New Book Co-Edited by Architect Pari Riahi, 'Multiplicity: On Constraint and Agency in Contemporary Architecture, Published by UMass Press
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Pari Riahi, Associate Dean for Research and Engagement and Associate Professor of Architecture, has co-edited a new book, Multiplicity: On Constraint and Agency in Contemporary Architecture, published by UMass Press in June 2024. Co-edited with Laure Katsaros, G. Armour Craig Professor in Language and Literature at Amherst College, and Michael T. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Art History and Architectural Studies at Mount Holyoke, this project is a collaborative endeavor showcasing a multi-disciplinary and inter-institutional model within the Five Colleges.
The edited volume explores architecture’s reckoning with urgent issues—among them the impact of climate change, the dynamics of power and race in relation with the built environment, and the technological, practical, and ethical dimensions of building, preserving, and even degrowth—as it searches for new definitions, identities, and voices.
Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium, this volume—the second in a series— situates architecture within a broad framework, exploring its complex interactions with environmental, cultural, political, social, artistic, and technological forces. In addition to the editors, the contributors include Sanford Kwinter, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Jennifer Mack, Rahul Mehrotra, Charles Waldheim, Kristi Cheramie, Jesse Reiser, Julian Harake, Jenny E. Sabin, Charles Davis, Esra Akcan, and David Karmon.
The essay collection has been celebrated as "an essential insight into architecture under its various guises" by Antoine Picon, author of Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Professions. It also "takes architectural discourse well beyond the old debate and disparity between prescription and invention," according to Teresa Stoppani, author of Unorthodox Ways to Think the City: Representations, Constructions, Dynamics.
A series of book events in fall 2024 will stimulate conversations about Multiplicity, among them, one at the Center for Architecture AIA NY on Thursday, Sept. 12, and another on Wednesday, Oct. 9, at the Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Amherst College.
The book is the second of a three-part series of symposia and their accompanying edited volumes, bringing together the Five College Architecture Studies Programs and UMass Architecture. The third and last installment of the series will start with a symposium, open and free to the public, titled “Quickness: On Rhythms of time in Contemporary Architecture,” which will take place in the atrium of the Design Building on Oct. 2-3, 2024.