Brutalism as Found
Brutalism as Found

Author: Nicholas Thoburn

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-03-19

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1913380033

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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
Robin Hood Gardens Re-visions

Author: Alan Powers

Publisher: Twentieth Century Architecture

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780955668715

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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 It includes contributions by architects Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid, with previously unpublished text and pictures by Alison + Peter Smithson and photographs by Sandra Lousada and Ioana Marinescu.The contributors include Catherine Croft, Alan Powers, Dirk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.

This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City
This Other London: Adventures in the Overlooked City

Author: John Rogers

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2014-04-22

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 0007557183

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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.

Brutal London
Brutal London

Author: Simon Phipps

Publisher: September Publishing

Published: 2017-01-30

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1910463647

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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.

A Way to Garden
A Way to Garden

Author: Margaret Roach

Publisher: Timber Press

Published: 2019-04-30

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1604698772

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“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.

Brutal London
Brutal London

Author: Zupagrafika

Publisher: Prestel Publishing

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783791383002

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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.

Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies
Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies

Author: Danielle Aubert

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781942884408

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Lafayette Park, an affordable middle-class residential area in downtown Detroit, is home to the largest collection of buildings designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the world. Today, it is one of Detroit's most racially integrated and economically stable neighborhoods, although it is surrounded by evidence of a city in financial distress. Through interviews with and essays by residents; reproductions of archival material; and new photographs by Karin Jobst, Vasco Roma, and Corine Vermeulen, and previously unpublished photographs by documentary filmmaker Janine Debanné, Thanks for the View, Mr. Mies examines the way that Lafayette Park residents confront and interact with this unique modernist environment. Lafayette Park has not received the level of international attention that other similar projects by Mies have. This may be due in part to its location in Detroit, a city whose most positive qualities are often overlooked in the media. This book is a reaction against the way that iconic modernist architecture is often represented. Whereas other writers may focus on the design intentions of the architect, authors Aubert, Cavar and Chandani seek to show the organic and idiosyncratic ways that the people who live in Lafayette Park actually use the architecture and how this experience, in turn, affects their everyday lives. While there are many publications about abandoned buildings in Detroit and about the city's prosperous past, this book is about a remarkable part of the city as it exists today, in the twenty-first century.

Alison and Peter Smithson
Alison and Peter Smithson

Author: Mark Crinson

Publisher: Historic England Publishing

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 9781848023529

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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.

Ordinariness and Light
Ordinariness and Light

Author: Alison Margaret Smithson

Publisher: Mit Press

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780262190824

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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.