On Episode 132 of A is for Architecture I spoke with architect and architectural historian John Stewart, to discuss the intersections of art, architecture and society through his recent book, British Architectural Sculpture: 1851–1951, published by Lund Humphries earlier this year.   British Architectural Sculpture: 1851-1951 explores a century of architectural sculpture in the UK, highlighting its role in shaping the visual and cultural identity of British architecture, and providing insights into the aesthetic and functional dialogue between sculpture and architecture. It examines key figures, styles, and the integration of sculptural art into public and private buildings during this transformative era. The book focuses on the collaboration between architects and sculptors, emphasizing how these partnerships influenced architectural innovation and inflected design styles, from the Gothic Revival, Art Deco and interwar and postwar modernism. The book describes how sculptures enriched facades, interiors, and urban spaces, whilst examining the broader social, economic, and artistic contexts that framed the evolution of this unique art form. A lush book, and a podcast episode to match.  John can be found on his personal website and on LinkedIn. The book is linked above. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

For Episode 131 of A is for Architecture I was joined by Professor Sue Brownill, an expert in urban planning and the development of London Docklands to discuss her advocacy, research and writing. As the author of Developing London’s Docklands: Another Great Planning Disaster? (1990, SAGE Publications), Sue delves into the complex history of the Docklands' transformation and the socio-economic consequences of one of the UK’s most ambitious urban regeneration projects. Professor Brownill provides insightful analysis on the political and economic factors that shaped the area, challenges faced during the regeneration process, and the long-term impact on local communities. She describes how the Docklands evolved from a derelict industrial site into a global financial hub, the triumphs - and failures - of urban regeneration, the role of planning in shaping cities, and the legacy of the London Docklands Development Corporation. Did the LDDC’s rhetoric survive reality? And were the promises made in Docklands’ planning ever met?  A great episode with a fantastic scholar.  Listen and learn, no doubt. Sue can be found on the OB website above, and is on LinkedIn too. Her book is linked above. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

On Episode 130 of A is for Architecture, Tom Morton, architect and principal of Arc Architects, an architecture practice based in Fife, Scotland, discusses his and Becky Little’s innovative Earthbound Orkney project, a creative practice which seeks to redefine our connection to the natural world through art, design and community engagement in Orkney. In this episode, Tom shares his vision for Earthbound Orkney, which aims to highlight the rich cultural heritage and stunning landscapes of the Orkney Islands, and describes how his and Becky’s work can serve as a catalyst for environmental awareness and community connection. Whether you're an architecture or art enthusiast, a nature lover, or simply curious about innovative projects that make a difference, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in to explore how Earthbound Orkney is cultivating a deeper appreciation for our planet and the stories that shape it. Tom is on Instagram, as is Becky. Earthbound Orkney features in the forthcoming exhibition, A Fragile Correspondence, taking place at V&A Dundee from 21 Nov 2024, Scotland’s submission for the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠On Episode 129 of A is for Architecture, Dr Beth Weinstein, Associate Professor of Architecture and at the University of Arizona, discusses her recent book, Architecture and Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space and Time, published by Routledge in March 2024. As Beth says, recounting her awareness of this subject, ‘I think that that encounter as a 20 something year old was the first moment when it became real for me to be able to imagine that one can bring architecture and choreography into really close proximity and have a very fertile exchange of knowledge, exchange of practice; to see how ideas from architecture can then become ideas that manifest in the way bodies move, occupy, interact in space, and to learn as an architect from this live unfolding event, and to begin to see space support event live. Like not “Here I am drawing on my drawing board and fantasizing about people, what people are going to do in my building five years from now, when it eventually gets built.” But I'm seeing this one-to-one prototype, if you will, and seeing how they are pushing the boundaries of what a body can do and be, in relationship to a space.’ Eloquently put. Beth is on LinkedIn too. The book is linked above. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick  

In Episode 128 of the A is for Architecture podcast, architect, journalist and scholar Austin Williams discusses his work and practice, and his ongoing Future Cities Project, specifically the Five Critical Essays series.  Austin says ‘the idea behind [The Future Cities Project/ Five Critical Essays] was just to say that [architectural] debates are fairly stagnant, or unidirectional, or one track’. The project has tried, in the face of this, ‘to kind of open up some debates, have, like, live debates, face to face, panel discussions, writings, journalism, or what have you, just to kind of ask some questions effectively.’ It’s a good intention indeed. Austin is also course leader/senior lecturer, PG Dip Professional Practice in Architecture at Kingston School of Art and an honorary research fellow at XJTLU University in China. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Dr Tanzil Shafique discusses his forthcoming book, City of Desire: An Urban Biography of the Largest Slum in Bangladesh, on Episode 127 of A is for Architecture.  Published by Bloomsbury, and out in November, City of Desire describes ‘Karail, the largest informal settlement in Bangladesh [and] the production of informal urbanism through a brand-new approach rooted in deep ethnography and spatial mapping.’ There’s also, in a way a deep reading of a place as something more than just stuff. As Tanzil suggests, ‘following Latour's elegant actor network theory, there has been a lot of talk about how materials matter, but I want to take it up a notch and talk about [matter] at a settlement scale, and how, even within a city, how it [matter/ Korail] actively, you know, is an is an agent by itself.’ Now there’s an idea. Tanzil is Lecturer of Urban Design and Director of the Postgraduate Programmes at The University of Sheffield School of Architecture. He is there, on X and LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

