War and Architecture

Lebbeus Woods’ study War and Architecture was developed at the height of the nearly four-year siege of Sarajevo. Major transport routes were blocked, water and electricity supplies cut off, and hundreds of shells struck the city each day. Around 65 percent of Sarajevo’s building stock was damaged or destroyed. For Woods, however, war is not architecture’s exceptional condition but a force that profoundly shapes built space. His often-quoted statement, “Architecture is war. War is architecture,” captures the mutual entanglement of the built environment and violence.