Five Ways to Make Architecture Political is a careful, engaging, and timely work. The title belies its most superb contribution, which is the development (and deployment) of a methodology, a practice, by which architecture might be engaged.

Architectural Theory Review

How is architecture political? What is the agency of buildings? Because of contemporary social, political and environmental challenges, these questions have become crucial. Using Actor-Network Theory in an innovative way, Albena Yaneva disrupts received answers by giving priority to what buildings really do, instead of focusing on what they are supposed to mean to their designers, owners or users.

Antoine Picon, Director of Research at Harvard Graduate School of Design, USA

Albena Yaneva's wonderful book asks us, above all, to take the study of architecture's politics slowly. Rather than jump to easy and ready-made political conclusions, she shows us both how it is possible and why it is necessary to take time to describe the politics of architecture in process, weaving theory and fieldwork together into a compelling synthesis. Five Ways to Make Architecture Political is a vital intervention, for students, practitioners and theorists alike.

Andrew Barry, Head of the Department of Geography at University College London, UK