In Episode 126 of A is for Architecture, Gabriel Esquivel, director of the T4T Lab, speaks about Design Technology and Digital Production: An Architecture Anthology, which he edited, and was published by Routledge in 2023. The book ‘engages and deploys a variety of discourses, topics, criteria, pedagogies, and technologies, including some of today’s most influential architects, practitioners, academics, and critics’ to present the story of ‘architecture’s disciplinary concerns in the last decade’, illustrating ‘the shift to an architectural world where we can learn with and from each other, develop a community of new technologies and embrace a design ecology that is inclusive, open, and visionary.’  That’s the blurb’s thing, anyway. Have a big wee listen and find out. Gabriel can be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, and via very many online resources, not least his T4T lab website. The book is linked above.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Episode 125 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with historian Dr Jessica Kelly, Reader in Design and Architectural History at London Metropolitan University. We discuss her 2022 book, No More Giants: J.M. Richards, Modernism and The Architectural Review, published by Manchester University Press. It’s an interesting story, one that mirrors the development of the profession, and perhaps even produces it to some extent. As Jess says, ’I think Richards, although he would completely align himself, and he writes about being a modernist and seeing that as the future of architecture, he is also quite invested in the figure of the architect and the expertise of the architectural profession as a cultural elite, as a sort of guiding figure within society. And he wants to promote that the magazine is invested in promoting the profession, because as much as the Architectural Review is, as it's been described, a mouthpiece for modernism, and really does feature modernism a lot, it features a lot of other stuff as well. [there is] very much a plurality of conversations happening in [it]. […] I think for Richard and his circle and network of people, there is an overlap between [ideology and business and] the idea of whether someone's a consumer or a citizen blurs together in quite an interesting way. And for Richards and his contemporaries, their main objective is to get a public audience for what they understand to be the future of architecture.’ Jessica can be found on the London Met website, and the book is linked above.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠On Episode 124 of A is for Architecture Graham Haughton and Iain White tell me about their excellent book, Why Plan? Theory for Practitioners, published by Lund Humphries in 2019. On the reason for theory for planning, Graham suggests: ‘ to a certain extent, theories sometimes can make reality. […] you could argue that some of Patsy Healy's work around collaborative and communicative planning, of new ways of trying to engage with communities in the planning process, by bringing them, giving them the knowledge to be able to debate with planners on an equal footing, really important in remaking planning. […] So at one level, in a way, we inadvertently, I think, have helped change practice by highlighting what was happening, trying to understanding it, not just as a separate theory, but through different theoretical lenses, using neoliberalism, using postpolitics and other kind of theoretical insights, to understand what this phenomenon that we were observing was.’  Iain is Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Graham is Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Manchester, UK Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Episode 123 of A is for Architecture is a discussion with Henrik Schoenefeldt, Professor of Sustainable Architecture at the School of Architecture, Design & Planning, University of Kent, about his research into the work and influence of the Scottish physician David Boswell Reid on the environmental design underpinning Barry and Pugin’s Palace of Westminster, London, UK. Initially an AHRC-funded scheme entitled ‘Between Heritage and Sustainability – Restoring the Palace of Westminster’s nineteenth-century ventilation system,’ and part of the Palace of Westminster Restoration and Renewal Programme, Henrik published Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament: David Boswell Reid and Disruptive Environmentalism with Routledge in 2020. On the significance of Boswell Reid’s work at Westminster, Henrik says ’I think what is radical about this idea was, is to integrate different ideas into one holistic strategy [and] integrated ways of climatic controlling the environment as one holistic design, and [then] applied to a building of such enormous scale and complexity. […] But the interesting thing is that […] when the building was completed, you would see it become a common practice for building to have extensive ventilation systems. So even in the buildings built in Whitehall, new public museums built in South Kensington, the Royal Albert Hall -all of those starting to incorporate these ideas, although they were not necessarily direct descendants of Reid's specific solutions in the Palace of Westminster, but they reflect a general shift towards more technologically complex buildings.’ All good? Yes, De La Soul, it is. And all curious, too. Henrik can be found on the University of Kent website, the book is linked above and the AHRC project is here. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

In this episode of A is for Architecture, Dell Upton, Professor Emeritus of Architecture, UC Berkeley and Professor and Chair of Art History at UCLA, speaks about his book, American Architecture: A Thematic History, published by Oxford University Press in 2019. To the question, What is American architecture? Dell suggests ‘That is a very long and vexed question, not only with American architecture, but in American culture. And it really starts from at the time of the American Revolution. How are we different from Europe? But how are we also connected to the best aspects of Europe, so can we be refined in a European sense, but also distinctively American? […] Louis Sullivan […] influenced by the poet Walt Whitman, begins to talk about [American] architecture in a kind of rhapsodic way, as somehow tied to the character of democracy, the character of the land, to the … well, he would say spiritual.’  But is it though? Listen to every word of Dell’s to see. Dell has a Wikipedia page because he’s proper. You can also find him linked above, along with the book. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

