Brutalism as Found

Author: Nicholas Thoburn
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1913380033
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 351

Book Description
A critical appropriation of Brutalism in the crisis conditions of today. The Robin Hood Gardens public-housing estate in East London, completed in 1972, was designed by Alison and Peter Smithson as an ethical and aesthetic encounter with the flux and crises of the social world. Now demolished by the forces of speculative development, this Brutalist estate has been the subject of much dispute. But the clichéd terms of debate—a “concrete monstrosity” or a “modernist masterpiece”—have marginalized the estate’s residents and obscured its architectural originality. Recovering the social in the architectural, this book centers the estate’s lived experience of a multiracial working class, not to displace the architecture’s sensory qualities of matter and form, but to radicalize them for our present. Immersed in the materials, atmospheres, social forms and afterlives of this experimental estate, Robin Hood Gardens is reconstructed here as a socio-architectural expression of our times out of joint.

Robin Hood Gardens Re-visions

Author: Alan Powers
Publisher: Twentieth Century Architecture
ISBN: 9780955668715
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Robin Hood Gardens in Tower Hamlets, East London, was designed by Alison + Peter Smithson and completed in 1972. In 2008, this large social housing scheme was threatened with demolition and became a controversial conservation case. The government refused to give it protection as a historic building despite widespread public support for its retention. This book uncovers the history of the project, arguing for its historical and architectural significance and for its future role in local housing provision. It includes contributions by architects Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid, with previously unpublished text and pictures by Alison + Peter Smithson and photographs by Sandra Lousada and Ioana Marinescu.The contributors include Catherine Croft, Alan Powers, Dirk van den Heuvel, Ken Baker, Simon Smithson, Amanda Baillieu, Zaha Hadid, Sir Stuart Lipton, Peter St John, Neil Jackson, Deborah Saunt, Richard Rogers, Ann Power, and Dan Cruickshank.

Brutal London

Author: Simon Phipps
Publisher: September Publishing
ISBN: 1910463647
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 194

Book Description
A photographic exploration of the post-war modernist architecture of London. This collection of unique and evocative photography of Brutalist architecture by Simon Phipps casts the city in a new light. Arranged by inner London Borough, BRUTAL LONDON takes in famous examples such as the Trellick Tower, the Brunswick Centre and the Alexandra Road Estate, as well as lesser known housing and municipal spaces. It serves as an introduction to buildings the reader may see every day, an invitation to look differently, a challenge to look up afresh, or to seek out celebrated Brutalism across the capital. The book's portable size and maps for each borough make it useful and practical; while the design, by leading agency A Practice for Everyday Life, echoes the aesthetic of Brutalist architecture with rough textured edges and fonts inspired by the site maps of modernist estates. The hardback was finalist for the British Book Design and Production Awards 2017, Photographic Books, Art / Architecture Monographs. Please note this is a fixed-format ebook with some coloured pages and may not be well-suited for older e-readers.

Brutal London

Author: Zupagrafika
Publisher: Prestel Publishing
ISBN: 9783791383002
Category : Brutalism (Architecture)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Appealing to fans of architecture, this ingeniously designed book lets you build replicas of some of London's iconic post-war concrete structures while learning about their place in the city's architectural history. In this fun and intellectually stimulating book, readers can recreate a number of London's most renowned Brutalist buildings. Opening with an informative history of the origins and philosophy of Brutalist architecture, the book then focuses on 9 buildings, including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre. The first part of the book looks at the significance of each of these buildings, with a short chapter on each, complete with texts and images. The second part of the book consists of a series of 9 pre-cut and folded buildings, printed on heavy card stock, that readers can detach and construct with easy-to-follow instructions. At once fun and informative, this unique book offers a challenging and entertaining approach to architecture.

This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City

Author: John Rogers
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0007557183
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Book Description
Join John Rogers as he ventures out into an uncharted London like a redbrick Indiana Jones in search of the lost meaning of our metropolitan existence. Nursing two reluctant knees and a can of Stella, he perambulates through the seasons seeking adventure in our city’s remote and forgotten reaches.

A Way to Garden

Author: Margaret Roach
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 1604699175
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 640

Book Description
“A Way to Garden prods us toward that ineffable place where we feel we belong; it’s a guide to living both in and out of the garden.” —The New York Times Book Review For Margaret Roach, gardening is more than a hobby, it’s a calling. Her unique approach, which she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo,” is a blend of vital information you need to memorize and intuitive steps you must simply feel and surrender to. In A Way to Garden, Roach imparts decades of garden wisdom on seasonal gardening, ornamental plants, vegetable gardening, design, gardening for wildlife, organic practices, and much more. She also challenges gardeners to think beyond their garden borders and to consider the ways gardening can enrich the world. Brimming with beautiful photographs of Roach’s own garden, A Way to Garden is practical, inspiring, and a must-have for every passionate gardener.

Changing the Art of Inhabitation

Author: Alison Smithson
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN:
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description

Ordinariness and Light

Author: Alison Margaret Smithson
Publisher: Mit Press
ISBN: 9780262190824
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
An extended exploration of the authors' theories and work over the past seventeen years, in which not only their aesthetic but also their political and emotional concerns are made plain.

Alison and Peter Smithson

Author: Mark Crinson
Publisher: Historic England Publishing
ISBN: 9781848023529
Category : Architects
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Book Description
This is the first overview of the career of Alison and Peter Smithson, the most controversial yet most widely-influential of post-war architectural practices. From their first youthful project, the school at Hunstanton, to their final works, they epitomised the idea of the avant-garde architect, and were strongly engaged with artists and critics and with groups and tendencies in Britain and beyond. 0Structured thematically and chronologically, the book gives a coherent and compact narrative of the Smithsons' work and ideas. As well as all of the major buildings - including the Economist complex, the Garden building at St Hilda's College, and the Robin Hood Gardens estate - the book also discusses unbuilt projects, including substantial work for the British embassy at Brasilia and the Kuwait mat-building. It culminates with the less well-known factory additions, museum and house for Axel Bruchhauser, a furniture manufacturer in Germany. Central to their work, Mark Crinson argues, was a concern with belonging, with how we identify ourselves with places in a context of change.0Lavishly illustrated with new colour images as well as original drawings and historic photography, this book is an essential read for architects, students and enthusiasts for modernism wanting to learn more about the Smithsons.

Simon Phipps

Author: Catherine Ince
Publisher: Park Publishing (WI)
ISBN: 9783038600633
Category : Architectural photography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
For more than thirty years, British photographer Simon Phipps has been documenting the rebuilding of Britain after the Second World War through the work of architects. His archive documents Britain?s post-war modernism and new brutalism in architecture and recognizes the architects? enormous contribution to the transformation of the political and social landscape of the country in the aftermath of WW II. Significant building on a mass scale was realized and new building techniques were pioneered alongside innovative layouts, resulting in buildings of outstanding quality, displaying radical new forms. The construction ranged from public and private housing, to schools and universities, churches, museums, galleries, commercial and, ultimately, entire new towns.0This new book features around 200 of Simon Phipps?s photographs of some 160 buildings in all parts of England completed between the 1950s until the 1980s. They create a confrontation of buildings and architectural fragments, evoking a distinct atmosphere of brutalism. The essays and a conversation with architect Kate Macintosh contextualize brutalism in architecture from a British perspective.00Exhibition: Museum im Bellpark Kriens, Switzerland (26.08.-05.11.2017).