The last twenty years have seen fascinating developments in the nature of collaboration between artists and architects and in the approaches taken by artists making work intended for public spaces. These sophisticated projects go far beyond the standard 'art for architecture' remit, limited as it is to the addition of 'artworks' to already designed buildings, the work described here invites us to rethink the reputation that public art has acquired over the years amongst both the public and the artists themselves. Timely and wide-ranging, "Art and Architecture" explores the proliferation of recent pioneering work by both artists and architects that seeks to blur traditional boundaries between the two fields. Looking back to precedents in land and community art by artists from Robert Smithson and Walter de Maria to Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Joseph Beuys, Rendell discusses international projects by artists including Tacita Dean, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Paul Pfeiffer and Rachel Whiteread and architects as varied as Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Diller + Scofidio and Shigeru Ban.
She visits 'site-specific' artworks, interventions into existing buildings, galleries operating outside their physical limits and the best of collaborations between the fields. More than a survey, however, "Art and Architecture" also draws on the work of thinkers from Walter Benjamin to Michel de Certeau to probe the meanings of place, space and site.

Jane Rendell is Reader in Architecture and Art and Director of Architectural Research at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University Collage London. She is the author of 'The Pursuit of Pleasure: Gender, Space and Architecture in Regency London' (Athlone Press, 2002) and co-editor of 'Strangely Familiar: Narratives of Architecture and the City' (Routledge, 1995), 'Gender Space Architecture: An Interdisciplinary Introduction' (Routledge, 1999), 'Intersections: Architectural Histories and Critical Theories' (Routledge, 2000) and 'The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space' (MIT Press, 2000).