This book explores the notion of architectural obsolescence through a study of the United States. While the US was the world’s greatest economic, scientific and cultural force during the 20th century, it now appears obsessed with its own decline. In this obsession the changing patterns of consumption and demand often result in an architectural redundancy where buildings exist as a form of byproduct or residue. While the 20th-century image of the US reflects the heroic potential of production, this book examines the opposite – of that which isn’t work. Or, more pointedly, those abandoned pleasures and lost paradises that remain when there is no longer any work left to define them.

9781907896699, 2016
24 × 21cm, illustrated, 128pp, paperback