The Edifice Complex

Deyan Sudjic's "The Edifice Complex: The Architecture of Power" is a fascinating exploration of the language of architecture as an insight into the psychology of power, from tyrants to billionaires. Why do presidents and prime ministers, tycoons and tyrants share such a fascination with grand design [...]
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Deyan Sudjic's "The Edifice Complex: The Architecture of Power" is a fascinating exploration of the language of architecture as an insight into the psychology of power, from tyrants to billionaires. Why do presidents and prime ministers, tycoons and tyrants share such a fascination with grand designs? Is it to impress or terrify, to wield state power, make a bid for immortality or just satisfy their egos? From Hitler's vast Chancellery to Saddam Hussein's Mother of all Battles mosque, from Olympic stadiums to Donald Trump's excesses, Deyan Sudjic examines the murky relationship between buildings, money and politics, revealing the power of architecture - and the architecture of power. "A thrilling and passionately indignant trawl through vanity's most polluted depths". ("The Times"). "An often frightening, sometimes hilarious set of stories of brutality, absurdity and occasionally beauty". ("Evening Standard"). "Punchily written ...deftly amusing ...a closely argued, brilliantly marshalled, important book". ("Daily Mail"). "Informed, lively and intelligent ...an asylum of power-mad politicians and Croesus-rich patrons". ("New Statesman")."By turns funny, acidic, penetrating and provocative ...as compelling a read as a popular novel". (Norman Foster Director of the Design Museum). Deyan Sudjic was born in London of Yugoslav parents. He is a former architecture critic for the "Observer", and a visiting professor at the Royal College of Art. Sudjic was Director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2002 and is author of "The Edifice Complex", the much-praised "100-Miles City", the best-selling "Architecture Pack", "The Language of Things" and monographs on John Pawson, Ron Arad and Richard Rogers.