The architectural dimension

When we think about the architecture of the global city, often we have in our mind’s eye a certain kind of rather spectacular imagery, which may entail crystalline skyscrapers, luxurious residential complexes, rich cultural buildings, or works of breathtaking avant-garde design. The discourses surrounding these kinds of architecture can be equally spectacular, studded with vocabulary like ‘starchitects’, ‘the Bilbao effect’ and the ‘icon’. But these images and concepts constitute a highly selective and vastly incomplete vision of the architecture of the global city, and can be misleading for those who commission and produce this architecture as much as for the researchers who study it. This raises two particular challenges, which this chapter seeks to address.