In this work Deborah Hauptmann deals with the relationships between mind, body, architecture and the city. Major authors ranging from Henri Bergson and Walter Benjamin to Henri Lefebvre and Gilles Deleuze are discussed in order to open up thinking on the roles of perception and the cognitive sciences in today’s society. Various themes are explored. Matter and mind are considered as kinds of multiplicities that affect our distinctions between subject and object. A theoretical framework is carefully constructed and argued in detail, allowing us to grapple with the existing problems of a rapidly changing field of disciplinary actions. The author looks at how vitalism has been applied to space, offers a view of the city through the question of who is allowed to claim right to the city and addresses the idea of the virtual and emergent. She examines the problem of experience by posing questions pertaining to both voluntary and involuntary memory. She concludes by making concepts surrounding biopolitics and noopolitics explicit and investigates their past discourses, demonstrating that they are still pertinent to both the field of architecture and philosophy. This study should be regarded as an original contribution to the discipline of architecture in its broadest sense.Deborah Hauptmann is professor and chair of Architecture, Iowa State University.