The title of this year’s Design History Society Annual Conference is Border Control: Excursion, Incursion and Exclusion and for this episode of A is for Architecture, three of the conference’s convenors, Dr Jessica Kelly, Professor Victoria Kelley and Professor Cat Rossi, took a bit of time to talk about it with me.  The conference blurb states: ‘Whether geopolitical, human and non-human, or digital and physical, the solidification and liquification of borders raises questions around design's role in creating, undoing and negotiating divides.’  I don’t know very much, but I know what I like. And I very like the sound of this. The conference website is linked above. Jessica can be found at her London Met profile here, and Cat and Victoria can be found at UCA here and  here. The Design History Society can be found here. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Professor Nigel Cross is the podcasts' 120th guest, Emeritus Professor of Design Studies at the Open University, design researcher who played a pivotal role in establishing design as an academic discipline, Editor in Chief of the journal Design Studies between 1984-2017, developing the concept of design thinking along the way. We speak about the second edition of his book, Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work, published with Bloomsbury in 2023. On design, Nigel says: ‘the key thing for me is to see it as a […] form of skilled behaviour, not as a talent or a gift, you know, something which you just magically have or you don't have. It's a form of skill. It's a set of cognitive and practical procedures that designers do in the process of designing. So that, I think is the most important thing for me to come out of what I've been researching - is to see it as a skill. And if it's a skill, then it can be enhanced, it can be trained, it can be educated.’ This is a refreshing and for some I suspect, rather challenging suggestion. If it can be trained, perhaps we might ask, why isn’t it more?  Nigel is so big he has a Wikipedia page. I mentioned Nigel’s paper Design thinking: What just happened? published in Design Studies 86 (2023), and his earlier book, Design Participation (1972), which was the Proceedings of the Design Research Society International Conference, 1971: Design Participation. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Cultural historian Dr Robyne Calvert discusses her recent book, The Mack: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art in the 119th episode of A is for Architecture. Published by Yale University Press, the book is a detailed study of The Mackintosh Building, one of the great icons of modern architecture, and its reconstruction, engaging with a whole host of significant - and sometimes paradoxical - issues for design practice: conservation, reconstruction, authenticity, pastiche, social value. These are strange discussions, perhaps. As Robyne puts it: ‘my perspective of buildings is that there's this sense for some folk that they're these, […] fixed monuments. We think of buildings as these iconic things that don't change, and they're, they're symbols of, […] our cities and all of that kind of stuff, but actually, that's completely wrong. Buildings change almost more than anything. They change through our use. They change through our interaction. We damage them. We change, we alter them. We do all kinds of stuff. And they're meant to change. They're not fixed monuments at all. [...] no one would blink an eye at duplicating […] Macintosh chairs […] but you make a copy of a building, and it's like, what are you doing?’ A great book, the best subject, and a fantastic writer and speaker. Therefore, a top episode. Robyne was Mackintosh Research Fellow at Glasgow School of Art from 2015 to 2021. She can be found on X, LinkedIn and on her website. The Mack is linked above. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠In Episode 117 of A is for Architecture’s landscape architect Richard J Weller, discusses his beautiful book, To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century, published by Birkhauser this year.  The book develops the historical practice of the Grand Tour – ‘an intellectual, cultural undertaking that was sort of a finishing school and an education for the aristocracy’ where, by travelling to the great sites of Antiquity, they would ‘buy art and take ideas and influences back home with them to England and model their gardens and their villas and their follies and their salons on the things that they had purchased and been influenced by’. Richard’s selection of 120 places ‘are emblematic of the contemporary global, planetary cultural conditions, [with text and drawings that delivers a ‘clear-eyed account of what these places are as a form of empirical evidence as to what we as a species have become in the Anthropocene.’ It's a fascinating book that touches on issues of aestheticization, the touristic gaze, virtuality and, possibly, a revived moral wanderlust. Richard is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design and Co-Founder, The Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism & Ecology.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

A is for Architecture’s 116th episode features the architect, writer, public speaker, TED-talker and all round polymath, Michael Pawlyn, discussing Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, which he co-wrote with urbanist, curator and writer, Sarah Ichioka and published with Triarchy Press in 2021. It’s a challenge, what Michael articulates: ‘What we suggest is that we - all of us - need to get better at distinguishing the maladapted frames and stories and metaphors, and articulate new, more regenerative ones. And I just want to caveat that ‘new’ in many cases, are newly appreciated worldviews, or mindsets, because many of these are examples of indigenous thinking that have endured for many 1000s of years, but were overlooked during the Industrial Age. And sometimes this is really quite uncomfortable, realizing that our existing worldviews are pretty seriously flawed.’  But it’s also an invitation, so have a listen and find out what. You can find Michael at his practice, Exploration and on Instagram. You can find the book at flourish-book.com, linked above.