The Architecture of Phantasmagoria

Andreotti and Lahiji's compendium of reflections on the role of the phantasmagoria - commodity's ghost - on our understanding of city is not a treatise on urbanism. It explores something that today is much less common: a profound update of Walter Benjamin's Arcade Project set in relation to multiple contemporary theorists who offer insightfully apparati for understanding our technically anaestheticized city. Unflinching in its examinations of contemporary theorists who soft-sell the critical of critical theory and miss the Benjaminian insight, they make connections to many others who surprisingly add to and update our reading of Benjamin and Guy Debord. Peggy Deamer, Professor, Yale School of Architecture. One expression is conspicuously absent from The Architecture of Phantasmagoria, a fact that encapsulates everything that is right about this timely book, since this expression stands for everything that is wrong about the contemporary city: real estate. David Kishik, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Emerson College Andreotti and Lahiji offer a compelling critique of contemporary architecture in this closely argued interpretation of what they call the hypermediated city of neoliberal capitalism. Updating a lineage of radical thought extending from Marx to Benjamin to Debord to Zizek, the authors astutely describe the phantasmagoric nature of present-day urban experience and the role that advanced architecture plays in its construction. Joan Ockman Written with a brilliance and verve reminiscent of Walter Benjamin, The Architecture of Phantasmagoria is an indispensable guide to the hyper-mediated city of today, in which heavenly fantasies for some create a hellish world for others. A passionate indictment of contemporary architecture's submission to the dreamworlds of neoliberalism, Andreotti and Lahiji's book is a wake-up call that should not be ignored. David Cunningham, Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, University of Westminster, UK