes. It's well-illustrated, and full of bibliographic notes for further reading. The book is organized by trope, with some sections faring better than others. In particular, "Incontinent Object", "Reiteration and Reflexivity," "Trojan Horse", and the first half of "Solidity & Stereotomy" are ripe with interesting examples and analysis.

The concept of the book generally outshines the reading experience. The style is academic: At its best, it wraps fascinating ideas in highbrow poetry; at its worst, it reads like a pretentious grad-student assignment. The introductory chapters in particular are over-written and skimmable.

Still, I'd easily recommend this book for creatives working on horror-related projects, for its wealth of original thinking on how we perceive spaces as uncomfortable or threatening. A cover-to-cover read is unnecessary, just hit the TOC and drop into the examples that pique your curiosity.

[Ta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic. I did not know what to expect when I started the book, since it combines two of my favorite topics and intuitively the combination makes sense, but it's still hard to grasp. The authors absolutely get it and manage to create a great overview over many different types of horror in architecture.

Well researched, with many pictures, a lot of references to tantalizing essays, books and fiction that shows deep immersion in the topic. The book is surprisingly succinct, saying exactly what it wants to say and no more, while remaining poetic and philosophical throughout.

Bought the physical version after I finished reading it, since I must have this in my house.

Note: I read an ebook of the Reanimated version.

[Erin Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a good read with examples of strange and fascinating architectural projects all over the world (from ancient to contemporary times) but it glosses over them - although the usual suspects like Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry all make multiple appearances. The thesis puts forward how “horror” exists in architecture and how economic / capitalist strains help create these “monsters” in architecture. Fascinating idea that holds weight but some of it was glossed over.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know much about architecture like actually nothing, so maybe there were mistakes i didnt notice. But coming from it knowing nothing about architecture, I found some of the points they made about horrific building, and modern architecture really interesting. Although sometimes, they did make the same points multiple times in seperate sections.

[Bexan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is the hardest I have ever had to work to find a book. Every time I found it it either immediately got purchased before I did it, got an email from the lister after I had already purchased it saying they did not have the item in stock anymore, had a broken link to the actual listing despite displaying in search results, and more. It was highly worth it though, with an interesting study of architecture from an unusual perspective. If you want a copy enjoy your search!

[Ajk · Rating 4 out of 5]

A phenomenal premise, and interesting in large chunks. But the totality wasn't really quite there, and the actual production of the book was a little shoddy at times with the photographs and words not quite matching up. This was enjoyable to be sure, but I was hoping for much more.

[Mikey ಠ◡ಠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating this a 4 because I can feel how passionate the authors are about this subject but emotionally for me it’s a 3 because even their passion about this frankly fascinating subject didn’t stop me from feeling a teensy bit overwhelmed and therefore bored. But that’s a me problem

[Rems · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange and brilliant book that explores horror not just as a genre, but as a natural and psychological state. It shows how fear and dread can exist in space, and how architecture can express or provoke it.

An absolute treat if you're passionate about horror and spatial design, like me.

[R. R. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was perfectly placed between two of my hyperfixations: horror and architecture. It's a very academic work which may no be to everyone's taste, but I found this chock full of incredible ideas, delightful comparisons, and perfect examples.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tied together so many thoughts that I have been exploring recently (!)

Definitely need to look over some chapters in more detail but absolutely perfect for where my practise is going currently ❣️

[Sarah Willson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am looking for a copy of this book but cannot find one ANYWHERE! For those of you who have read it where did you find it?? I would love any tips

[Pallavi Narayan]

Excellent practical introduction to the horrors that architecture gives rise to. The body and architecture is inextricably entwined and this book shows us how. Flush with examples of buildings and lots of pictures from literary correlatives -- books, film and other kinds of media.