By the end of the twentieth century, US architecture and engineering firms held more capital than entire countries, employed more people than were housed in most cities, and rented offices in more nations than comprised the UN. Within them, architects were designing not single buildings but urban systems, including the multinational infrastructures, legal codes, and financial mechanisms on which those systems came to depend. However, despite the extraordinary power of these architects, their histories remain shrouded in myth and concealed—by design.
This forensic analysis traces a history of architects at one such firm, AECOM, as they assembled their own multinational corporation and embedded themselves in the operations of American empire after World War II, shielding themselves from the instabilities of a postwar political economy. Incorporating Architects reveals how architects, through their businesses more than their drawings or buildings, modulated the political economy, gripped the reins of their profession, and produced the global injustices that define our neoliberal present.
Aaron Cayer is Assistant Professor of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
"A pathbreaking study that sheds light on an oddly little-studied aspect of architectural practice, despite its ubiquity and indispensability: the large architectural corporation. Cayer's account of the early AECOM and its expanded idea of architecture as a suite of related and unrelated services is business study, cultural critique, and aesthetic reflection rolled into one. A must-read for those looking or willing to go behind the 'creative' façade of the architectural profession."—Arindam Dutta, Professor of Architectural Theory and History, MIT
"Far from the standard monographic, navel-gazing study of a single genius architect, Incorporating Architects uses the history of an architecture and engineering corporation to challenge our received wisdom about the nature of architectural practice. Aaron Cayer's analysis dissects one firm so thoroughly and insightfully that we learn something entirely new about the interconnections and dependencies among operations of the state, national and global economies, and capitalism itself."—Sara Stevens, author of Developing Expertise: Architecture and Real Estate in Metropolitan America
"In this compelling exposé, Cayer charts the rise of AECOM, revealing how a once-traditional architecture firm adapted to become an essential player in the American empire's postwar expansion. Incorporating Architects is both a cautionary tale and a necessary rethinking of the architecture profession. It signals a new road that opens for many other professional fields."—Magali Sarfatti Larson, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Temple University, University of Urbino
364 pp.6 x 9Illus: 44 b/w illustrations, 4 tables
9780520400863$95.00|£80.00Hardcover
Jun 2025