An Anthropology of Architecture

by Victor Buchli

Ever since anthropology has existed as a discipline, anthropologists have thought about architectural forms. This book provides the first overview of how anthropologists have studied architecture and the extraordinarily rich thought and data this has produced.

With a focus on domestic space - that intimate context in which anthropologists traditionally work - the book explains how anthropologists think about public and private boundaries, gender, sex and the body, the materiality of architectural forms and materials, building technologies and architectural representations. Each chapter uses a broad range of case studies from around the world to examine from within anthropology what architecture 'does' - how it makes people and shapes, sustains and unravels social relations.

An Anthropology of Architecture is key reading for students of anthropology, material culture, geography, sociology, architectural theory, design and city planning.

Genres: Architecture, Anthropology

224 pages, Hardcover

First published December 11, 2012

About the author

Victor is Professor of Material Culture within the Material Culture Group at UCL and works on architecture, domesticity, the archaeology of the recent past, and critical understandings of materiality and new technologies. He also teaches on the UCL Urban Studies MSc and supervises on the Mphil/PhD programme at the Bartlett and the Slade and serves on the Board of the Victoria and Albert/Royal College of Art MA History of Design Programme as well as on the Steering Committee of the Victoria and Albert Research Institute (VARI).