Architecture of Authority

Metropolitan Police, Holding Room, London

This book, The Architecture of Authority, by photographer, Richard Ross, has been exploding around the design world for a few months now. It is such a powerful book that we thought we would like to memorialize it here for our readers. Just in case you missed it.

With photographs ranging from the United Nations Assembly Hall to the segregation chambers at Guantanamo, Cuba, we see, in the words of a Los Angeles Times reviewer, "...stripped down hard-edged rooms designed to facilitate systems rather then individuals, places where power is exercised and suffered." Ross' work forces the viewer to ask serious questions about the dark side of architecture.