Our World in Ten Buildings: How Architecture Defines Who We Are and How We Live

The built environment is not a passive backdrop to peoples’ lives but a force actively shaping them, according to this intriguing treatise. Architect Murphy (The Architecture of Health) showcases projects his firm has been involved with to illustrate how architecture can improve society. Among them are the Butaro Hospital in Rwanda, which replaced the massive, disease-spreading hallways of modern hospitals with outdoor waiting areas and large windows that let in light and air; a combined health clinic and wastewater treatment facility in Haiti erected after the 2010 earthquake; and an immersive Montgomery, Ala., memorial to Jim Crow–era lynching victims that seeks to combat the amnesia surrounding historical atrocities. The author reveals how these projects were accomplished in collaboration with local governments and populations to address on-the-ground needs, and argues for a form of architecture that strives to transform “the deeper, systemic issues” that perpetuate social problems. Murphy draws out in lucid and convincing detail the subtle but significant ways architecture influences health, community, and commerce and can serve as “a vehicle for justice and repair,” even if a memoiristic thread about caring for his dying father—while touching—sometimes takes things off-track. Still, it’s an illuminating, optimistic take on how architecture might be harnessed to better the world. (Apr.)