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠Episode 115 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Sofia Singler, Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and College Lecturer in Architecture at St John’s College, Cambridge. We discuss parts of her book, The Religious Architecture of Alvar, Aino and Elissa Aalto, which she published with Lund Humphries in 2023. Sofia says “my sense is that [Alvar Aalto] really valued religion and not just Lutheranism, and Finland, […] and specifically Christianity, as part of an unchanging European cultural tradition. And the attraction, the appeal, the value, the beauty of religion, and Christianity, in particular for him was that the message was always the same. And I suppose for that reason, the idea of renewing things and shaking things up and coming up with a new liturgy and a new building type felt a bit too radical for him, which is really interesting, given that, of course, he was quite radical himself as a designer. […] when it comes to religious projects, I think there was a degree of perhaps nervousness […] Out of a fear that perhaps these changes were too much and that they risked losing some of the cultural value of religion’. You can find Sofia on the Cambridge University website here, and the book is linked above.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠In Episode 114 of A is for Architecture Jane Rendell, Professor in Critical Spatial Practice at The Bartlett, UCL, discusses some aspects of her recently republished book, The Architecture of Psychoanalysis: Spaces of Transition, which came out with Bloomsbury in the spring. Jane says ‘I think what I'm more interested in is how architecture can allow us to think psychoanalysis differently, as well as allow us to look for things in psychoanalytic theory. For example, the spatial drawings of different psychic concepts like conscious, pre-conscious, unconscious or ego, Id, super ego. Freud uses these incredible drawings of these phenomena. So there are all sorts of spatial diagrams that by thinking architecturally one looks at in a different way […]. Architecture helps you think about psychoanalytic drawings, about spatial metaphors. […] But I think also, what becomes interesting is how one can start to think about the […] most architectural part of psychoanalysis [which] is probably the setting, the physical place in which that psychoanalytic relationship takes place.’ You can find Jane at her website here, and on the UCL website here. She is multi-located across the internet through her various activities.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠Episode 113 of A is for Architecture’s is a conversation with Cécile Brisac, founder of Atelier Brisac, a practice based in London and Paris, with a body of work produced since Atelier Brisac's founding in 2019, and previously with Brisac Gonzalez, and that includes the Museum of World Cultures, Gothenburg, Pajol Sports Centre, Paris, the Performing Arts Center, Aurillac, France and more recently housing at Lot 04A in Batignolles, Paris and Allée du Parc, Massy, France. Describing her practice’s work, Cécile says ‘we're doing buildings that are uplifting, that have a certain amount of clarity, that are, you know, welcoming, and based around the users [and] designed with a sense of care. […]  in parallel to that is working at the scale of the city […] If you think of the word elegance in the engineering field […] the definition is something like ‘finding a solution to a range of problems that may not be connected to begin with’. […] that's what we're doing in a way.’ An elegant expression of complex things. You can find Atelier Brisac on Instagram, and at atelierbrisac.com.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠A is for Architecture’s 112th episode is with the British architect, Tony Fretton. Previously founder and principal of Tony Fretton Architects, and more recently acting as a design consultant, and previously Chair of Architecture and Interiors at TU Delft, Tony’s work includes Westkaai, Residential Towers, Antwerp, The British Embassy, Warsaw, Art Museum, Fuglsang, Denmark, and the The Red House and the Camden Arts Centre, London. Speaking of his work on galleries, Tony says:  ‘I think it's much more subtle and much more interesting to make buildings which sometimes are impressive and visible, and sometimes […] very low visibility. That's much more interesting, much more intellectually satisfying. And how can you make somebody feel comfortable, without [them] even seeing you do it? That's the measure of a good host, a good person, that you let people see the work. […] In Furslang we made a series of rooms which are different in character: one is for temporary exhibitions, and the other for small scale works in gold frames, and then there was section on Danish Impressionism. But each of them shares a vocabulary but it's treated in slightly different ways so that as you go through the room, you see the art but in the periphery of your vision the room stimulates you’. Sums it up rather neatly. You can find Tony on Instagram, on at tonyfretton.com, too.   Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠Episode 111 of A is for Architecture⁠ is a conversation with Des Fitzgerald, Professor of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences at University College Cork, about his fairly recent and quite well-covered book, The City of Today is a Dying Thing: In Search of the Cities of Tomorrow, which he published this year with Faber & Faber. Green urbanism is undergirded by an expectation – a belief? - that it will deliver on modernism’s promises of emancipated, healthful lives. The City of Today contests this. As Des explains, ‘the book is really an attempt to start […] thinking critically about the growing trend towards green, traditional, small, human scale - I would even say 15 minute - cities [and] that kind of vision of the city is something we need to develop critical language for. […] there's a pretty close mapping between 19th century discourse of the cities effect on character or its capacity to degenerate particular sorts of character in a heritable way [...] and our own discourse about the relationship between particular shapes of buildings and mental health disorders.’ A little bit saucy and rather funny, man, book and podcast. You can find Des professionally at UCC and on X. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠In Episode 110 of A is for Architecture⁠ Victoria Jane Marshall, senior lecturer in the Department of Architecture at the National University of , discusses themes and methods underpinning her recent book, Periurban Cartographies: Kolkata’s Ecologies and Settled Ruralities, which she published with Oro Editions in spring this year. As Victoria notes, an increasingly public concept, the periurban describe those parts of urban peripheries that are ‘generally imagined […] as “becoming urban” and generally, in doing so, it sort of erases the rural in the imagination - of it just being a zone which is on its way to becoming urban, like a transition zone’. Instead, Victoria proposes, thorough the lens of a deep mapping in Kolkata, Bengal, we might instead ‘look more flat, and more even, at everything that's going on, and, and not bifurcate, not separate urban and rural, and not separate society and nature, but look at how they're all entangled together.’ It's a beautiful book, and Victoria's a great talker, the mapping is wonderful, so listen to her, see the book, and get freshness. You can find Victoria professionally at her work and on LinkedIn. The book is linked above. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠Episode 109 of A is for Architecture⁠ has architect, professor and writer, Charles Holland, discussing his new book, How to Enjoy Architecture: A Guide for Everyone, published by Yale University Press this year. As Charles says, How to Enjoy Architecture is ‘not a history of architecture, and it's definitely not a kind of polemic’. Rather, it ‘tries to open up architecture outside of a sort of standard linear history’ and is instead ‘a plea for more tolerance and pluralism, and for less condemnation […] it tries to say, there might be buildings that you don't like, but they might still be good. They might still be interesting. Just because they don't fit your tastes, that doesn't mean that they should be condemned in some way. So it tries to sort of make a plea for more interest and less condemning of things.’  A noble ideal. Have a listen and feel something. You can find Charles on his practice’s website, on Instagram and X. The book is linked above. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠A is for Architecture’s⁠ 108th episode is a conversation with urban designer and President of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Mallory B.E. Baches.  With roots in the works of Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford, and later through Leon Krier and Christopher Alexander, the CNU was founded in 1993 as a ‘planning and development approach based on the principles of how cities and towns had been built for the last several centuries: walkable blocks and streets, housing and shopping in close proximity, and accessible public spaces. In other words: New Urbanism focuses on human-scaled urban design.’  The movement’s influence has been very wide, underpinning new classical and traditional developments, such as at Brandevoort in Holland, Harbor Town, USA and Poundbury in England. Arguably, recent movements like 15 Minute Cities have their roots in New Urbanist logics too. As such, might New Urbanism best be understood as other modern? You can find Mallory on her personal website, on Instagram, LinkedIn and X too. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

⁠A is for Architecture’s⁠ 108th episode is a conversation with the architect Sam Jacob, principal of Sam Jacob Studio and Professor and head of Architectural Design Studio 3 in the Institute of Architecture (I oA) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Formerly founding director of FAT with Charles Holland and Sean Griffiths, Sam’s work includes exceptional buildings and adaptations, exhibitions, interiors and things which, liberally distributed over the years of his practice[s], are to be found all over the internet.  Sam puts it thus in the recording, ‘normally when we make architecture […] you start with a sketch, and then you make it a little bit more accurate, and you get it into Vectorworks, maybe. And then you might make a model, and then you do, you know, detailed design and the tender etc, etc. And that’s the kind of process and then you end up with a building. […] But if we think about like, architecture itself, maybe there's not really a point where it becomes real and different, you know, becomes part of the real world and different from all those other forms of representation, which you were using, as you went through the design process. Maybe we could understand architecture itself as a form of representation’.  You can find Sam on Instagram. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Episode 107 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠ is a discussion with Tim Ingold, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen about Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, published by Routledge in 2013.  Acts of making, as the blurb puts it, ‘creates knowledge, builds environments and transforms lives.’ The book reflects ‘on what it means to create things, on materials and form, the meaning of design, landscape perception, animate life, personal knowledge and the work of the hand’. It’s a beautiful subject, and a great conversation. Tim is a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was awarded a CBE in 2022 for services to anthropology. His scholarship be found in all good libraries. He has a website, timingold.com, and his professional profile can be found on the University of Aberdeen website. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

In Episode 106 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠ Sabina Andron talks about her book Urban Surfaces, Graffiti, and the Right to the City, which she published with Routledge this year.  The book discusses ‘the surfacescapes of our cities […] as material, visual, and legal territories [and] includes a critical history of graffiti and street art as contested surface discourses’ arguing for ‘surfaces as sites of resistance against private property, neoliberal creativity, and the imposition of urban order.’  Sabina is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Cities and Urbanism at the University of Melbourne and can be found on her personal website, as well as on social media, including  X and Instagram. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

Episode 105 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠ is with Pier Vittorio Aureli, writer and educator, and founder and principal of Dogma, the much-acclaimed architecture and research group founded in 2002 by Pier Vittorio and Martino Tattara. We talk about Pier Vittorio's 2023 book, Architecture and Abstraction, published by MIT Press. Architecture and Abstraction, so the gloss has it, ‘argues for a reconsideration of abstraction, its meanings, and its sources. Although architects have typically interpreted abstraction in formal terms—the purposeful reduction of the complexities of design to its essentials, [this book] presents abstraction in architecture not as an aesthetic tendency but as a movement that arises from modern divisions of labor and consequent social asymmetries’, and the outcome of emergent socio-technical, economic and political realities. In the face of the AI-ification of the public imagination and, increasingly, material culture itself, this argument has great pertinence for design in and of the contemporary commonwealth.  Pier Vittorio Aureli teaches at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), and can be found on through Dogma on Instagram. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

