Architecture from the Outside

With characteristic insight and rigor, Elizabeth Grosz provides a helpful analysis of the relation between philosophy and architecture during the past decade. More important, by rethinking virtuality in relation to the body and materiality, and vice versa, she effectively moves beyond oppositional modes of analysis, which have created a critical impasse. For Grosz, the virtual opens a future in which 'the logic of invention' can operate. To follow her into this emerging space is to discover that this 'outsider' is an 'insider' with much to teach.

Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University and Williams College

It is a credit to the field of architectural theory that it is so open to its outside—to the creative contributions of other disciplines and approaches. In this illuminating series of essays, Elizabeth Grosz brings to architecture a Deleuzian philosophical perspective that complements her longstanding engagements with both the concept of space and the experience of bodies. The result casts a new light on both architecture and philosophy.

Michael Hardt, Literature Program, Duke University

Architecture's best-kept secret is that it is not only knowledge of form, but also a form of knowledge. Elizabeth Grosz's Architecture from the Outside explores that secret, revealing key contemporary concepts and ideas and opening new routes for spatial research and invention.

Bernard Tschumi, Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University

Architecture's boundaries are extremely porous, and the flow of ideas between its inside and outside is surprisingly unrestricted. Elizabeth Grosz brilliantly exploits this porosity to make a space for reflections and insights. Architecture from the Outside is required reading for any architect who wants his or her work to engage the wide array of challenges confronting us today.

Ralph Lerner, School of Architecture, Princeton University