What is a singular object? An idea, a building, a color, a sentiment, a human being. Each in turn comes under scrutiny in this exhilarating dialogue between two of the most interesting thinkers working in philosophy and architecture today. From such singular objects, Jean Baudrillard and Jean Nouvel move on to fundamental problems of politics, identity, and aesthetics as their exchange becomes an imaginative exploration of the possibilities of modern architecture and the future of modern life.Among the topics the two speakers take up are the city of tomorrow and the ideal of transparency, the gentrification of New York City and Frank Gehry's surprising Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. As Nouvel prompts Baudrillard to reflect on some of his signature concepts (the virtual, transparency, fatal strategies, oblivion, and seduction, among others), the confrontation between such philosophical concerns and the specificity of architecture gives rise to novel and striking formulations -- and a new way of establishing and understanding the connections between the practitioner and the philosopher, the object and the idea.This wide-ranging conversation builds a bridge between the fields of architecture and philosophy. At the same time it offers readers an intimate view of the meeting of objects and ideas in which the imagined, constructed, and inhabited environment is endlessly changing, forever evolving.

作者簡介：

讓·鮑德裏亞，哲學傢、作傢，曾在多所國外大學任教。同時，他創作齣眾多攝影作品。他寫作瞭許多論著，特彆是《論誘惑》（伽利馬，1988）、《惡的透明度》（伽利馬，1990）、《不可能的交易》（伽利馬，1999）。

讓·努維爾，國際知名建築師，曾設計建築阿拉伯世界文化中心和卡地亞當代藝術基金會。他的設計被巴黎國傢凱布朗利博物館采用。

譯者簡介：

周莽，1971年生，北京大學法語係副教授，研究法國中世紀文學和法語史，從事法語社科人文翻譯，譯有勒高夫《試談另一個中世紀》、托多羅夫《不完美的花園》等。