Today, there are architecture and engineering firms that hold more capital than entire countries, employ more people than live in many cities, and rent offices in more nations than are represented in the UN. Within them, architects design not just buildings but urban systems—including the infrastructures, legal codes, and financial mechanisms on which those systems depend. This lecture and conversation draws from Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire, Cayer’s new book about the rise of corporate architecture firms in the US. It traces the origins of one such firm, today known as AECOM, revealing how and why architects used the political and economic power of their firm to grip the reins of their profession, expand their role, and shape global politics.

Aaron Cayer is a Los Angeles-based historian, writer, and professor of architecture. He writes and teaches about the work of architects, planners, and engineers, focusing on the ways they contribute and respond to global inequities. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Cal Poly Pomona.

Cayer’s research has been recognized and supported by international awards and fellowships, including a 2025 Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation, a 2024 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and a 2021 Thom Fellowship from the Huntington Library. He was awarded the inaugural Kristine Fallon Prize by the International Archive of Women in Architecture in 2022, and he was named to the Architecture League of New York’s “American Roundtable” in 2020 for research about rural economies and communities.

His recent book, Incorporating Architects: How American Architecture Became a Practice of Empire (UC Press, 2025) traces the rise of US-based architecture and engineering corporations, such as AECOM, as well as their impact on professions and politics after World War II.

Cayer is trained both as a historian and architect: he received his PhD in Architecture History from UCLA as well as undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Norwich University in Vermont.

Outside of the academy, he serves on the Board of Directors of The Architecture Lobby and the Advisory Board of the International Archive of Women in Architecture.