Mapping the Global Architect of Alterity:

Practice, Representation, and Education

Due to globalization, cultural spaces are now developing with no tangible connection to geographical place. The territorial logic traditionally used to underpin architecture and envision our built environment is being radically altered, forcing the adoption of a new method of conceptualizing space/geography and what constitutes architectural practice. The resultant “globalized” architect must become not just an artful visionary but also a master of the political nudge, willing to act within multiple mediums and at the simultaneous scales of a chaotic new world disorder. The potential for what must be considered the legitimate practice of the architect must move from a purely material venue to one more directly engaged in the chaos of the larger economic, political, and social spheres of a globalizing world.  The issues and possible interactions with globalization contained in this text exemplify ways that architecture is transforming into a more flexible and fluid interdisciplinary version of its traditional self in order to rise to the challenges of this new international terrain.