The world, one sketch at a time
‘The Art of Urban Sketching: Drawing on Location Around the World’ by Gabriel Campanario; Quarry Books, 2012. 320pp Reviewed by Anna Gibb | 29 November 2012 A renaissance in sketching is occurring. While advances in technology continue and we now have smartphones that allow us to document our surroundings in an instant, for many people there remains something both seductive and unique about a hand drawing. The Art of Urban...
A bold pro-growth strategy could set the UK’s housing market free
By Michael Owens | 23 November 2012 By 2025, China will have 221 cities with over 1m inhabitants, adding more than 350m to its urban population. In response, 40 billion square metres of new floorspace will be built. In contrast, here in London, there is a dynamic underground housing market for beds in sheds in Thornton Heath, Southall, and Stratford. Despite pressing needs, house building at the levels achieved in previous eras now...
The Great Stagnation
‘The Great Stagnation’ by Tyler Cowen; Dutton Books, 2011. 109pp Reviewed by Stephen Nash | 23 November 2012 With its sizeable subtitle – ‘How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better’ – this slim volume has made a big splash since its initial appearance in ebook format at the start of 2011. On the dust jacket, Ryan Avent, economics correspondent at the Economist,...
Venice: Myth and Reality
‘Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality’ by Dominic Standish; University Press of America, 2012. 318pp Reviewed by Elisabetta Gasparoni | 2 November 2012 You cannot help but wonder how the ancient Venetians managed to create such stunning architecture and, what’s more, to do so in such hostile conditions. The city stands as a majestic symbol of human mastery over nature. In the past 40 years, however, claims that...
Britain after the riots
‘Out of the Ashes: Britain after the riots’ by David Lammy; Guardian Books, 2011. 272pp Reviewed by Jane Sandeman | 11 October 2012 The death of Mark Duggan in August last year was followed by four days of riots in London, and later Birmingham and Manchester. While many agreed that the riots were nihilistic, opportunistic ‘mugging’ on a large scale, there is also substantial disagreement as to the meaning of the riots and the reasons...
I run therefore I am!
‘The End of the Race (Running Away From The Race)’ by Dan Travis, 2012. 20pp Reviewed by Jean Smith | 10 October 2012 As an active teenager growing up in the Midlands, I loved field hockey, even though my school team lost most games in the early 1970s. Cross-country running was another story altogether. I was hopeless and dreaded the humiliation of being the last one to walk (not run) across the finish line.There was no camaraderie...
Architectural Olympiad
‘The Stadium’ by Tim Abrahams; Machine Books, 2012. 38pp Reviewed by Josh Broomer | 10 October 2012 ‘These 17 days may have changed this country’. So pronounced the Guardian the morning after Stephen Daldry’s closing ceremony concluded a vibrant festival of sport. The Olympic Stadium in east London provided a fitting setting for a series of memorable track and field achievements from Usain Bolt’s second triple to David...
Spare us from Community Engagement
By Dave Clements | 17 September 2012 What is the meaning of community today, and how it can be meaningfully engaged with? While there is no end of projects tasked with engaging communities, whether this is a meaningful activity or not is a moot point. Indeed, if we stopped trying to engage communities they might actually have a chance to breathe. To my mind, although there may be some well intentioned projects out there, all things...
Keeping it Real in the ‘Fictitious Capital’
By Andrew Calcutt | 9 October 2012 Foolish to judge a whole book on this basis alone; but if the design on the front doesn’t give you the gist of what’s between the covers, its editors should be shot. The front cover of a new book London After Recession depicts the eponymous city as a ‘fictitious capital’, existing in a think-bubble dreamed up by a bowler-hatted gent of possibly Asian extraction. Of course the subtitle ‘a fictitious...
Looking back today
‘Everything Was Moving: Photography from the 60s and 70s’ at the Barbican Art Gallery; 13 Sep 2012 – 13 Jan 2013. Reviewed by Pauline Hadaway | 27 September 2012 From iconic portraits of Dylan, Che and Martin Luther King, to history making shots of civil rights marchers, students on the barricades and draft card burning, many of the images that we think of as defining sixties and seventies radicalism remain part of...
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