The mantownhuman debates
Challenging the Orthodoxies 1: ‘Architecture & Climate Change’, 25 March 2010 Reportback by Austin Williams The first in the series of mantownhuman debates – held at BDP and sponsored by BD – got off to a fiery start with a row about “Architecture and Climate Change”. My opening provocation concentrated on the way that the climate change discourse blames humanity for its consumption patterns, leading...
The Mayor who set his sights low
Karl Sharro | 27 February 2010 Boris Johnson has made a virtue of opposing the construction of towers in London. One of his first appointees was former Westminster Council leader Simon Milton, a fierce critic of towers, who was named chief advisor on planning days after Boris took office. The hype that surrounded this appointment and Boris’ anti-tower policy claimed that under Ken Livingstone London was on its way to becoming...
Two Cases for the (Floods) Defence
‘Atlas of the New Dutch Water Defence Line’ (010 Publishers) & ‘Facing up to rising sea levels (Building Futures, RIBA) Reviewed by Austin Williams | February 2010 Contrary to the implication in its title, the Atlas of the New Dutch Water Defence Line has nothing to do with global warming and flood management. The book is a historical assessment of the network of watercourses known as the Nieuwe Hollandse...
Reflecting on Britain’s New Towns
‘Britain’s New Towns: Garden Cities to Sustainable Communities’ by Anthony Alexander; Taylor & Francis, 2009. 199pp Reviewed by Alastair Donald | 21 October 2009 When Ebenezer Howard, clerk, utopian thinker, inventor and spiritualist, attended a séance in 1926, he received this message from his first wife: “You have accomplished more than you know”. It’s unclear what the former Mrs Howard thinks of the New Town...
Building Resilience
‘The Everyday Resilience of the City: How Cities Respond to Terrorism and Disaster’ by J. Coaffee, D. Murkami-Wood and P. Rogers; Palgrave/Macmillan, 2008. 304pp Reviewed by Alastair Donald | 28 September 2009 Whether through ecological breakdown, terrorism, pandemics or crime, cities are now widely perceived as permanently ‘under threat’. Consequently, creating ‘resilience’ has become a key concept in public policy, and...
“Carbon psychosis”
Austin Williams | 24 September 2009 On the 70th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s death (23 September 2009), it is tragic to realise that many people are still debilitated by the affliction known as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Freud characterised it as Obsessive Neurosis. Others describe OCD – a disorder that compels a person to commit ritualistic actions – as a physiological disorder caused by neurological triggering...
Dongtan: the eco-city that never was
Austin Williams | August 2009 It was nice while it lasted, but now, it seems, the dream is over. The long-awaited, much-feted eco-city of Dongtan – described by environmental campaigner, Herbert Girardet as ‘the world’s first eco-city’ – has bitten the dust. After four years of presentations, proposals and puff, the universal praise has proven to be a little premature. Dongtan, a new city development (three quarters the size of...
Non-Public Public Space
Austin Williams | August 2009 Is there such a thing as Communist architecture? Well just as we only really ascribe the label “capitalist architecture” to the high-rise corporate edifices of Westernized democracies – from New York’s ill-fated Twin Towers to Cesar Pelli’s Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur – so the phrase “communist architecture” encapsulates similar political parodies. Typically, “communist architecture” attaches itself...
EXHIBITION: Andrea Palladio
‘Andrea Palladio: His life and legacy’ at the Royal Academy of Arts, London Reviewed by Austin Williams | 5 February 2009 Palladio is one of those figures of architectural history generally known more by name than output, and so it is interesting – and curious – that there is currently such a concentrated focus on his work. Two exhibitions: one online and one gallery-based, explore his life and work and have...
Dan Dare or Dan Daren’t
Austin Williams | 3 October 2008 Whatever happened to the jet-pack; the monorail; the personalised Lear jet; Maglev taxis; automated highways; long-haul flights by space shuttle? All of these strange and wonderful transport ideas were commonplace Utopian ambitions for the future as seen by the Sixties’ generation. Most of them were even technologically possible back then. Today, if there is ever mention of anything so fanciful, it...
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