Atlas of Another America - An Architectural Fiction

Description

An Atlas of Another America is a work of speculative architectural fiction and theoretical analysis of the American single-family house and its native habitat, the suburban metropolis. Mass-marketed and endlessly multiplied, and the definitive symbol of success in America and around the world, the suburban house has also become a global economic calamity and an impending environmental catastrophe. Yet, as both object and idea, it remains largely unexamined from an architectural perspective. This new book fills this gap through projects and essays that reflect upon, critique, and reformulate the equation that binds the house as an object to the American dream as a concept. Adopting tone and format of an historical architectural treatise, it builds upon an eminent lineage of architectural research from Piranesi and Ledoux to Branzi and Koolhaas in which imaginary but not implausible worlds are constructed through drawing in order to reframe reality and reorient the discipline towards new territories of action.

Keith Krumwiede, born in 1964 in New Orleans, is a designer and writer and an associate professor and director of graduate architecture programs at New Jersey Institute of Technology. His work has been exhibited widely and published in numerous journals including Domus, 306090, Perspecta, Praxis and Log.