A lively and accessible discussion of how architecture functions in a complex world of obligation and responsibility, with a preface offering specific discussion of architecture during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. What are the special ethical obligations assumed by architects? Because their work creates the basic material conditions that make all other human activity possible, architects and their associates in building enjoy vast influence on how we all live, work, play, worship, and think. With this influence comes tremendous, and not always examined, responsibility. This book addresses the range of ethical issues that architects face, with a broad understanding of ethics. Beyond strictly professional duties - transparency, technical competence, fair trading - lie more profound issues that move into aesthetic, political, and existential realms. Does an architect have a duty to create art, if not always beautiful art? Should an architect feel obliged to serve a community and not just a client? Is justice a possible orientation for architectural practice? Is there such a thing as feeling compelled to "shelter being" in architectural work? By taking these usually abstract questions into the region of physical creation, the book attempts a reformulation of "architectural ethics" as a matter of deep reflection on the architect's role as both citizen and caretaker. Thinkers and makers discussed include Le Corbusier, Martin Heidegger, Lewis Mumford, Rem Koolhaas, Jane Jacobs, Arthur Danto, and John Rawls.

About the Author
Mark Kingwell is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine. He has lectured widely to academic and popular audiences throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of Arts (U.K.).

Reviews
Kingwell does go on to discuss the significance of architecture's relationship to time. He is conscious of the poverty of a "relentless demand for speedy novelty," that combines with an equally constant nostalgia "the ideology of inevitability that creeps up around technology- an ideology so stealthy and complete, and so intimately related to the very idea of capital, that it is functionally invisible. * Kyle Dugdale, Montreal Architecture Review *
Ethics in Architecture is a timely reminder of the professional responsibilities of those charged with making the world a better place through their thoughtful interventions in the built environment. * John David, Urban Wildland *



Book Information
ISBN 9780197558546
Author Mark Kingwell
Format Hardback
Page Count 176
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 295g
Dimensions(mm) 145mm * 211mm * 20mm