The uncivil civility of Richard Rogers
By Richard J Williams | 31 July 2013 The idea of ‘civility’ crops up a lot at Richard Rogers’s exhibition. It’s there right from the start in a room decked out in orange vinyl, with a series of panels laying out Rogers’s ‘ethos’. In practice, it’s most clearly represented in Rogers’s non-architectural work, such as his chairmanship of the New Labour government’s Urban Task Force (1999), his work as London’s architecture ‘tsar’ for...
Dear Chris…
This is a series of letters between Chris Twinn, Arup Fellow & Senior Sustainability Consultant in Shanghai; and Austin Williams of FCP, after the publication of Williams’ article in China Daily (here) Dear Austin Having read your article in the China Daily criticising sustainability and sustainability consultants, I would like to say that I agree there are there are too many Western consultants peddling low level...
Of Pens and Tents: The Jaipur Literature Festival ’13
By Mrinalini Shinde | 13 February 2013 “What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn’t happen much, though.” – J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye) Maybe not being terrific friends, and exchanging phone numbers, but from a personal viewpoint, the most...
How Many Times Has the World Ended?
By Alastair Donald | 08 February 2013 You may recall that the world should have ended recently, on December 21, 2012, to be precise. As it rather smugly reported on the preparations being made around the world for the coming apocalypse, the Guardian reminded us that the Maya Long Count calendar read ‘13.0.0.0.0’ (‘thirteen b’aktun’) for the first time in 5,125 years, and this it was believed by some,...
Military Urbanism?
‘Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism’ by Stephen Graham; Verso, 2011. 402pp Reviewed by Austin Williams | 18 December 2012 Urban transformation has often been considered to be a virtue, but some view it differently; as a source of instability and conflict. The United Nations calls cities “dynamic centres of creativity, commerce and culture” but adds that they are “better known for their chaos and grime”....
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,...
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...
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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