Architecture after Covid

Albena Yaneva is Professor of Architectural Theory at the University of Manchester, UK. She is the author of several books, including: The Making of a Building, Made by the OMA, Mapping Controversies in Architecture, Five Ways to Make Architecture Political, and Bruno Latour for Architects.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgementsIntroductionThe return of Dr RieuxResponses to the pandemic‘Distant’ as a new form of knowledgeArchitecture after CovidChapter 1: A ‘parasite’ in the cityOccupying spaceArchitecture and illnessVirus, lab, cityThe laboratorization of spaceChapter 2: The laboratorization of urban space Deserted cities, empty buildingsCounting bodies Spacing, distancingContactless livesSanitizing, face coveringThe new ‘modulor’Pandemic pictogramsDe-centring the diseaseThe power of entrapmentUrban metamorphosis: the new technologies of containment and visibilityChapter 3: Pandemic variations of design practiceRoutines: the ‘magic’ of the office spaceSlowing down: the return to the verbal, the written and the sketchStepping aside and speeding up: technological developmentsNew compositions: re-connecting with the ‘others’New variants of practiceConclusion: Architectural research extended to things Historicity and virusNew reflexivity, new methodsBibliographyIndex

Yaneva’s book is an ethnography of architectural innovation, an investigation of how spatial designers and designs respond and work in a moment of crisis. For this important field – an architectural design of disasters – Yaneva’s new book contributes with a great and interesting case, as well as with important theoretical and methodological insights. I hope it will inspire others both in spirit, approach and in choice of subject, because this is a field that is in urgent need of further explorations.