Gevork Hartoonian is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Canberra. He has practised architecture and taught at several universities in America, including Columbia University and the Pratt Institute. He is a member of the editorial group of Architectural Theory Review. His most recently published book is Crisis of the Object (Routledge, 2006). A Korean edition of his Ontology of Construction (Cambridge University Press, 1994) is scheduled for 2010.

The essays compiled in this book explore aspects of Walter Benjamin’s discourse that have contributed to the formation of contemporary architectural theories.

Issues such as technology and history have been considered central to the very modernity of architecture, but Benjamin’s reflection on these subjects has elevated the discussion to a critical level. The contributors in this book consider Walter Benjamin's ideas in the context of digitalization of architecture where it is the very technique itself that determines the processes of design and the final form.

This book was published as a special issue of Architectural Theory Review.