"To tell the truth, Franco La Cecla is not wrong. There is too much building, sometimes only to put a signature, a stamp on a spot, without any worry about the people who are going to live there. In other situations it is easy to be used by the institutions that support speculation. It is the reason why I refused many projects, because I am lucky---and I can choose."---Renzo Piano In La Repubblica<BR><BR>"La Cecla's book is a delight, in the way that he dismantles the glory of the `archistar' in their proud myopic grandeur that totally ignores people and their rights to a better urban life."---Sebastian Courtois, La Reforme<BR><BR>Against Architecture is a passionate and erudite charge against the celebrities of the current architectural world, the "archistars." According to Franco La Cecla, architecture has lost its way and its true function, as the archistars use the cityscape to build their brand, putting their stamp on the built environment with little regard for the public good.<BR><BR>More than a diatribe against the trade for which La Cecla trained, Against Architecture issues a call to rethink urban space, to take our cities back from casino capitalism, which has left a string of failed urban projects, from the Sagrera of Barcelona to the expansion of Columbia University in New York City. La Cecla recounts his peregrinations, whether as a consultant to urban planners or as an incorrigible flaneur, and finds hope and some surprising answers in the 2006 uprisings in the Parisian suburbs and in wandering the streets of San Francisco.<BR><BR>Informed by the works of Robert Byron, Mike Davis, Rebecca Solnit, and other masters of urban and landscape writing. Against Architecture is a work of insight on resisting the tyranny of the planners and finding the spirit of place.