Andr's Jaque is a polymath. He spent two years investigating the banal contents of the basement of Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion for an exhibition and book. In other exhibitions, he has debunked the domestic ideal peddled by IKEA, and critiqued the ethical underpinnings of the fairy tale 'Hansel and Gretel.' But whether moonlighting as an activist, artist, or urban anthropologist, Jaque makes one thing clear: 'I am an architect. I run an architecture firm.'

Jaque and his firm, Office for Political Innovation, are part of a generation of architects redefining the discipline as a practice linked to politics, embedded in a complex system of social networks, and blurring the boundaries across various fields. 'We live in a time where interdisciplinarity is the rule, not the exception,' the Madrid- and New York'based architect says. 'Architecture now is not about forcing everyone to accept what you are doing, but about creating a space for conversation.'