In the discussion of architecture, there is a prevailing sentiment that, since 1968, cultural production in its traditional sense can no longer be understood to rise spontaneously, as a matter of social course, but must now be constructed through ever more self-conscious theoretical procedures. The development of interpretive modes of various stripes--post-structuralist, Marxian, phenomenological, psychoanalytic, as well as others dissenting or eccentric--has given scholars a range of tools for rethinking architecture in relation to other fields and for reasserting architectures general importance in intellectual discourse.This anthology presents forty-seven of the primary texts of architecture theory, introducing each with an explication of the concepts and categories necessary for its understanding and evaluation. It also presents twelve documents of projects or events that had major theoretical repercussions for the period. Several of the essays appear here in English for the first time.Contributors : Diana Agrest, Stanford Anderson, Archizoom, George Baird, Jennifer Bloomer, Massimo Cacciari, Jean-Louis Cohen, Beatriz Colomina, Alan Colquhoun, Maurice Culot, Jacques Derrida, Ignasi de Sola-Morales, Peter Eisenman, Robin Evans, Michel Foucault, Kenneth Frampton, Mario Gandelsonas, Frank Gehry, Jurgen Habermas, John Hejduk, Denis Hollier, Bernard Huet, Catherine Ingraham, Fredric Jameson, Charles A. Jencks, Jeffrey Kipnis, Fred Koetter, Rem Koolhaas, Leon Krier, Sanford Kwinter, Henri Lefebvre, Daniel Libeskind, Mary McLeod, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Jose Quetglas, Aldo Rossi, Colin Rowe, Massimo Scolari, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Segrest, Jorge Silvetti, Robert Somol, Martin Steinmann, Robert A. M. Stern, James Stirling, Manfredo Tafuri, Georges Teyssot, Bernard Tschumi, Anthony Vidler, Paul Virilio, Mark Wigley.

上海近代建筑是上海近代城市文化的一个重要组成部分，上海近代建筑在中国近代建筑史书上占有极其重要的一页。《上海百年建筑史1840-1949》试图从政治、经济、社会和文化等方面人手，探索上海近代建筑形成与发展的动因，寻求上海近代建筑的演变轨迹。《上海百年建筑史1840-1949》对近代上海各时期的建筑技术发展、建筑师及其建筑设计思想和建筑中表现出的风格特征进行了全面的考察和论证，并将寻其置于世界近代建筑史的大背景与上海近代史的大环境中进行了深入的分析与研究，其目的是试图展示一部较为完整，较为全面，也较为系统的上海近代建筑史，可供建筑、规划和历史研究人员及广大建箭罟好者阅读参考。