GTA Papers 5: Social Distance reframes the pandemic-era concept of social distancing through architectural history and theory, tracing the spatial politics of contagion from Venetian plague urbanism to the contemporary open-plan office.
About This Book
When “social distance” shifted from sociological metaphor to precise epidemiological measurement, architecture found itself at the centre of a very old question: how does space mediate between bodies, disease, and society? This fifth issue of GTA Papers resists the urge to diagnose our current moment, instead assembling a wide-ranging set of perspectives from architectural history and theory. The result is a publication that illuminates the long relationship between the built environment and public health — from cholera in the industrialising city to the design logics of the 1960s bubble and the modern workplace. Essential reading for anyone thinking seriously about architecture, health, and spatial governance.
Key Features
- 150 pages of essays and reflections drawn from architectural history and theory
- Edited by ETH Zürich
- Published by GTA Verlag
What You'll Discover
- How the term “social distance” evolved from a vague sociological metaphor into a precise, jurisdiction-specific public health measure — and what architecture reveals about that shift
- Historical case studies spanning the great plague of Venice and cholera in the industrialising city, examined through the lens of spatial and urban design
- An analysis of bodily and architectural boundaries, ranging from the human placenta as spatial threshold to the enclosed logic of 1960s bubble design
- A critical interrogation of the contemporary office as a site where contagion, proximity, and spatial organisation intersect
About the Author
This volume is edited by ETH Zürich, the Zurich-based federal technical university whose Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) has published GTA Papers as a platform for rigorous scholarly debate in architectural history, theory, and criticism.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 150
- Dimensions: 210 x 300 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783856764159
- Publisher: GTA Verlag
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects, urban historians, public health researchers, and design theorists with an interest in the spatial dimensions of epidemiology and the history of health infrastructure.