Terms of Appropriation: Modern Architecture and Global Exchange brings together a selection of critical essays that address pressing and timely questions regarding architectural influence. Written by a group of rising scholars in the field of architectural history and criticism, the essays cover a range of architectural subjects but they are linked in their investigations of how architects engage with their predecessors, and in what ways we can productively begin to analyze the workings of influence. The book charts new territory within this still unexplored yet highly topical area of study; there has been no comprehensive collection of essays considering the theme of influence from diverse viewpoints and using wide-ranging historical periods and frameworks. The intent of the book is to establish a shared vocabulary with which to discuss, or contest, the workings of influence as a vital and progressive aspect of architectural discourse.

Amanda Reeser Lawrence received her doctorate in architectural history and theory from Harvard University, her MArch from Columbia University, and her BA (summa cum laude) from Princeton University, with a major in architectural history. She is assistant professor of architecture in the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, where she teaches courses on architectural history and theory. Lawrence is founding coeditor of the award-winning journal, PRAXIS. Lawrence's research focuses on a close reading of architectural form—contemporary and historical—with a particular interest in theorizing the role of influence. Her Graham Foundation-supported book James Stirling: Revisionary Modernist was published by Yale University Press in 2013. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, the Graduate Society at Harvard University, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Ana Miljački is associate professor of architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she teaches theory and design. She has previously taught at Columbia University, City College in New York, and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She holds a PhD in the history and theory of architecture from Harvard University, an MArch from Rice University, and a BA from Bennington College. Her research interests range from the role of architecture and architects in Cold War-era Eastern Europe through the theories of postmodernism in late socialism to politics of contemporary architectural production. Her recent publications include essays for Making Things Public, Handbook of Architectural Theory, Log, Perspecta, Centropa, and PRAXIS. She is currently finishing her book The Optimum Aesthetic: Czech Architecture for the Socialist Lifestyle, 1945–1968, and working on a critical assessment of the intersection of late socialism with postmodernism in architecture of Eastern Europe.