Today the excitement in architecture derives from the tension between the need for privacy And The impulse toward community. This unique survey of buildings and interiors captures the multilayered experience that is engaged whenever we look out of--or into--a work of architecture. Immaterial World examines the built environment--through 25 projects--as a reflection of the terrors and pleasures of present-day exposure, information overload, and human abundance of every sort. The works included, by forward-looking, even radical, architects and designers, range from complete transparency to bunker-like opacity, depending upon who's doing the looking and who or what is being seen. This volume also discusses materiality, The relationship between the constructed and natural worlds, The individual as local and global citizen, urbanism, The challenges of building in context--all of which affect a structure's degree of transparency.