"Spencer draws a direct intellectual lineage from neoliberalism's original thinkers through the unlikely corridors of late-20th-century countercultural and avant-garde thought, all the way into the glistening hallways of today's most acclaimed contemporary architectural firms." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "This book marks a milestone in architectural criticism, and the questions it addresses could not be more important or urgent . Its bold, unflinching description of architecture's complicity with the powers that be makes it an indispensable reference for all those concerned with the social and political meaning of their work," -- Journal of Architectural Education " The Architecture of Neoliberalism is a devastating portrait of contemporary architecture as the phantasmagoria of neoliberal capitalism. Spencer deftly deconstructs the current architectural ideology as a melange of counter-cultural tropes and vitalist celebrations of flexibility, empowerment, spontaneity, and the market as the final arbiter of freedom. The result is a powerful plea for critique in the face of the architectural prophets who proclaim 'there is no alternative'." -- Benjamin Noys, Professor of Critical Theory, University of Chichester, UK ""Neoliberalism" is commonly used as an epithet today to denounce a late-capitalist architecture in cahoots with the forces of real estate development and the marketplace. Douglas Spencer is the first to provide a detailed history of this term and to analyze its modes of operation, its architectural expressions, and its ideological subterfuges. An absolutely timely, lucid, important critique.

" -- Joan Ockman, Distinguished Senior Fellow, University of Pennsylvania School of Design, USA "This book marks a milestone in architectural criticism, and the questions it addresses could not be more important or urgent." -- JAE (Journal of Architectural Education).