Murray Fraser & Barbara Penner 
Forty Ways to Think About Architecture [PDF ebook] 
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 Mc Leod, 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.

Inhoudsopgave

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction 8

Adrian Forty, Future Imperfect: Inaugural Professorial Lecture, delivered at UCL in December 2000 17

1 ANDREW SAINT, How To Write About Buildings? 33

2 ANNE HULTZSCH, Pevsner vs Colomina: Word and Image on the Page 36

3 ANTHONY VIDLER, Smooth and Rough: Tactile Brutalism 43

4 BARBARA PENNER, Homely Affi nities 48

5 BEN CAMPKIN, On Regeneration 54

6 BRIAN STATER, Fresh Reactions to St Paul’s Cathedral 60

7 BRIONY FER, Photographs and Buildings (mainly) 65

8 DAVID DUNSTER, Stirling’s Voice: A Detailed Suggestion 72

9 DAVIDE DERIU, Carte Blanche? 77

10 ELEANOR YOUNG, Buildings: A Reader’s Guide 83

11 GRISELDA POLLOCK, The City and the Event: Disturbing, Forgetting and Escaping Memory 89

12 HILDE HEYNEN, The Most Modern Material Of Them All … 95

13 IAIN BORDEN, ‘Things that People Cannot Anticipate’: Skateboarding at the Southbank Centre 100

14 IRENA ?ANTOVSKÁ MURRAY, ‘Truth, Love, Life’: Building with Language in Prague Castle under Masaryk 106

15 JAN BIRKSTED, Le Corbusier: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics 112

16 JANE RENDELL, During Breakfast 119

17 JEAN-LOUIS COHEN, [American] Objects of [Soviet] Desire 127

18 JEREMY MELVIN, Words and Buildings 134

19 JEREMY TILL, Slow Hard Look 140

20 JOE KERR, Topography, Biography and Architecture 144

21 JOHN MACARTHUR, Of Character and Concrete: The Historian’s Material 150

22 JONATHAN CHARLEY, Spectres of Marx in City X 155

23 JONATHAN HILL, History by Design 163

24 KESTER RATTENBURY, Angel Place: A Way in to Dickens’s London 168

25 LAURENT STALDER, On ‘Sachlichkeit’: Some Additional Remarks on an Anglo-German Encounter 174

26 MARK SWENARTON, Double Vision 180

27 MARY MCLEOD, Modernism 185

28 MICHAEL EDWARDS, Yes, And We Have No Dentists 193

29 MURRAY FRASER, Reyner Banham’s Hat 197

30 PEG RAWES, Situated Architectural Historical Ecologies 204

31 PENNY SPARKE, Objects 210

32 SIR PETER HALL, Richard Llewelyn Davies, 1912-1981: A Lost Vision for The Bartlett 214

33 SARAH WIGGLESWORTH, Things Ungrand 220

34 TANIA SENGUPTA, ‘Minor’ Spaces in Officers’ Bungalows of Colonial Bengal 224

35 THOMAS WEAVER, Memoirs of Adrian 235

36 TOM DYCKHOFF, All That Glitters 239

37 TONY FRETTON, A Response to Words and Buildings 243

38 VICTORIA PERRY, Material Culture: ‘Manchester of the East’, Le Corbusier, Eames and Indian Jeans 249

39 WILLIAM MENKING, Mr Mumford’s Neighbourhood 254

40 YAT MING LOO, Banyan Tree and Migrant Cities: Some Provisional Thoughts for a Strategic Postcolonial Cosmopolitanism 259

Author Biographies 266

Index 275

Photo credits 280

Over de auteur

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 Ph D Architectural History & Theory and BSc Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies.