Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire

Join us for a talk by Aaron Cayer, author of the new book Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire (University of California Press, 2025), followed by a conversation between Cayer and Jacob Reidel, co-chair of the AIANY Future of Practice Committee. Together, they will critically examine the rise of large architecture corporations, their influence on well-being, and their implications for the future of practice.

About the Book:
By the end of the twentieth century, US architecture and engineering firms held more capital than entire countries, employed more people than were housed in most cities, and rented offices in more nations than comprised the UN. Within them, architects were designing not single buildings but urban systems, including the multinational infrastructures, legal codes, and financial mechanisms on which those systems came to depend. However, despite the extraordinary power of these architects, their histories remain shrouded in myth and concealed—by design.

This forensic analysis traces a history of architects at one such firm, AECOM, as they assembled their own multinational corporation and embedded themselves in the operations of American empire after World War II, shielding themselves from the instabilities of a postwar political economy. Incorporating Architects reveals how architects, through their businesses more than their drawings or buildings, modulated the political economy, gripped the reins of their profession, and produced the global injustices that define our neoliberal present.

Speakers:
Aaron Cayer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Cal Poly Pomona
Jacob Reidel, AIA, Co-Chair, AIANY Future of Practice Committee

About the Speakers:
Aaron Cayer is a historian, writer, and professor of architecture. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona. Prior to Cal Poly, he was an Assistant Professor of Architecture History at the University of New Mexico (2018-2023). His research has been recognized and supported by international awards and fellowships, including a 2025 Carnegie Fellowship, a 2024 Rome Prize, and a 2021 Thom Fellowship from the Huntington Library. Cayer is trained as both a historian and architect: he received his PhD in Architecture History from UCLA as well as undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Norwich University in Vermont.

Jacob Reidel examines and advances the purpose, value, and potential of architectural practice. His work—spanning practice, research, publication, and teaching—is grounded in the conviction that while architecture and the people who create physical spaces have existed for millennia, the practice and the profession of architecture are comparatively new and unstable frameworks, subject to reconsideration and redesign. A licensed architect in New York, he co-chairs the AIA New York Future of Practice Committee and is co-founder and editor of CLOG. From 2019 to 2025, he served as Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture at the Harvard GSD, where he guest-edited “Harvard Design Magazine 52: Instruments of Service” an issue that investigates the hidden mechanics and visible outputs of design practice to trace the shifting role of designers in society and assess their capacity to effect change amid mounting global crises.