Deleuze & Guattari for Architects

Book excerpt: The work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari has been inspirational for architects and architectural theorists in recent years. It has influenced the design work of architects as diverse as Greg Lynn and David Chipperfield, and is regularly cited by avant-gardist architects and by students, but usually without being well understood. The first collaboration between Deleuze and Guattari was Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, which was taken up as a manifesto for the post-structuralist life, and was associated with the spirit of the student revolts of 1968. Their ideas promote creativity and innovation, and their work is wide-ranging, complex and endlessly stimulating. They range across politics, psychoanalysis, physics, art and literature, changing preconceptions along the way. Deleuze & Guattari for Architects is a perfect introduction for students of architecture in design studio at all levels, students of architecture pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in architectural theory, academics and interested architectural practitioners.