ISIS: The mad residue of the war on terror
How did this barbaric offshoot of a terror network many thought was becoming obsolete gain what looks like such a sudden ascendency?
In defence of a Defence of Stars and Icons
We need a more journalistic nuance as well as hard-hitting intelligent critique.
3-d Printed houses?
In February 2015, The Washington Post announced that “a team of Chinese construction workers used a 3D printer to construct houses. By day’s end, there were 10 (houses) standing.” Meanwhile, UK newspaper The Guardian reported “A Chinese construction company is building houses that can be mass-produced using a 3D printer.” Not to be outdone, Time magazine claimed that “A Chinese company (had) unveiled a five-story apartment building...
The Evolution of a Modern Man
Matt Bloomfield | 17 March 2015 Review of Mackintosh Architecture, The Architecture Gallery, RIBA Conveniently coinciding with Prince Charles’ latest foray into Architecture, the RIBA’s Mackintosh Architecture exhibition expertly illustrates the third way between historic pastiche and bland commercialisation. The exhibition brings together Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s work from his early days as an apprentice at...
House: The Dematerialized Home
Nicolò Lewanski | 17 February 2015 It is not so often we have the chance to attend a debate where every speaker is precise. When we do it is a pleasure, and such was the case last month when some of the contributors featured in the book SQM: The Quantified Home spoke at the Architectural Association (AA) in London. Produced for the 2014 Biennale Interieur, this project aims to launch a new discussion on the present and the future of...
The Art of Memory
Jane Sandeman | 02 February 2015 Review of ‘Suspended Sentences’ by Patrick Modiano “A Marcel Proust of our time” was how the Nobel Academy described Patrick Modiano, the French novelist who received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature, an award for conferring ‘the greatest benefit to mankind’. Given only a handful of his 25-odd novels have so far been translated into English, Modiano is not exactly well-known in the...
Film Review ‘The Big City’
Martin Earnshaw | 25 January 2015 The Big City (1963), directed by Satyajit Ray, is essentially a story of modernity. The superb opening scene traces the passage of a tram cable as it winds its way through Calcutta, a city which in the 1950s and 60s could be considered as India’s foremost modern city. Although this old Imperial Capital was soon to be eclipsed by Mumbai, at that moment, to be at the forefront of change was to be in...
The fatuous infatuation with well-being
Further to a TES article “Schools should appoint heads of well-being, charity says“, I tracked back the report being cited… then the citation of the citation of the citation within it. Here’s what I found. First of all, what is the TES doing uncritically reporting that “75% of mental illness is unreported”. What could that possibly mean? At best it is a projection, at worst it is guesswork. The actual survey...
Film Review: ‘City Visions’ #6
Matthew Bloomfield | 7 January 2015 The Airstrip: Decampment of Modernism, Part III. Dir. Heinz Emigholz, 2014 Heinz Emigholz’s ongoing meditation on architecture continues in this feature length piece, composed around the metaphor of a falling bomb. Between the time that the bomb is released and the time that it explodes, there exists a duality where the target remains intact but is doomed to destruction. What the audience...
Film Review: ‘Precise Poetry’
Louise Bjørnskov Schmidt | 05 January 2015 “I’m an architect! I can’t go through walls! I’m not a witch! All I can do with walls is break them down.” This quote by Lina Bo Bardi is not to be understood literally; Bo Bardi did not break many physical walls since she designed only a few buildings through her career. Still, Bo Bardi is today increasingly recognised as one of the most important architects in...
Listen in
Next meeting
Publications
NEW TITLE
