Living behind glass facades: Surveillance culture and new architecture

Abstract

Transparent glass facades dominate much contemporary high– to mid–rise urban residential architecture. This article takes a closer look at life behind glass facades in contemporary surveillance culture. The aim is to illuminate how the material culture of contemporary architecture together with surveillance practices and technologies contribute to a remodelling our notions of the visible and the invisible. Whereas the architecture is determined by conditions and possibilities of what it means to be living behind glass facades, the novel Die 120 Tage von Berlin by the German author Lukas Hammerstein explores the complexities that this mode of living cause on a socio–psychological level. Through this dual track analytical strategy a complex set of connotations governing our understanding of visibility and invisibility will be uncovered.