Mapping the expanding and fracturing field of architecture

This paper illustrates and discusses Golden's unique mapping of architecture practice, tracing arrays of critical, compared to commercial, practice approaches. It visually interprets the sociologist and philosopher Bourdieu’s theories on the interactions between agents and institutions to the field of architecture. Golden's analysis relates Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital to key stages of UK architectural practice from the mid-1950s through 2015. The paper contributes new understandings to contemporary knowledge and debates about architects’ shifting roles and practice types in privatised, market-led processes by providing a spatial framework to trace the increasingly fractured nature of the profession. Established and emerging areas of architecture, derived from literature reviews and primary sources, are re-evaluated by Golden as practice types in which agents seek––at one end of the field––to preserve, protect, or enhance traditional norms, versus those––at opposite ends––who challenge, and at times subvert traditional practice norms in favour of more critical approaches.