Architecture for Warfare

Ed publishes new book with Jovis. Architecture for Warfare: How Corporations Profit From Destruction and Reconstruction will be released in December, available here.

Some of the largest architecture firms have effectively become war corporations. At the same time as designing Olympic parks and world-famous buildings, they have constructed military bases, maintained weaponry, and trained personnel for wars in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. In some conflicts, the same firms have been contracted from invasion to reconstruction, including facilitating military attacks, rebuilding war-damaged infrastructure, and establishing new governments. Architecture for Warfare tells the story of a form of multidisciplinary corporation that employs architects skilled in designing structures alongside former military personnel with experience handling live-fire weapons. It highlights the tensions and contradictions within these architecture-led firms that claim to make the world a better place. The book combines personal narrative with detailed research to reveal unsettling relations between design, planning, and armed conflict.

Ed started the book 5-years ago when he was awarded a research grant from the Graham Foundation-but the book goes back about 20-years when the firm he worked for was bought by what Christian Sorensen calls a “war corporation”. It examines a form of architectural corporation that profits from conflicts and reconstruction.