A is for Architecture Podcast

By Ambrose GillickArts Design

A is for Architecture Podcast episodes

January 17, 2024 John Pawson: Minimalist architecture.
In Episode 19/3 of A is for Architecture, John Pawson speaks about his design education, work, ethos and practice. John is recognised as the preeminent minimalist architect of the age, with work including Calvin Klein shops, St John at Hackney Church (2020), the Abbey of Our Lady of Nový Dvůr, Czech Republic (2004) the Moritzkirche, Augsburg (2013) and the Sackler Crossing at Kew (2006). Last year, a new book was published on John’s work – John Pawson: Making Life Simpler, published by Phaidon, and written by Deyan Sudjic. His 1996 book, Minimum, was something like a phenomenon.
You can find John on Instagram, and on his practice website.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube and Facebook .
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
1 hr 8 min
January 11, 2024 Dana Cuff: Architecture and spatial justice.
In Season 3, Episode 18 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠ Dana Cuff speaks about her recent book, ⁠Architectures of Spatial Justice⁠, published by MIT Press last year. Dana is Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and founding director of cityLAB, both at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Architectures of Spatial Justice ‘examines ethically driven practices that break with professional conventions to correct long-standing inequities in the built environment, uncovering architecture's limits—and its potential.’ The book builds on Dana’s founding of cityLAB in 2006, ‘a research and design center that initiates experimental projects to explore metropolitan possibilities’ and which ‘leverages design, research, policy, and education to create more just urban futures with real impacts for communities in Los Angeles and beyond’, including through coLAB, and in partnership with community organisations.
Dana also founded and runs UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative which offers students from ‘architecture, urban studies, and the humanities a radical platform for crossdisciplinary, impactful, urban scholarship and action’, and which she wrote about in Urban Humanities: New Practices for Reimagining the City (MIT Press, 2020).
You can find some of Dana’s various books via the hyperlinks in the text above, all via the MIT Press website. Dana can be found here on the UCLA site, and here on X/ Twitter. cityLAB can be gotten on Instagram here. There’s a good piece by Dana – ‘Why would architects let themselves be so vitiated?’ on Dezeen, laying into The Line here.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, YouTube and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
51 min
January 03, 2024 Rob Fiehn: London’s futures
Episode 17/3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠, is a conversation with ⁠Rob Fiehn⁠, writer, communications consultant, Director of the ⁠London Society⁠ and Chair of the ⁠Museum of Architecture⁠, about the London Society’s 2023 London of the Future book, a collection of essays by experts from various disciplines – ‘engineering, urbanism, architecture, manufacturing, futurology, journalism and more’ – speculating on ‘how the metropolis might be governed, organized and designed in the years to come.’
London of the Future is a plush publication, as you would expect, full of smart ideas and lovely images. It follows 102 years on from the London Society’s original publication of the same name when, ‘under the editorship of the architect Sir Aston Webb [it] published a collection of essays […] some rather more futuristic than others.’ (Gilbert, D. (2004). London of the Future: The Metropolis Reimagined after the Great War. ⁠Journal of British Studies⁠).
2023’s edition is futuristic indeed, but not sci-fi. There are ideas that, without too much effort - or perhaps not any effort at all - may well come to pass.
You can find the book on Merrell’s website here, and on the London Society website here. Rob professional alter ego is here, and he is on X here, LinkedIn here and Instagram too.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon
Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
YouTube: youtube/channel
49 min
December 27, 2023 Petra Marko: Placemaking for the city.
In Episode 16/3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠, I spoke with the architect Petra Marko, director of ⁠Marko & Placemakers⁠, creative director of visual communication company ⁠Milk⁠ and now Director of the ⁠Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava⁠, about her work, placemaking as an urban development approach and the role of temporary or meanwhile interventions as mechanisms for producing good, sustainable urban spaces with clear identity. All this is beautifully described in her recent publication - and the stimulus for our conversation - Meanwhile City: How temporary interventions create welcoming places with a strong identity, published by ⁠Milk⁠ in 2022.
Petra can be found can be found on the above websites, and on Instagram and LinkedIn. The book, Meanwhile City, can be found both via the Milk website to purchase, but also as a PDF to download here.
Petra is a good speaker, so get set and listen.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
1 hr 3 min
December 20, 2023 Annette Fierro: Utopia, machines, Archigram and the High Tech.
In Episode 15, Season 3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠’s, Annette Fierro speaks about her book, Architectures of the Technopolis: Archigram and the British High Tech, published by ⁠Lund Humphries⁠ in November.
High Tech has been the dominant style of British architecture for many decades, delivered in vast visions and buildings, in the work of acclaimed and revered designers like Richard Rodgers and Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Terry Farrell, often in partnership with visionary engineers, particularly Ove Arup and Buro Happold. Growing off the back of a longstanding discourse, with roots in the utopic visions of early modernity, High Tech took its inspiration particularly from both the subversive, radical and audacious dream-worlds described in the design work of Cedric Price and Archigram, where the possibility of architecture-as-machine was deployed to deliver a civic, egalitarian, dramatic and joyful urban experience, one at once democratic and liberated, but also in the deep discontents in the failures of the dreich modernism of the postwar years.
Annette can be found on the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design website here, where she serves as Associate Professor, on Instagram here, and on LinkedIn here. You can buy the book on the Lund Humphries website.
Annette’s great, so have a listen. The book is well lush too.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon
Music and YouTube.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
