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Over 60 years on from its inception, the celebrated Fun Palace civic project – developed in the 1960s by the radical theatre director Joan Littlewood and the architect Cedric Price – continues to capture the architectural imagination. Despite the building itself never being realized, much of the previous analysis of the Fun Palace has been devoted to Price and his(...)
Architecture, media, archives: The fun palace of Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price as a cultural project
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Over 60 years on from its inception, the celebrated Fun Palace civic project – developed in the 1960s by the radical theatre director Joan Littlewood and the architect Cedric Price – continues to capture the architectural imagination. Despite the building itself never being realized, much of the previous analysis of the Fun Palace has been devoted to Price and his drawings. The critical role that Littlewood played, however, remains largely unrecognized by architectural scholarship, and a whole area of the project's cultural agenda remains overlooked. ''Architecture, Media, Archives'' is the first serious study of the complex relations between Littlewood and Price, reframing the Fun Palace as an extended media project and positioning Littlewood more clearly as co-designer. Drawing on extensive archival material, the book considers how, due to a lack of institutional support, the aims of the Fun Palace – to transform the passive mass-audiences of post-war consumer society into active citizens, through forms of self-directed, pleasure-led and open exchange – were realized through different 'sites of information' throughout the 1960s. From broadsheets, pamphlets and journals to films and press news, the book addresses the conditions of production, circulation, storage and reception of these 'sites' and reveals how they not only recorded the transformation of the project, but also fundamentally enhanced and informed its meaning in specific ways.
Architectural Theory
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"Up in the air" tells the story of Britain’s multi-storey council housing from its beginnings to the present day. Throughout its history, high rise has been a symbol of the welfare state for better or worse. Here, Holly Smith tells a new story from the perspective of those who lived there, exploring how residents grappled with this brave new world above the old skyline.(...)
Up in the air: A history of high rise Britain
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"Up in the air" tells the story of Britain’s multi-storey council housing from its beginnings to the present day. Throughout its history, high rise has been a symbol of the welfare state for better or worse. Here, Holly Smith tells a new story from the perspective of those who lived there, exploring how residents grappled with this brave new world above the old skyline. Through a series of historical moments based upon prize-winning research, we confront the human story of high-rise Britain. Interrogating the complex inheritance of mid-century urban reconstruction, Smith shows how these buildings became a crucible for the welfare state’s reimagination over the decades.
Architectural Theory
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Has architectural criticism disappeared for good or has it adapted to the pressures, exigencies, and fashions of the present? Its demise may be due to fibrillation or asthenia, to excessive sharp judgment, condemnation, and critique, or, conversely, to a resigned acceptance of reality. But should the eclipse of criticism today be regarded as lamentable? Might not its lack(...)
Architectural Theory
June 2026
Future or eclipse of criticism
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Has architectural criticism disappeared for good or has it adapted to the pressures, exigencies, and fashions of the present? Its demise may be due to fibrillation or asthenia, to excessive sharp judgment, condemnation, and critique, or, conversely, to a resigned acceptance of reality. But should the eclipse of criticism today be regarded as lamentable? Might not its lack be hailed as a new phase of rigor and objectivity? The objective of both the lecture series "The future or the eclipse of criticism" presented at the MAXXI Museum in Rome, and the eponymous symposium which took place at the University of Pisa’s School of Engineering was to identify those figures, exhibitions, publication projects, and paradigmatic constructions that have either supported or directed particular critical approaches.
Architectural Theory
Distigmo: Trial and error 1
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DISTIGMO is an independent magazine and publisher that emerged through a method of trial and error—also the title and theme of its inaugural issue. Trial and Error focuses on early design stages, experiments, mistakes, and unexpected turns, aligning with the magazine's core purpose: to adopt an open and non-linear process in the development of its issues. Each issue(...)
Distigmo: Trial and error 1
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DISTIGMO is an independent magazine and publisher that emerged through a method of trial and error—also the title and theme of its inaugural issue. Trial and Error focuses on early design stages, experiments, mistakes, and unexpected turns, aligning with the magazine's core purpose: to adopt an open and non-linear process in the development of its issues. Each issue reinforces our central concept through a circular approach and the identity of the magazine is evolving with the publication of each issue. Therefore, contributors are essential to DISTIGMO's identity and voice. The articles, essays, sketches and photographs that compose each issue enrich and guide the magazine's direction and overall narrative.
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Comment, par l'architecture, enrichir la connaissance du monde social.Le point de départ de ce manuel est un questionnement : l’architecture constitue-t-elle un objet de sociologie? Son originalité réside dans une présentation synthétique des travaux existants sur l’architecture et les architectes qui fait le lien entre 3 dimensions : les mécanismes et acteurs de la(...)
Sociologie de l'architecture et des architectes
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Comment, par l'architecture, enrichir la connaissance du monde social.Le point de départ de ce manuel est un questionnement : l’architecture constitue-t-elle un objet de sociologie? Son originalité réside dans une présentation synthétique des travaux existants sur l’architecture et les architectes qui fait le lien entre 3 dimensions : les mécanismes et acteurs de la production architecturale et urbaine, les usagers et habitants, les bâtiments eux-mêmes comme production symbolique. Il s’adresse en priorité aux étudiants en architecture et en urbanisme mais intéressera également les sociologues et étudiants en sciences sociales qui travaillent sur la sociologie de la ville.
Architectural Theory
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The ''Tall Buildings: their problems and some ideas'' publication humbly deconstructs and reconstructs what a tall building can be. Its content is informed by a half-day symposium held in Melbourne in 2018 that investigated new and radical approaches to vertical city-building, co-curated by Molonglo, London-based 6a architects and Chilean art and architecture studio Pezo(...)
