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University of California Press

Incorporating Architects

How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire

by Aaron Cayer (Author)
Price: $29.95 / £25.00
Publication Date: Jun 2025
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 470
ISBN: 9780520400887
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 44 b/w illustrations, 4 tables
Endowments:

About the Book

By the end of the twentieth century, US architecture and engineering firms held more capital than entire countries, employed more people than were housed in most cities, and rented offices in more nations than comprised the UN. Within them, architects were designing not single buildings but urban systems, including the multinational infrastructures, legal codes, and financial mechanisms on which those systems came to depend. However, despite the extraordinary power of these architects, their histories remain shrouded in myth and concealed—by design.

This forensic analysis traces a history of architects at one such firm, AECOM, as they assembled their own multinational corporation and embedded themselves in the operations of American empire after World War II, shielding themselves from the instabilities of a postwar political economy. Incorporating Architects reveals how architects, through their businesses more than their drawings or buildings, modulated the political economy, gripped the reins of their profession, and produced the global injustices that define our neoliberal present.
 

About the Author

Aaron Cayer is Assistant Professor of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.