Category Archives: Architecture

At Home With Jimmy Carter and Don DeLillo

I read White Noise recently and noticed by chance that Picador have bizarrely just published a 40th anniversary edition of Don DeLillo’s book, although it was first published in 1985. Perhaps it is the accumulated prescience of the book that … Continue reading

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Inspiration: Nigel Peake

I have been following the work of illustrator Nigel Peake since I published his student thesis in the Scottish architecture magazine Prospect just before he won a Silver Commendation in the RIBA President’s Medal in 2005.  Since then he has … Continue reading

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Price Was Right

Fantastic news that the Cedric Price Potteries Thinkbelt exhibition curated by Barnabas Calder and designed by Alan Pert of Nord has made it to London from the Lighthouse in Glasgow. This great exhibitions reinvigorates Price’s plans and drawings as a … Continue reading

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What Did the Constructivists Ever Do For Us?

With the exhibition Building the Revolution now closed in London,  it is worth reflecting on the way in which the achievements of the Constructivists have been revisited and reinvented. Indeed, I would argue that this process rather than any slavish … Continue reading

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Isi Metzstein 1928 – 2012

I didn’t know Isi Metzstein as well as those who worked with and studied under him nor, of course, his family. Two days after his death now, there will be individuals he worked alongside at the Glasgow School of Art … Continue reading

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Las Vegas: Where Architecture Goes to Die.

What is unique about the casinos and hotels of Las Vegas is not their gaudiness of that they have stories attached to them. No, the unique thing about them is the huge difference between the story that was planned for … Continue reading

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Taste And The Tower

I want to say something about the history of the relationship between towers and the Olympic Games, leading to a few comments on the outpourings of disgust around the ArcelorMittal Orbit. It is often forgotten that this began with the … Continue reading

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Interview: Michael Webb

Michael Webb was born in Henley-on-Thames in England. Along with his fellow members of the Archigram Group, Webb has contributed more than any other British architect to the wholesale revolution in architectural drawing that took place in the 1960s. Co-opting techniques and … Continue reading

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The Limits of Europe: Nuclear City

The Limits of Europe is a new series of special reports from the outer reaches of Europe. In these wastelands and the structures they contain: from space stations in the Arctic regions to modern ruins on the Mediterranean rim, we … Continue reading

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Postmodernism: It’s History

It is entirely possible to love the current exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion at the V&A and find in it a sign of why Post-Modernism is at a dead end.

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