This work traces the emergence of a psychological idea of space from Pascal to Freud to the identification of agoraphobia and claustrophobia in the 19th- and 20th-century theories of spatial alienation/estrangement. It examines ways contemporary artists have produced new forms of spatial warping.

Focusing on current conditions of displacment and placelessness, he examines ways in which contemporary artists and architects have produced new forms of spatial warping. The discussion ranges from theorists such as Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze to artists such as Vito Acconci, Mike Kelley, Martha Rosler and Rachel Whiteread. Finally, Vidler looks at the architectural experiments of Frank Gehry, Coop Himmelblau, Daniel Libeskind, Greg Lynn, Morphosis, and Eric Owen Moss in the light of new digital techniques that, while relying on traditional perspective, have radically transformed the composition, production and experience - perhaps even the subject itself - of architecture.