Architectural Theory
January 2020
U-P , Tall Buildings: their problems and some ideas
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The ''Tall Buildings: their problems and some ideas'' publication humbly deconstructs and reconstructs what a tall building can be. Its content is informed by a half-day symposium held in Melbourne in 2018 that investigated new and radical approaches to vertical city-building, co-curated by Molonglo, London-based 6a architects and Chilean art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen. The publication features interviews, essays and original photography by Melbourne design studio U-P.
Architectural Theory
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What should our buildings look like? Or is their usability more important than their appearance? Paul Guyer argues that the fundamental goals of architecture first identified by the Roman architect Marcus Pollio Vitruvius - good construction, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - have remained valid despite constant changes in human activities, building materials and(...)
A philosopher looks at architecture
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What should our buildings look like? Or is their usability more important than their appearance? Paul Guyer argues that the fundamental goals of architecture first identified by the Roman architect Marcus Pollio Vitruvius - good construction, functionality, and aesthetic appeal - have remained valid despite constant changes in human activities, building materials and technologies, as well as in artistic styles and cultures. Guyer discusses philosophers and architects throughout history, including Alberti, Kant, Ruskin, Wright, and Loos, and surveys the ways in which their ideas are brought to life in buildings across the world. He also considers the works and words of contemporary architects including Annabelle Selldorf, Herzog and de Meuron, and Steven Holl, and shows that - despite changing times and fashions - good architecture continues to be something worth striving for. This new series offers short and personal perspectives by expert thinkers on topics that we all encounter in our everyday lives.
Architectural Theory
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Many societies have imagined going to live in space. What they want to do once they get up there—whether conquering the unknown, establishing space ''colonies,'' privatising the moon’s resources—reveals more than expected. In this fascinating radical history of space exploration, Fred Scharmen shows that often science and fiction have combined in the imagined dreams of(...)
Space forces: a critical history of life in outer space
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Many societies have imagined going to live in space. What they want to do once they get up there—whether conquering the unknown, establishing space ''colonies,'' privatising the moon’s resources—reveals more than expected. In this fascinating radical history of space exploration, Fred Scharmen shows that often science and fiction have combined in the imagined dreams of life in outer space, but these visions have real implications for life back on earth. For the Russian Cosmists of the 1890s space was a place to pursue human perfection away from the Earth. For others, such as Wernher Von Braun, it was an engineering task that combined, in the Space Race, the Cold War, and during World War II, with destructive geopolitics. Arthur C. Clarke, in his speculative books, offered an alternative vision of wonder that is indifferent to human interaction. Meanwhile NASA planned and managed the space station like an earthbound corporation. Today, the market has arrived into outer space and exploration is the plaything of superrich technology billionaires, who plan to privatise the mineral wealth for themselves. Are other worlds really possible? Bringing these figures and ideas together reveals a completely different story of our relationship with outer space, as well as the dangers of our current direction of extractive capitalism and colonisation.
Architectural Theory
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Vast interior spaces have become ubiquitous in the contemporary city. The soaring atriums and concourses of mega-hotels, shopping malls and transport interchanges define an increasingly normal experience of being 'inside' in a city. Yet such spaces are also subject to intense criticism and claims that they can destroy the quality of a city's authentic life 'on the(...)
Interior urbanism: architecture, John Portman and downtown America
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Vast interior spaces have become ubiquitous in the contemporary city. The soaring atriums and concourses of mega-hotels, shopping malls and transport interchanges define an increasingly normal experience of being 'inside' in a city. Yet such spaces are also subject to intense criticism and claims that they can destroy the quality of a city's authentic life 'on the outside'. ''Interior Urbanism'' explores the roots of this contemporary tension between inside and outside, identifying and analysing the concept of interior urbanism and tracing its history back to the works of John Portman and Associates in 1960s and 70s America. Portman – increasingly recognised as an influential yet understudied figure – was responsible for projects such as Peachtree Center in Atlanta and the Los Angeles Bonaventure Hotel, developments that employed vast internal atriums to define a world of possibilities not just for hotels and commercial spaces, but for the future of the American downtown amid the upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. The book analyses Portman's architecture in order to reconsider major contexts of debate in architecture and urbanism in this period, including the massive expansion of a commercial imperative in architecture, shifts in the governance and development of cities amid social and economic instability, the rise of postmodernism and critical urban studies, and the defence of the street and public space amid the continual upheavals of urban development. In this way the book reconsiders the American city at a crucial time in its development, identifying lessons for how we consider the forces at work, and the spaces produced, in cities in the present.
Architectural Theory
Sandfuture
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'Sandfuture' is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasaki’s most famous projects — the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New York — were both destroyed on national(...)
Sandfuture
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'Sandfuture' is a book about the life of the architect Minoru Yamasaki (1912–1986), who remains on the margins of history despite the enormous influence of his work on American architecture and society. That Yamasaki’s most famous projects — the Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis and the original World Trade Center in New York — were both destroyed on national television, thirty years apart, makes his relative obscurity all the more remarkable. 'Sandfuture' is also a book about an artist interrogating art and architecture’s role in culture as New York changes drastically after a decade bracketed by terrorism and natural disaster. From the central thread of Yamasaki’s life, 'Sandfuture' spirals outward to include reflections on a wide range of subjects, from the figure of the architect in literature and film and transformations in the contemporary art market to the perils of sick buildings and the broader social and political implications of how, and for whom, cities are built.
Architectural Theory