To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century maps 120 places across all seven continents — and beyond — as cultural metaphors for the state of the world, from Costa Rican national parks to outer space.
About This Book
Rather than a conventional survey of architecture, this book reads the contemporary world through place. Richard Weller selects 120 sites — some designed, some natural, some deeply contested — and organises them into six thematic chapters: Paradises, Utopias, Machines, Monsters, Ruins, and Instruments. The selection resists easy categorisation: Steve Jobs' Apple Park sits alongside a wild orangutan field station in Borneo; the Great Green Wall in Central Africa appears in the same volume as the Israel-Palestine border wall and Mar-a-Lago. As a framework for understanding global culture through landscape and built environment, the book is genuinely singular — part geopolitical atlas, part critical architectural essay.
Key Features
- 312 pages spanning 120 curated sites across all seven continents, from ocean depths to outer space
- Author: Richard Weller, architecture academic at the University of Western Australia and the University of Pennsylvania
- Notable sites include Apple Park (California), the Great Green Wall (Central Africa), Mar-a-Lago, a wild orangutan field station (Borneo), and the Israel-Palestine border wall
- Published by Birkhauser Verlag, 2023
What You'll Discover
- How six metaphorical categories — Paradises, Utopias, Machines, Monsters, Ruins, and Instruments — provide a critical lens for reading the built and natural world
- The way contested, corporate, ecological, and political sites can be understood within a single architectural and cultural framework
- What the most consequential places on Earth — from conservation outposts to border infrastructure — reveal about 21st-century global priorities
- How landscape and architecture function as evidence of cultural values, environmental crisis, and geopolitical power simultaneously
About the Author
Richard Weller is an Australian architecture academic holding positions at both the University of Western Australia and the University of Pennsylvania. His work was exhibited at Melbourne School of Design in 2023.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 312
- Dimensions: 140 x 190 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035627930
- Publisher: Birkhauser Verlag
- Publication Date: 2023
Perfect For: Architects, landscape architects, and design academics interested in the intersection of built environment, geopolitics, and global culture — as well as readers drawn to critical approaches to place-making and contemporary urbanism.