Review: Non-Design: Architecture, Liberalism, and the Market and Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century Available to Purchase

In the years since the global financial crash of 2008, the built environment’s complicity in the neoliberal political economy has come under increased scrutiny.¹ Real estate, the financialization of architectural production and aesthetics, and the often-complex realities of neoliberalism “on the ground” in cities and buildings are just some of the topics that have been addressed by architectural historians seeking to reframe long-standing narratives about the role of architecture in society and its relation to capitalism. Two recent books expand and deepen this inquiry with divergent yet complementary perspectives. In Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, Matthew Soules explores both the theoretical and the actual ways in which architecture has adapted to service, and enable, the machinations of finance capitalism in recent decades. Anthony Fontenot takes a longer historical perspective in Non-Design: Architecture, Liberalism, and the Market, offering an impressive...