Architecture and Identity: Responses to Cultural and Technological Change

'Instead of tuning the consumer to the machine we can now tune the machine to the consumer'

This edited collection of essays, now in its second edition, brings together the author's key writings on the cultural, technological and theoretical developments reshaping Modern architecture into a responsive and diverse movement for the twenty-first century.


Chris Abel approaches his subject from a wide range of knowledge, including cybernetics, philosophy, new human science and development planning, as well as his experience as a teacher and critic on four continents. The result is a unique global perspective on the changing nature of Modern architecture at the turn of the millennium. Including two new chapters, this revised and expanded second edition offers radical insights into such topics as: the impact of information technology on customized architecture production; the relations between tradition and innovation; prospects for a global eco-culture, and the local and global forces shaping the architecture and cities of Asia.

Chris Abel is an architectural writer and educator, based in Malta. He has taught at major universities in the UK, North and South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East and is a contributor to numerous international journals and other publications. He currently holds visiting appointments at the University of Malta and the University of the Phillippines.


*New chapters on 'The bio-tech architecture workshop' and 'Architecture in the Pacific ocean'.
*Global perspective on architecture.
*Deals with complex and challenging issues in a highly readable manner.