The Organizational Complex: 1945-Present

This seminar will consider the emergence of an “organizational complex” from the corporate architecture of the post-World War II period to the present, in the United States and elsewhere. This “complex,” which includes but is not limited to corporations, universities, office buildings, research laboratories, digital technologies, new forms of labor, performative gender roles, networked infrastructures, visual diagrams, etc., can be understood as the aesthetic and technological extension of the military-industrial complex. The seminar will revisit Martin’s The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space (2003) from the perspective of recent scholarship in architectural history, media history, science and technology studies, and elsewhere.