An Anthropology of Architecture

An Anthropology of Architecture is the first book for students on this topic. Covering both history and theory, it examines architecture as material culture, exploring its role in forming and defining social relations, identity and personhood.
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.
With this excellent book, Victor Buchli reminds us of the multitude of ways in which architecture becomes meaningful to us, whoever we are and wherever we live. Informative, insightful and engaging, it should be essential reading for all those interested in the anthropological study of architecture. Marcel Vellinga, Reader in Anthropology of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University, UK This book presents a long overdue and much needed synthesis of anthropological approaches to the study of architecture. Professor Buchli situates a wide variety of ethnographic case studies in historically and philosophically grounded theoretical frameworks with which he provocatively challenges anthropologists to reconsider the materiality of the built environment. Denise Lawrence-Zuniga, Professor, Department of Architecture, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California, USA