Architecture from Without

Diana Agrest is one of the most significant voices in architectural theory today. Her work, developed in teaching, writing, and practice, is an important contribution to the architectural discourse of the past two decades.

In Architecture from Without Agrest explores the symbolic dimension of architecture from the perspective of the modern city through a remarkable range of subjects - the relationship between architectural and urban ideologies, the symbolic performance of architecture in relation to the urban condition, the formal and ideological development of a building type, the relationship between architecture and other visual discourses, and the position of gender and body in Western architecture.

Agrest focuses on the urban condition of architecture as a possibility for rethinking its own limits. Her understanding of architecture as ideology from the perspective of signification and culture opens up the question of the specificity of the architectural, unmasking functional determinism.

The Essays: On the Notion of Place. Design Versus Non­Design. The Misfortunes of Theory. Architectural Anagrams: The Symbolic Performance of Skyscrapers. The City as a Place of Representation. Notes on Film and Architecture. Architecture of Mirror/Mirror of Architecture. Framework for a Discourse on Representation. Architecture from Without: Body, Logic, and Sex.