Architecture depends—on what? On people, time, politics, ethics, mess: the real world. Architecture, author Jeremy Till argues with conviction in this engaging, sometimes pugnacious book, cannot help itself; it is dependent for its very existence on things outside itself.

Despite the claims of autonomy, purity, and control that architects like to make about their practice, architecture is buffeted by uncertainty and contingency. Circumstances invariably intervene to upset the architect’s best-laid plans at every stage in the process, from design through construction to occupancy.

Architects, however, tend to deny this, fearing contingency and preferring to pursue perfection. With Architecture Depends, architect and critic Jeremy Till offers a proposal for rescuing architects from themselves: a way to bridge the gap between what architecture actually is and what architects want it to be.

Architecture Depends by Jeremy Till.  MIT Press, March, 2009. On sale now at Urban Center Books, the architecture bookstore of the Municipal Art Society.