The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World

An exploration of the intimate and inextricable relationship between architecture, power, money and politics in the twentieth century. How and why have presidents, prime ministers, mayors, millionaires and bishops come to share such a fascination with architecture? From Blair to Mitterrand, from Hitler to Stalin to Saddam Hussein, architecture has become an end in itself, as well as a means to an end. This is a book of genuine timeliness, throwing new light on the aspirations and the motivations of the rich and powerful across the world - and on the political nature of contemporary culture.