In Episode 104 of A is for Architecture, is a conversation with Paul Watt about his 2021 book, Estate Regeneration and Its Discontents: Public Housing, Place and Inequality in London, published by Bristol University Press in 2021. We discuss the story of council-supplied housing, and its transformation through various governments – not just Maggie’s Conservatives – from a common asset and social good, into an instrument of urban regeneration policy that has at its heart a very different image of the city, predicated a new model of the desired and desirable urban citizen. Estate Regeneration draws on Paul’s deep knowledge and experience and extensive fieldwork ‘in some of the capital’s most deprived areas’ and shows ‘the dramatic ways that estate regeneration is reshaping London, fuelling socio-spatial inequalities via state-led gentrification’. It’s an important work of deep scholarship, for sure. Paul is Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and can also be found on LinkedIn and Twitter/ X.    Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 103 of A is for Architecture, Aaron Betsky discusses his recent book The Monster Leviathan: Anarchitecture, published by MIT Press in January this year. Until recently Professor in the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech, and with previous roles as the President of the School of Architecture at Taliesin, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum and the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the author of over 20 books. Aaron directed the Venice architecture biennale in 2008 and now operates as an independent scholar.  The Monster Leviathan describes an architecture ‘lurking under the surface of our modern world […] an unseen architecture—or anarchitecture […] which haunts in the form of monsters that are humans and machines and cities all at once’ which Betsky suggests ‘are concrete proposals in and of themselves’ and which indicate to us now ways we might ‘construct a better, more sustainable, and socially just future’. Aaron is on Instagram and LinkedIn and all over the internet, because he’s proper famous.    Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 102 of A is for Architecture, Nimi Attanayake and Tim O'Callaghan, founders and principals of nimtim architects, talk about their work, practice and the social role of the practice/s of architects and our architecture. Their body of work is very lovely, but it’s not just this, having a richness born of a dynamic ethicality. The question then is, is the fruit of good ethics good architecture? In an Architecture After Grenfell, an article they wrote around 2022, and which appeared in BD, they suggest ‘What is required is a reset for the whole industry. If morality is replaced by profiteering then the events at Grenfell tower will be the outcome. […] Whilst the world gasps at the cynicism and callousness revealed by the [Grenfell] inquiry, we should be positioning ourselves as the potential solution. Fundamentally, the problem is not one of process or competence, it is one of ethics and morality. Architects are uniquely placed to become the custodians of a new set of values that can run through every stage of a project. This may demand greater responsibility but it is a responsibility we should fight for and embrace.' That’s what we’re here for, right? Thanks for listening. +  Music: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 101 of A is for Architecture, Sophia Psarra, Professor of Architecture and Spatial Design, the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, discusses some of her recent book, Parliament Buildings: The Architecture of Politics in Europe, which she co-edited with Uta Staiger and Claudia Sternberg, and published in 2023. ‘Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science [to offer] an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe.’  Well that’s what they say but see what you think. Sophia is all across social media too, so seek her out. The book is Open Access. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In this, the 100th episode of A is for Architecture and the thirty-something in Series 3, Matthew Fuller speaks about his and Eyal Weizman’s 2021 book, Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth, published with Verso, which ‘draws on theories of knowledge, ecology and technology [to evaluate] the methods of citizen counter-forensics, micro-history and art […] an inspiring introduction to a new field that brings together investigation and aesthetics to change how we understand and confront power today.’  Matthew is Professor of Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has written many books and papers, which you can find out about via his professional profile. Otherwise, I find little trace of him online… Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Episode n/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Ashton Hamm, founding principal of uxo architects, a cooperative practice based in California, USA. Building on some themes and ideas in Ashton’s recent book, Practice Practice (Oro Editions 2023), we discuss the what, why, where and how of cooperative, worker-owned practice. This is an American tale, of course, because each cooperative is a formal, legal structure and so depends on contextual legal protocols, but it is an illustrative and inspiring tale too, which indicates another possible way of being architect. You can find UXO on Instagram here. The book is here. Have a cheeky and a purchase and side with the good guys. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Episode 30ish/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Catherine Ingraham, writer and scholar, about Architecture’s Theory, part of MIT Press’ Writing Architecture Series.  As the publisher’s spiel has it, ‘architecture as a thinking profession materializes theory in the form of built work that always carries symbolic loads’. But can there even be architecture without theory?  Catherine is a professor in the department of Graduate Architecture and Urban Design at the Pratt Institute, New York, where she was Chair of Graduate Architecture, between 1999-2005. Other significant written works by her include Architecture, Animal, Human: The Asymmetrical Condition (Routledge 2006) and Architecture and the Burdens of Linearity (Yale University Press 1998). From 1991 to 1998, with Michael Hays and Alicia Kennedy, Catherine edited Assemblage: A Critical Journal of Architecture and Design Culture. Heavy stuff indeed. