Category: reviews
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
Walter Segal, Self-Built Architect (2021) – Review
26 May 2022
Walter Segal, Self-Built Architect (2021) – Review26 May 2022
Given that architect Walter Segal was a Jewish immigrant, born in Berlin to Romanian parents, and a bit of a nomad, it seems unlikely that his best-known work would be confined entirely within London’s boroughs. Resident in the UK for perhaps longer than he had intended, it is in some… Read More
CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the Archive (2020) – Review
7 May 2022
CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the Archive (2020) – Review7 May 2022
The Gordon Matta-Clark archive arrived at the CCA in Montreal 20 years ago. Shortly thereafter, it was used as part of an ‘archival exercise’: Out of the Box: Price, Rossi, Stirling + Matta Clark (23 October 2003–6 September 2004). That first ‘Out of the Box’ prefigures the one undertaken for this publication,… Read More
Do You Remember How Perfect Everything Was? The Work of Zoe Zenghelis (2021) – Review
26 April 2022
Do You Remember How Perfect Everything Was? The Work of Zoe Zenghelis (2021) – Review26 April 2022
During the spring and summer of 2021, a two-part exhibition of the work of Zoe Zenghelis was shown in London. The first show was an enjoyably intimate immersion at Betts Project in Clerkenwell. The second, a more extensive review at the Architectural Association. Later that year a thick, crisply designed… Read More
The Being of Drawing (2021) – Review
4 April 2022
The Being of Drawing (2021) – Review4 April 2022
Joe Graham’s The Being of Drawing is the most recent book published by Marmalade Publishers of Visual Theory, the small press founded by the architect Gordon Shrigley in 2004. Marmalade’s catalogue of published titles challenges expectations of what a publishing house might be; to date, it has produced 12 books,… Read More
Inessential Colors: Architecture on Paper in Early Modern Europe (2021) – Review
17 March 2022
Inessential Colors: Architecture on Paper in Early Modern Europe (2021) – Review17 March 2022
From the frescoes of Pompeii to the Great Hall of Siedlecin, from the Book of Kells to the Book of Hours, architecture has been depicted in full colour. Where colour has been largely absent in the history of architectural representation, however, is in the more technical drawings of architects themselves.… Read More
Tom de Paor: ‘i see Earth’, Building and Ground 1991–2021 – Review
4 March 2022
Tom de Paor: ‘i see Earth’, Building and Ground 1991–2021 – Review4 March 2022
On the morning of 12 April 1961, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into orbit, strapped into a spherical capsule fixed to the top of a modified intercontinental ballistic missile. The first to see our planet in its totality, his words were simple: ‘I see Earth. It is so beautiful.’… Read More
Painting in Stone (2020) – Review
1 March 2022
Painting in Stone (2020) – Review1 March 2022
‘Matter endures, form is lost.’ —Pierre de Ronsard [1] Fabio Barry’s recent book, Painting in Stone: Architecture and the Poetics of Marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, opens with an unlikely frontispiece. Rather than a photograph of a historical case, as suggested by the title, Barry presents a contemporary artwork… Read More
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
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review
18 July 2022
Freddie Phillipson ‘The Ulysses Project’ – Review18 July 2022
– Peter Carl
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
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