The Art‑architecture Complex

Hal Foster, author of the acclaimed Design and Crime, argues that a fusion of architecture and art is a defining feature of contemporary culture. While architects such as Zaha Hadid and Herzog and de Meuron draw on art to reanimate design, architecture has inspired fundamental transformations in painting, sculpture and film, which are also explored here. The book includes an extensive conversation with Richard Serra. At the same time Foster points to a 'global style' of architecture, as practiced by Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, that is analogous to the 'international style' of Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies — a global style that, more than any art, conveys the look of modernity today, both its dreams and its delusions. In these ways Foster demonstrates that 'the art‑architecture complex' is a key indicator of broader social and economic trajectories and in urgent need of analysis and debate.