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Episode 29/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Professor Neelkanth Chhaya, architect and scholar, and former Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, CEPT, Ahmadabad, Gujarat. We discuss India, notions of modernism (and postmodernism) in postcolonial contexts, indigeneity and identity, and the meaning of the/ a ‘vernacular’ in a globalising culture, as well as time, language, poetry, food and parampara… We also talk about Balkrishna Doshi, and you can hear/ watch Chhaya speak about him and his work as part of a fascinating panel discussion – "Suppose We Don't Talk About Architecture" - An Homage to Doshi – produced by the Bengal Institute in 2023, and also featuring former podcast guest, Juhani Pallasmaa. Chhaya was named the inaugural recipient of the ‘Balkrishna Doshi: Guru Ratna Award 2023’, for his contribution to education, innovation, and mentorship. I broke bread with Chhaya one night in Ahmedabad. He was amazing then, and he remains so now. Have a listen, find out for yourself, on all good podcast platforms. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 28/3 of A is for Architecture, architect, curator and educator Laurence Lord speaks about his practice AP+E, which he founded with Jeffrey Bolhuis, and their civically-minded work in Ireland and Holland, his work at the 2023 Venice Biennial’s The Laboratory of the Future show, as Assistant to the Curator, Exhibition Design, and lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast. Laurence can be found at the AP+E website, at QUB, on LinkedIn, X/ Twitter and Instagram. Find it where the beautiful people listen to such things, and also those places they would really rather not. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 27, Series 3 of A is for Architecture, Frank Jacobus and Brian M Kelly discuss their recent book, Artificial Intelligent Architecture: New Paradigms in Architectural Practice and Production, published by ORO Editions in 2023. The book discusses the ‘impact of artificial intelligence in the discipline of architecture [through the] mass adoption of highly accessible machine learning tools [which has] allowed designers to test their limits and assess their role as an author in the design of the built environment.’ The book features essays from eighteen architects and designers that theorize and test the possibilities of AI, and its meaning and impacts as ‘ideation device and extension of the architect’s authorship.’  Frank is Department Head and Professor of Architecture and the Stuckeman Chair of Integrative Design, Penn State College of Arts and Architecture, the principal of SILO AR+D with Marc Manack, and can be sought out on Instagram. Brian is Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and is on LinkedIn. Available where good podcasts roam. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 26/ 3 of A is for Architecture, Loretta Lees and Elanor Warwick speak about their book, Defensible Space on the Move: Mobilisation in English Housing Policy and Practice, published with Wiley in 2022. We discuss a few of its themes, including the emergence of the concept in America with Oscar Newman and others, its transference to Britain and its articulation and deployment by geographers, architects and policymakers, not least Alice Coleman, in the later twentieth century. The book tells ‘the history of defensible space from the 1970s work of Oscar Newman on New York City public housing projects to Alice Coleman’s work in English boroughs and estates [using] oral histories and in-depth interviews with key figures alongside extensive archival research to examine the movement/mobility/mobilization of defensible space across the Atlantic as well as across, in and through academic, professional and governmental circles in the UK.’ Loretta is Professor & Faculty Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University, and is also on X. Elanor is Head of Strategic Policy and Research at Clarion Housing Group, and is on LinkedIn and X.  Available on all good podcast platforms. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Series 3, Episode 25 of A is for Architecture’s is a conversation with social and architectural historian, Ken Worpole, discussing his life and work, and focusing on the new edition of his book Modern Hospice Design: The Architecture of Palliative and Social Care, published by Routledge this year. As the gloss puts it, ‘At its core [the book is] a public discussion of a philosophy of design for providing care for the elderly and the vulnerable, taking the importance of architectural aesthetics, the use of quality materials, the porousness of design to the wider world, and the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces as part of the overall care environment.’ We talk about all this, and the place hospices play in the urban and ethical fabric of contemporary urban life.  Ken’s personal website is here, and you can find links to his other works there, including the important New Jerusalem: The Good City and the Good Society (2017, The Swedenborg Society). Along with the landscape photographer Jason Orton, he also writes the online journal, The New English Landscape (also a book), documenting ‘the changing landscape and coastline of Essex and East Anglia, particularly its estuaries, islands and urban edgelands’. Available on all good podcast platforms. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Episode 23/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Mark Jarzombek about his recent book, Architecture Constructed: Notes on a Discipline, published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The book presents ‘the long-suppressed conflict between […] between those who design, and those who build. [Jarzombek] reveals architecture to be a troubled, interconnected realm, incomplete and unstable, where labor, craft, and occupation are the 'invisible' complements to the work of the architect [and] pushes the boundaries on how we define the professional discipline of architecture’. Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT. He Instagrams and LinkedIns. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 22 of Series 3 of A is for Architecture, architectural historian, Swati Chattopadhyay discusses her 2023 book, Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire, published by Bloomsbury. ‘With the focus of history so often on the large scale - global trade networks, vast regions, and architectures of power and domination - Small Spaces shows instead how we need to rethink this aura of magnitude so that our reading is not beholden such imperialist optics [and] is a must-read for anyone wishing to decolonize disciplinary practices in the field of architectural, urban, and colonial history.’ Swati is Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara and can be found professionally there.  Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 21/3 of A is for Architecture, filmmaker and architectural photographer Jim Stephenson discusses his work, his method and his inspirations. Jim and Sofia Smith are currently exhibiting their work ‘The Architect has Left the Building’ at The Farrell Centre, Newcastle – an immersive film installation that explores ‘how people use buildings and spaces once the architect‘s work has finished’.  Jim can be found on Instagram as clickclickjim. His personal website is here. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.   Thanks for listening. + Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Episode 20, Series 3 of A is for Architecture, is a discussion with Katie Lloyd Thomas, Professor of Architectural History and Theory at Newcastle University, about her 2021 book, Building Materials: Material Theory and the Architectural Specification, published by Bloomsbury. The book ‘offers a radical rethink of how materials, as they are constituted in architectural practice, are themselves constructed and […] uncovers [in the construction specification] a vast and neglected resource of architectural writing’. Katie can be found professionally here, and socially here. The Production Studies 2024 conference can be found here, and is still open for attendees. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.   Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

In Episode 19/3 of A is for Architecture, John Pawson speaks about his design education, work, ethos and practice. John is recognised as the preeminent minimalist architect of the age, with work including Calvin Klein shops, St John at Hackney Church (2020), the Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr, Czech Republic (2004) the Moritzkirche, Augsburg (2013) and the Sackler Crossing at Kew (2006). Last year, a new book was published on John’s work – John Pawson: Making Life Simpler, published by Phaidon, and written by Deyan Sudjic. His 1996 book, Minimum, was something like a phenomenon. You can find John on Instagram, and on his practice website. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube and Facebook . Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

In Season 3, Episode 18 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠ Dana Cuff speaks about her recent book, ⁠Architectures of Spatial Justice⁠, published by MIT Press last year. Dana is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and founding director of cityLAB, both at the University of California, Los Angeles. Architectures of Spatial Justice ‘examines ethically driven practices that break with professional conventions to correct long-standing inequities in the built environment, uncovering architecture's limits—and its potential.’ The book builds on Dana’s founding of cityLAB in 2006, ‘a research and design center that initiates experimental projects to explore metropolitan possibilities’ and which ‘leverages design, research, policy, and education to create more just urban futures with real impacts for communities in Los Angeles and beyond’, including through coLAB, and in partnership with community organisations. Dana also founded and runs UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative which offers students from ‘architecture, urban studies, and the humanities a radical platform for crossdisciplinary, impactful, urban scholarship and action’, and which she wrote about in Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press, 2020). You can find some of Dana’s various books via the hyperlinks in the text above, all via the MIT Press website. Dana can be found here on the UCLA site, and here on X/ Twitter.  cityLAB can be gotten on Instagram here. There’s a good piece by Dana – ‘Why would architects let themselves be so vitiated?’ on Dezeen, laying into The Line here. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music. Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Episode 17/3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠, is a conversation with ⁠Rob Fiehn⁠, writer, communications consultant, Director of the ⁠London Society⁠ and Chair of the ⁠Museum of Architecture⁠, about the London Society’s 2023 London of the Future book, a collection of essays by experts from various disciplines – ‘engineering, urbanism, architecture, manufacturing, futurology, journalism and more’ – speculating on ‘how the metropolis might be governed, organized and designed in the years to come.’  London of the Future is a plush publication, as you would expect, full of smart ideas and lovely images. It follows 102 years on from the London Society’s original publication of the same name when, ‘under the editorship of the architect Sir Aston Webb [it] published a collection of essays […] some rather more futuristic than others.’ (Gilbert, D. (2004). London of the Future: The Metropolis Reimagined after the Great War. ⁠Journal of British Studies⁠). 2023’s edition is futuristic indeed, but not sci-fi. There are ideas that, without too much effort - or perhaps not any effort at all - may well come to pass. You can find the book on Merrell’s website here, and on the London Society website here. Rob professional alter ego is here, and he is on X here, LinkedIn here and Instagram too. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.   Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk YouTube: youtube/channel

In Episode 16/3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠, I spoke with the architect Petra Marko, director of ⁠Marko & Placemakers⁠, creative director of visual communication company ⁠Milk⁠ and now Director of the ⁠Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava⁠, about her work, placemaking as an urban development approach and the role of temporary or meanwhile interventions as mechanisms for producing good, sustainable  urban spaces with clear identity. All this is beautifully described in her recent publication - and the stimulus for our conversation - Meanwhile City: How temporary interventions create welcoming places with a strong identity, published by ⁠Milk⁠ in 2022. Petra can be found can be found on the above websites, and on Instagram and LinkedIn. The book, Meanwhile City, can be found both via the Milk website to purchase, but also as a PDF to download here. Petra is a good speaker, so get set and listen. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music. Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + aisforarchitecture.org Apple: podcasts.apple.com Spotify: open.spotify.com Google: podcasts.google.com Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk