When it comes to determining the relative quality of architecture, who is best equipped to make the distinctions? Is it the public who lives in and among the buildings? The people who commission and pay for the buildings? Art historians? Or architects themselves?

These provocative essays take up the questions of what people value in architecture and how changing values influence opinions about it. In the intriguing opening essay, Michael Benedikt makes an argument for the role of architects in the delineation of value in architecture. He discusses the differences between icon...

In response to the contentious process surrounding the selection of a design for the World Trade Center site, the use of spectacular buildings to brand cities and institutions, and the dizzying transformations of the skylines of Shanghai and Dubai, public awareness of architecture and design has perhaps never been higher. At the same time, architecture itself is undergoing an identity crisis as it confronts fundamental issues: the effect of digital technology on design, the pervasive impact of global capitalism, and whether to embrace or resist popular media and taste.

The...

The complexity and scale of the environmental problems confronting humanity today provoke a wide range of responses, from indifference to anger to creativity. Among a growing number of architects, landscape architects, and planners, however, these problems have inspired a new vision-sustainability-to guide their practices.

In Nature, Landscape, and Building for Sustainability, a diverse group of contributors considers the concept of sustainability, both philosophically and practically. Some take a broad view of the divisions between nature and humanity, exploring the...