Architecture and Affect: Precarious Spaces

‘Lilian Chee’s Architecture and Affect is an exceptionally important contribution to the architectural field. It asks a simple but most profound question: how can we account for affective responses to architecture, so often dismissed as incidental yet so vital to lived experience? Chee draws on a series of encounters with spaces in Singapore in order to build a frame through which to incorporate affect into architectural histories, theories, and practices. These encounters immerse readers in residual spaces where scholars still-too-rarely go, from mass housing to cemeteries, and dwell on everyday practices of inhabitation and care, from feeding stray cats to exhuming tombs. A noted filmmaker, architectural designer and feminist theorist, Chee’s original and rooted portrait of architectural affect reflects years of intimate engagement with her sites across many registers. The result is itself a beautiful ‘monument’ – to squinting from blindspots, being captivated by subjects, and never ignoring the tiger under the billiard table.’

––––– Barbara Penner, Professor in Architectural Humanities, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Link to book: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10331867.2024.2359760