The architecture of burglary is increasingly virtual

2016-03-31T18:29:00-04:00

Buildings and burglars are intertwined in the mind of Mr. Manaugh, whose nonfiction book arrives Tuesday from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fascinated by bandits who smash through walls, crawl up air ducts and tunnel through floors, the author wanted to explore their singular approach to architecture as a force to be abused, outsmarted and escaped.

In an era of cybercrime, do burglars miss the architectural beauty of the traditional brick and mortar break-in? Well, yeah, according to author Geoff Manaugh. In an era where break-ins are more about clearing digital walls and hacking into people's identities than using diamond-tipped drills to penetrate hidden vaults, the bad old-fashioned vocation of physical burglary is the latest casualty of digital disruption. Ironically, many of the contemporary light-fingered must now worry about carpal-tunnel syndrome.

For more on the intersection of crime and architecture:

What can ‘forensic architecture’ reveal about the conflict in Gaza?

2014-09-02T13:25:00-04:00

Weizman has also made a name for himself as the chief proponent of “forensic architecture”, by which he analyses the impacts of urban warfare for clues about the crimes that were perpetrated there. To Weizman, buildings are weapons. When he looks out across the landscape of the occupied Palestinian West Bank [...] he sees a battlefield. “The weapons and ammunitions are very simple elements: they are trees, they are terraces, they are houses. They are barriers.”

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The architecture of burglary is increasingly virtual

What can ‘forensic architecture’ reveal about the conflict in Gaza?