Writer: Ellis Woodman

Designs on Democracy (2022) – Review

Designs on Democracy (2022) – Review

Ellis Woodman

‘This is not a book in which material has been selected on the basis of taste; quite the contrary. These are not buildings or personalities with which it has been easy to empathise, and I hope that this book is not read as a defence or an apology.’  With these words the… Read More

Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House

Stirling & Gowan: The Isle of Wight House

James Gowan, J. M. Richards, Laurent Stalder, James Stirling and Ellis Woodman

This first impetus for this article was provided by Laurent Stalder’s discussion of the sectional perspective drawing for the Isle of Wight house, reproduced here, which led us to J. M. Richards’ seminal essay, and then onward through the literature. In addition, we asked the Deutsches Architekturmuseum and the Canadian… Read More

Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)

Leicester Engineering building: Two Architects (1964)

Ellis Woodman

Filmed in 1964, Ron Parks’ documentary on the newly completed Engineering Department at Leicester catches James Stirling and James Gowan at a moment of professional triumph and personal crisis. Their building was being applauded the world-over – Parks’ film had been commissioned by the American Institute of Architects, to mark its… Read More

Animals

Animals

James Gowan and Ellis Woodman

excerpted from The Architecture of James Gowan: Modernity and Reinvention (2008)

James Gowan: Inside the sketchbook

James Gowan: Inside the sketchbook

Ellis Woodman

While typically, the architect employs the sketchbook as a raft by which to navigate the relentless flow of day-to-day practice, those that James Gowan assembled, across the course of his long professional life, served as a more elevated and leisurely mode of transport. Questions that he was addressing in the… Read More