Category: reviews
Alberto Cruz: Observation, Act, Form – Review
2 December 2022
Alberto Cruz: Observation, Act, Form – Review2 December 2022
Alberto Cruz (1917–2013) was an architect and theorist who devoted most of his professional life to education. In 1952, he played an important role in revitalising the School of Architecture at the Universidad Catolica de Valparíso, Chile, founding the Instituto de Arquitectura de Valparaíso with eight of his colleagues, including… Read More
The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models (2021) – Review
24 November 2022
The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models (2021) – Review24 November 2022
A book like The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models cannot be read with speed. Each chapter is finite, and although linked by others into sections, each forms a stand-alone reading event. It also cannot be seen as a book about architectural drawing. The photographic reproduction is poor, often… Read More
The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (2022) – Review
10 November 2022
The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonization in South Asia, 1947-1985 (2022) – Review10 November 2022
“The history of modern architecture is the history of its exhibitions,” states the introduction of the anthology ‘Exhibiting Architecture’, [1] and it is hard to deny the central role of exhibitions in the writing of the canonic and the public history of architecture. Yet the exclusionary nature of the history… Read More
Sweet Disorder and the Carefully Careless: Ideas, Faces and Places (2022) – review
31 October 2022
Sweet Disorder and the Carefully Careless: Ideas, Faces and Places (2022) – review31 October 2022
– Eric Parry and Robin Webster
Reviews by Robin Webster and Eric Parry, and notes from Celia Scott. The opening of the exhibition and symposium about the architect Robert (Bob) Maxwell and the sculptor Celia Scott was held in the elegant home of the Irish Architectural Archive, at 45 Merrion Square in Dublin. The focus of… Read More
Vilanova Artigas: Drawing Models – Review
20 October 2022
Vilanova Artigas: Drawing Models – Review20 October 2022
The basement exhibition space at F’AR Lausanne is dominated by a forest of delicate metal and glass tilting tables within which drawings have been placed. When rotated from the horizontal, they give the large, artificially lit room the feeling of a drawing studio at the end of the day; the… Read More
Kay Fisker: Danish Functionalism and Block-based Housing (2022) – Review
29 September 2022
Kay Fisker: Danish Functionalism and Block-based Housing (2022) – Review29 September 2022
This is a useful book. It is also a book that might be thought of as a vehicle or encouragement towards another book, a foundation for future work, either by the editors, or other architects, architectural historians, or even sociologists. It arose from the fascination of two Irish architects, Andrew… Read More
On Bramante (2022) – Review
22 August 2022
On Bramante (2022) – Review22 August 2022
– Oliver Lütjens and Thomas Padmanabhan
Thomas Padmanabhan: We are very happy to have this book, On Bramante, in front of us. It was written by a friend of ours, Pier Paolo Tamburelli, who is a writer, a teacher and also a practising architect and founding partner of baukuh in Milan. For a while, even before encountering… Read More
Time’s Witness. History in the Age of Romanticism (2021) – Review
25 July 2022
Time’s Witness. History in the Age of Romanticism (2021) – Review25 July 2022
Anxious Objects At some point in the annals of Western scholarship it was judged that the past could be restituted not only from textual sources but also from objects, that the material of history was equally important as its written archive. This major shift in historical approach was largely brought… Read More
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review
18 July 2022
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review18 July 2022
The exhibition of Freddie Phillipson’s drawings reconstructing the Dublin of James Joyce’s Ulysses opened on Bloomsday, helping to celebrate the centenary of the publication of the novel. The exhibition is essential viewing for anyone interested in how the European city and its architecture support a culture, and for anyone interested… Read More
Hexenhaus (2021) – Review
27 June 2022
Hexenhaus (2021) – Review27 June 2022
‘THE FOREST THAT BUILT THE HOUSE’ There are two drawings for me that are significant in understanding the work of the Smithsons. Both are of Upper Lawn [1]. One is a drawing made by Peter Smithson of their Solar Pavilion in elevation, the other by Alison Smithson in plan. The… Read More
Growing up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes (2021) – Review
13 June 2022
Growing up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes (2021) – Review13 June 2022
What do our birthplaces do to us? Should those homes be considered modernist jewels, the pride of their architects and, sometimes, of their patrons, how would that particular experience be imprinted on their children? Growing up Modern is a highly personal book in which the authors, Julia Jamrozik and Coryn… Read More
Missing Link: Strategies of a Viennese Architecture Group (1970-1980) – Review
10 October 2022
Missing Link: Strategies of a Viennese Architecture Group (1970-1980) – Review10 October 2022
– Erik Wegerhoff
There is a strange moment in the second room of the exhibition, where all kinds of great works are hung on the walls to admire, organised around a central display of plastic and aluminium furniture: a collage of a car hovering like the golden calf amidst a crazed crowd; a… Read More