Category: reviews
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (2021) – Review
10 February 2022
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing (2021) – Review10 February 2022
I’ll confess, I ordered a copy of this book reluctantly. I had received one of those ‘We think you might be interested…’ notices, but my bookshelves are overburdened, and already include a number of books on Kahn, among them one of Michael Merrill’s previous collaborations with Lars Müller, Louis Kahn:… Read More
The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘miniature boom’ of mid-century modernism (2021) – Review
25 January 2022
The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘miniature boom’ of mid-century modernism (2021) – Review25 January 2022
The historian and curator Teresa Fankhänel’s latest book and first monograph, The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘Miniature Boom’ of Mid-Century Modernism, takes a slightly different tack to the recent spell of research about models that has appeared on the shelves of historians and architects alike. For one, Fankhänel… Read More
David K. Ross: Archetypes (2021) – Review and Excerpt
11 January 2022
David K. Ross: Archetypes (2021) – Review and Excerpt11 January 2022
‘Artists don’t make objects. Artists make mythologies.’– Anish Kapoor, 2020 Flip over the dark grey endpaper to encounter a black, black void in the centre of the page, like a rabbit hole or a Kapoor construction. Its frame in the image is the pale curved shell of a concrete cylinder… Read More
El Croquis 208: DOGMA familiar/unfamiliar 2002–2021 (2021): Review
29 November 2021
El Croquis 208: DOGMA familiar/unfamiliar 2002–2021 (2021): Review29 November 2021
As one of the most prominent architecture publications in the world, El Croquis has long been a prestige showcase for the upper echelon of architectural practices. Its publication format, with each issue typically devoted to a specific practice, lends El Croquis more the air of an exclusive monograph series than… Read More
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts
15 November 2021
Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life (2021): Review and Excerpts15 November 2021
The new monograph Sigurd Lewerentz: Architect of Death and Life has arrived, published by ArkDes and Park Books to accompany the exhibition that opened in Stockholm in October 2021 curated by ArkDes director Kieran Long with scenography by Caruso St John Architects (open until August 2022). As an excellent preparation… Read More
Hélène Binet: The Intimacy of Making, Three Historical Sites in Korea (2021): Review
25 October 2021
Hélène Binet: The Intimacy of Making, Three Historical Sites in Korea (2021): Review25 October 2021
What is a myth, today? I shall give at the outset a first, very simple answer, which is perfectly consistent with etymology: myth is a type of speech.– Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1957 This seemingly simple book is a thought-provoking collection of things. There is a lot of room for implication… Read More
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review
18 October 2021
The Hidden Horizontal. Cornices in Art and Architecture: Exhibition Review18 October 2021
Architecture is never an easy topic for exhibitions, because the level of knowledge and pre-existing interest of the public is difficult to gauge. A show devoted specifically to a single architectural detail, seen across a historic panorama, is even more challenging. But this is the ambition of ‘The Hidden Horizontal:… Read More
Christoph Schlingensiefs Operndorf Afrika (2020): Review
27 September 2021
Christoph Schlingensiefs Operndorf Afrika (2020): Review27 September 2021
The Opera Village is a complex located thirty kilometres from the capital of Burkina Faso that was initiated by the late German film, theatre, and opera director, author, and action artist, Christoph Schlingensief and envisioned as a site centring African artists and enabling cross-cultural creative exchange. The ever-expanding project combines… Read More
Notations (2016): Review & Excerpt
2 September 2021
Notations (2016): Review & Excerpt2 September 2021
Notations is a collection of pamphlets in a box. Curating the content in this manner has allowed the editors to present the publication as a physical representation of their thesis that the notebook is a device for the cultivation of individual worlds. The plurality is important. The pamphlets are collected… Read More
Piranesi Unbound (2020): Review
19 August 2021
Piranesi Unbound (2020): Review19 August 2021
There is much to admire in this sequel to Heather Hyde Minor’s Piranesi’s Lost Words (Penn State, 2015), which sets out to ‘explore new territory by reimagining his artistic production in terms of his books’. Whereas Lost Words drew attention to Piranesi as an author who combined texts and images… Read More
Besides, History (2018): Book Review
9 August 2021
Besides, History (2018): Book Review9 August 2021
It has a lot to do with misinterpretation. There is no real truth in history. Everything you see belongs to the past and you interpret it in your own way. Its related to visiting buildings, but also to an abstraction in how you re-represent architecture, appropriating it in your own… Read More
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review
7 July 2021
Luc Deleu & T.O.P. OFFICE: Future Plans, 1970–2020 (2021) – Review7 July 2021
Future Plans is one of those titles with double and ambiguous meanings. Not exactly as twofold as the most famous ‘The Architecture of the City’ but maybe leaving us equally free to choose. Is the term ‘future’ to be considered as an adjective or a subject? Does this book thus… Read More