In March 2003, Bernard Tschumi convened forty of the world's leading architectural designers and theorists -- Elizabeth Diller, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, Greg Lynn, Winy Maas, Thom Mayne, Ben van Berkel, Mark Wigley, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, and many others -- for a conference at Columbia University. The exceptional array was asked to predict the conversations and directions of architectural practice in the 21st century. Speakers addressed the categories of current architectural discourse -- form, aesthetics, material, detail, politics -- and questioned their future validity. Other topics included architects' obsession with the detail, the possibility of practicing a politics of material, the definition of an avant-garde urbanism, the importance of form beyond its aesthetic value, and whether architecture can directly influence the social world. <i>The State of Architecture</i> brings together manifestos, musings, and meditations to capture the key polemics raised by this extraordinary convocation of thinkers.