The threshold as both boundary and bridge: investigations of spaces, public and private, local and global. Today, spaces no longer represent a bourgeois haven; nor are they the sites of a classical harmony between work and leisure, private and public, the local and the global. The house is not merely a home but a position for negotiations with multiple spheres—the technological as well as the physical and the psychological. In A Topology of Everyday Constellations, Georges Teyssot considers the intrusion of the public sphere into private space, and the blurring of notions of interior, privacy, and intimacy in our societies. He proposes that we rethink design in terms of a new definition of the practices of everyday life. Teyssot considers the door, the window, the mirror, and the screen as thresholds or interstitial spaces that divide the world in two: the outside and the inside. Thresholds, he suggests, work both as markers of boundaries and as bridges to the exterior. The stark choice between boundary and bridge creates a middle space, an in-between that holds the possibility of exchanges and encounters. If the threshold no longer separates public from private, and if we can no longer think of the house as a bastion of privacy, Teyssot asks, does the body still inhabit the house—or does the house, evolving into a series of microdevices, inhabit the body?

This book reconstructs Istanbul through the prism of Orhan Pamuk’s fiction. It navigates the multiple selves and layers of Istanbul to present how the city has shaped the writings of Pamuk and has, in turn, been shaped by it. Through everyday objects and architecture, it shows how Pamuk transforms the city into a living museum where different objects converse along with characters to present a rich tapestry across space and time. Further, the monograph explores the formation of communal and literary identity within and around nation-building narratives informed by capitalism and modernization. The book also examines how Pamuk uses the postmodern city to move beyond its postmodern confines, and utilizes the theories and universes of Bakhtin, Benjamin, and Foucault to open up his fiction and radically challenge the idea of the novel. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of literature, literary theory, museum studies, architecture, and cultural studies, and especially appeal to readers of Orhan Pamuk.

This book restores the concept of topology to its rhetorical roots to assist scholars who wish not just to criticize power dynamics, but also to invent alternatives. Topology is a spatial rather than a causal method. It works inductively to model discourse without reducing it to the actions of a few or resolving its inherent contradictions. By putting topology back in tension with opportunity, as originally designed, the contributors to this volume open up new possibilities for post-critical practice in “wicked discourses” of medicine, technology, literacy, and the environment. Readers of the volume will discover exactly how the discipline of rhetoric underscores and interacts with current notions of topology in philosophy, design, psychoanalysis, and science studies.

Re-readings 2 is a companion book to Re-readings, originally published in 2004. This second volume is testament to the growing interest and demand for clarification of the re-modelling, adaptation and transformation processes within the existing built environment. With increased interest in the sustainability and heritage agenda and emerging interest from non-European-centric areas of the world in this type of work, this book explores how the re-modelling of existing buildings is a sustainable and viable alternative to the construction of new buildings. Throughout this highly-illustrated book, drawings and photos of various projects from around the world highlight how the new fits into the existing. Case studies are analysed holistically, and include information on the practical issues and challenges of individual projects.

This book reveals the ‘epistemic imposition’ of architectural ideas and practices by colonists from the Netherlands in the Dutch East Indies from the late-19th century onwards, exploring the ways in which this came to shape the profession up to the present day in what is now known as Indonesia. The author investigates the scope of these interventions by Dutch colonial agents in relation to existing Javanese building practices, pursuing two main lines of enquiry. The first is to examine the methods of dissemination of Dutch-taught technical knowledge and skills across the Dutch East Indies. The second is to scrutinise the effects of this dissemination upon the formation of architectural knowledge and practice within the colony. Throughout this book, the argument is made that what took place in architecture in the Dutch East Indies involved a process of disseminating building knowledge as a form of ‘epistemic imposition’ upon the indigenous citizens of the colony – in other words, as an effective instrument of Dutch colonial power. This book will be of interest to architecture academics and students interested in developing a broader global understanding of architecture, especially those interested in decolonising the teaching of architectural history and theory.

This Companion addresses the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades. Features original essays from an international team of cultural theorists which offer fresh and compelling perspectives and sketch out exciting new areas of theoretical inquiry Thoughtfully organized into two sections – lineages and problematics – that facilitate its use both by students new to the field and advanced scholars and researchers Explains key schools and movements clearly and succinctly, situating them in relation to broader developments in culture, society, and politics Tackles issues that have shaped and energized the field since the Second World War, with discussion of familiar and under-theorized topics related to living and laboring, being and knowing, and agency and belonging

This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries. Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.