Forty Ways to Think About Architecture: Architectural History and Theory Today

How do we think about architecture historically and theoretically? Forty Ways to Think about Architecture provides an introduction to some of the wide-ranging ways in which architectural history and theory are being approached today. The inspiration for this project is the work of Adrian Forty, Professor of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London (UCL), who has been internationally renowned as the UK’s leading academic in the discipline for 40 years. Forty’s many publications, notably Objects of Desire (1986), Words and Buildings (2000) and Concrete and Culture (2012), have been crucial to opening up new approaches to architectural history and theory and have helped to establish entirely new areas of study. His teaching at The Bartlett has enthused a new generation about the exciting possibilities of architectural history and theory as a field. This collection takes in a total of 40 essays covering key subjects, ranging from memory and heritage to everyday life, building materials and city spaces. As well as critical theory, philosophy, literature and experimental design, it refers to more immediate and topical issues in the built environment, such as globalisation, localism, regeneration and ecologies. Concise and engaging entries reflect on architecture from a range of perspectives. Contributors include eminent historians and theorists from elsewhere – such as Jean-Louis Cohen, Briony Fer, Hilde Heynen, Mary McLeod, Griselda Pollock, Penny Sparke and Anthony Vidler – as well as Forty’s colleagues from the Bartlett School of Architecture including Iain Borden, Murray Fraser, Peter Hall, Barbara Penner, Jane Rendell and Andrew Saint. Forty Ways to Think about Architecture also features contributions from distinguished architects, such as Tony Fretton, Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth, and well-known critics and architectural writers, such as Tom Dyckhoff, William Menking and Thomas Weaver. Many of the contributors are former students of Adrian Forty. Through these diverse essays, readers are encouraged to think about how architectural history and theory relates to their own research and design practices, thus using the work of Adrian Forty as a catalyst for fresh and innovative thinking about architecture as a subject.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 8 Adrian Forty, Future Imperfect: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, delivered at UCL in December 2000 17 1 How To Write About Buildings? 33 Andrew Saint 2 Pevsner vs Colomina: Word and Image on the Page 36 Anne Hultzsch 3 Smooth and Rough: Tactile Brutalism 43 Anthony Vidler 4 Homely Affinities 48 Barbara Penner 5 On Regeneration 54 Ben Campkin 6 Fresh Reactions to St Paul’s Cathedral 60 Brian Stater 7 Photographs and Buildings (mainly) 65 Briony Fer 8 Stirling’s Voice: A Detailed Suggestion 72 David Dunster 9 Carte Blanche? 77 Davide Deriu 10 Buildings: A Reader’s Guide 83 Eleanor Young 11 The City and the Event: Disturbing, Forgetting and Escaping Memory 89 Griselda Pollock 12 The Most Modern Material Of Them All … 95 Hilde Heynen 13 ‘Things that People Cannot Anticipate’: Skateboarding at the Southbank Centre 100 Iain Borden 14 ‘Truth, Love, Life’: Building with Language in Prague Castle under Masaryk 106 Irena Žantovská Murray 15 Le Corbusier: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics 112 Jan Birksted 16 During Breakfast 119 Jane Rendell 17 [American] Objects of [Soviet] Desire 127 Jean-Louis Cohen 18 Words and Buildings 134 Jeremy Melvin 19 Slow Hard Look 140 Jeremy Till 20 Topography, Biography and Architecture 144 Joe Kerr 21 Of Character and Concrete: The Historian’s Material 150 John Macarthur 22 Spectres of Marx in City X 155 Jonathan Charley 23 History by Design 163 Jonathan Hill 24 Angel Place: A Way in to Dickens’s London 168 Kester Rattenbury 25 On ‘Sachlichkeit’: Some Additional Remarks on an Anglo-German Encounter 174 Laurent Stalder 26 Double Vision 180 Mark Swenarton 27 Modernism 185 Mary Mcleod 28 Yes, And We Have No Dentists 193 Michael Edwards 29 Reyner Banham’s Hat 197 Murray Fraser 30 Situated Architectural Historical Ecologies 204 Peg Rawes 31 Objects 210 Penny Sparke 32 Richard Llewelyn Davies, 1912–1981: A Lost Vision for The Bartlett 214 Sir Peter Hall 33 Things Ungrand 220 Sarah Wigglesworth 34 ‘Minor’ Spaces in Officers’ Bungalows of Colonial Bengal 224 Tania Sengupta 35 Memoirs of Adrian 235 Thomas Weaver 36 All That Glitters 239 Tom Dyckhoff 37 A Response to Words and Buildings 243 Tony Fretton 38 Material Culture: ‘Manchester of the East’, Le Corbusier, Eames and Indian Jeans 249 Victoria Perry 39 Mr Mumford’s Neighbourhood 254 William Menking 40 Banyan Tree and Migrant Cities: Some Provisional Thoughts for a Strategic Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism 259 Yat Ming Loo Author Biographies 266 Index 275 Photo credits 280

About the Author :
Iain Borden is Professor of Architecture and Urban Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he is also Director of Architectural History & Theory and the Vice-Dean of Communications for the wider Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he acts as the Vice-Dean of Research for the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Barbara Penner is Senior Lecturer in Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is Programme Director for both the PhD Architectural History & Theory and BSc Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies.