This essay responds to the primary preoccupation of contemporary architectural theory that the concept of “the other” and “otherness” is “automatically an improvement over the status quo.” Through an analysis of the two primary categories of its proponents: the “deconstructivists” and “the adherents of Michel Foucault's notion of heterotopia,” McLeod raises a series of questions concerning “theory's political and cultural role that have been largely unexplored in recent architectural debate: To what extent is this preoccupation with ‘otherness’ a product of critics’ and practitioners’ own identity and status? Does it elucidate or support groups considered socially marginal or ‘other’? Are there positions in architecture outside these two tendencies that address concerns of ‘otherness’ relevant to ‘ordinary’ people-those for whom the avant-garde has little significance?” The extended version of this essay first appeared in Architecture and Feminism (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) and was later published in Gender Space Architecture (Routledge, 2000)