This article identifies conditions for architecture as political agency. It discusses how the spatial organisation of architecture can be strongly influenced by a broader social context. Conversely, it also discusses how architecture affects the social behaviour of its users and exerts political meanings. The theoretical proposition of this article is based on Walter Benjamin’s identification of a strong interaction between spatial organisation and social context. In this light, Benjamin analysed pervasive architecture, such as the bourgeois interior, and publicly accessible buildings that welcome large crowds. He argued that this interaction is especially visible in the intertwining of interior and exterior, public and private, individual and collective spaces. Jean-Louis Déotte later analysed Benjamin’s examples of architecture as ‘apparatuses’ that significantly affect social life via their spatial characteristics, and thus acquiring political agency. Building on Déotte’s philosophy, this article examines further conditions under which ‘architectures as apparatuses’ both reveal and affect social life in a way that echoes Benjamin’s earlier descriptions. I start by interrogating conventions of ‘envelopes’ and ‘perspective’ in the spatial organisation of architecture to propose both a new methodology of analysis and radical redefinitions. I then apply this new methodology to analyse Benjaminian examples from the past, such as the city of Naples, Andrea Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico, and the iconic example of the Parisian arcades. This analysis demonstrates key characteristics of ‘architectures as apparatuses’ and interrelations between (individual, or groups of) users that are orchestrated by the case studies’ spatial organisation. Finally, I revisit the widely discussed Yokohama Ferry Terminal project by Foreign Office Architects (FOA) to present it as a contemporary example of ‘architecture as apparatus’.

中文翻译：

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Walter Benjamin 的信封和透视拓扑

本文确定了建筑作为政治机构的条件。它讨论了建筑的空间组织如何受到更广泛的社会背景的强烈影响。相反，它还讨论了建筑如何影响其用户的社会行为并发挥政治意义。本文的理论命题基于 Walter Benjamin 对空间组织与社会语境之间强相互作用的认定。有鉴于此，本杰明分析了无处不在的建筑，例如资产阶级的室内设计，以及欢迎大量人群的公共建筑。他认为，这种互动在内部和外部、公共和私人空间、个人和集体空间的交织中尤为明显。让-路易斯·德奥特 (Jean-Louis Déotte) 后来分析了本雅明 (Benjamin) 将建筑作为“装置”的例子，它们通过空间特征显着影响社会生活，从而获得政治能动性。本文以德奥特的哲学为基础，进一步考察了“作为装置的建筑”以一种与本雅明早期描述相呼应的方式揭示和影响社会生活的条件。我首先询问建筑空间组织中“信封”和“透视”的惯例，以提出一种新的分析方法和彻底的重新定义。然后，我应用这种新方法来分析过去的本杰明例子，例如那不勒斯市、安德烈帕拉迪奥的奥林匹克剧院和巴黎拱廊的标志性例子。该分析展示了“作为装置的建筑”的关键特征以及由案例研究的空间组织精心编排的（个人或群体）用户之间的相互关系。最后，我重新审视了由外国办公室建筑师 (FOA) 广泛讨论的横滨渡轮码头项目，将其呈现为“建筑即装置”的当代例子。