Introduction

John Shannon Hendrix and Francesco Proto, the book’s co-editors, introduce the volume with assistance from Tim Martin. They acknowledge the discipline’s roots, referencing conferences organized by Mark Cousins in London in 2000 and Peggy Deamer in New Haven in 2003. This book aims to demonstrate how architecture can integrate the unconscious and serve as a form of psychoanalysis. Chapters are summarized, highlighting their interconnections. The authors argue that the practice of architecture, much like many aspects of world affairs, is currently in crisis. They suggest that the relentless advance of technology offers only partial solutions and can even contribute to problems. The human psyche requires nurturing, and the focus must shift away from ego, greed, and self-promotion. Architecture should transcend its role as merely a facilitator of economic and technological development and actively contribute to the health of the psyche. Both architecture and psychoanalysis provide crucial responses to changes in human territorial practices and symbolic exchanges. Viewing architecture as both analyst and analysand by either psychoanalyzing and/or being psychoanalyzed in the Freudian and Lacanian traditions would be beneficial.