48 min
December 13, 2023 Rowan Moore: The social house.
In Episode 14/3 of ⁠A is for Architecture⁠’s, Rowan Moore speaks about his recent book, ⁠Property: The Myth the Built the World⁠, published by ⁠Faber & Faber⁠ this year.
Rowan is the architecture critic at the Observer, and has previously published Why We Build (Picador/ Pan Macmillan, 2012), Anatomy of a Building (Little, Brown, 2014) and Slow Burn City: London in the Twenty-First Century (Picador/ Pan Macmillan, 2016).
According to the publisher’s gloss, Property ‘asks how we have come to view our homes as investments – and […] offers hope for how things could be better, with reform that might enable the social wealth of property to be returned to society’. One wonders, though, given modernity qua modernity, if this doesn’t amount to a petition for a new society.
Rowan is here on Twitter, and his Observer profile is here. You can get Property online at the Faber & Faber website.
Good, wholesome fun. Have a listen and see for yourself.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
Youtube: youtube.studio
59 min
December 06, 2023 Juhani Pallasmaa: Architecture, time and the five senses.
In the 13th episode of A is for Architecture’s third series, I spoke with the remarkable architect and writer, Juhani Pallasmaa, former professor of architecture and dean at the Helsinki University of Technology, now incorporated as Aalto University.
Pallasmaa’s work has been of huge importance to architects now active in the transformation of our towns and cities, with his description of a tactile, material and immanent embodiment visible in the work of almost all good, urban work now being built. His written work particularly stands, in a way, in counterpoint to the superficial and the visual, that occularcentric tendency born of late capitalist starcitecture, and the preferencing of the image over depth and the experiential. Central to our discussion were two of Pallasmaa’s great works – The Eyes of the Skin (John Wiley & Sons, 1996) and The Thinking Hand (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), both of which are worthy of continued study. You can listen to Jonathan Hale speak about Juhani’s inspiration, the phenomenologist philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, on A is for Architecture here.
Before he and I recorded this episode, Juhani had received a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Paimio Sanatorium Foundation, at the Sanitorium itself, where he also gave a talk entitled "The Ethical Meaning of Architecture: The relational and existential essence of art".
A joy and an undeserved privilege, getting to speak to a hero like this.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
55 min
November 29, 2023 Keller Easterling: Object/ People/ System/ Design
In Series 3’s 12th episode of A is for Architecture I spoke with architect, writer, and thinker Keller Easterling, Enid Storm Dwyer Professor and Director of the MED Program at Yale University, about her 2021 book, Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World, published by Verso.
To quote James Graham in the Journal of Architectural Education, ‘Medium Design emerged into a world marked by […] a growing desire for change within the architectural profession. […] Is Medium Design the closing bracket of the 2010s in architectural theory, or a hinge between the “before” and the “after”’. It’s a good question, which Easterling’s book begins to dissect, recognising the language on which the discipline has grown dependent, proposing action in its stead.
Medium Design: Knowing How to Work on the World is available on the Verso website – it’s quite affordable. Keller’s Yale profile is here, and her personal website here. You can watch Keller talk about the work at ETH Zurich in a lecture from a year ago here.
Words, words, words, said sharp Hamlet. Well listen, and find out.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
44 min
November 22, 2023 Chris Dyson & Dominic Bradbury: Making history modern.
In episode 11, series 3 of A is for Architecture I spoke with architect Chris Dyson, principal of Chris Dyson Architects, and Dominic Bradbury, about his (their) new book, Chris Dyson Architects: Tradition and Modernity, published by Lund Humphries this year.
Chris Dyson Architects’ practice has a reputation for sensitive modern work in historic contexts, which the book documents, describing in text and lovely images what the blurb says is the practice’s works’ ‘overriding sense of different elements – be they material, temporal or cultural – coming together into coherent wholes [making] architecture that feels old and new at the same time.’
Chris Dyson Architects: Tradition and Modernity is available on the Lund Humphries website here. Chris’ practice website is here, Instagram here, X here and LinkedIn here. There are a few nice bits online with Chris, such as this profile in Building Design here, and a couple of videos on YouTube - Architects at Home and one on preserving and enhancing the heritage of The Goodsyard here. Dominic’s website is here; he has written a huge number of books on material culture, which are certainly worth a look. His Instagram is here, LinkedIn here, and X here.
Old-new. What a fusion, as Jacques Lu Cont almost put it.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
1 hr 1 min
November 15, 2023 Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen: Urban agriculture as design
In A is for Architecture’s Episode 10/3 Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen – architects, academics and activists – speak about their work on urban agriculture, specifically the idea’s they developed in CPULs Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: Designing Urban Agriculture for Sustainable Cities, published by Elsiever in 2005, developed and represented in Second Nature Urban Agriculture: Designing Productive Cities, published by Routledge in 2014, and which won the 2015 RIBA President's Award for Outstanding University-located Research.
CPULs are part of Bohn and Viljoen’s proposal for ‘a resilient urban entity […] that enables sustainable urban food systems for the pleasure of its individual citizens and the benefits of environment, economy, culture and society as a whole.’ It’s pretty wild as an idea, and a provocation (perhaps), but it might also be the future, one of universal rights to good food, clean air, open space and healthy, collective, vigorous physical labour in the metropolis. And that’s before you even get to work.
You can find Bohn & Viljoen’s practice website here where there are links to many useful resources, and links to CPULs is here and Second Nature is here. Andre’s profile at University of Brighton is here, and Katrin’s here. They also linger marginally in the socialmediasphere: you can find Andre on LinkedIn, and Katrin on LinkedIn, too.
Yummy cities for the win.
Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.
Thanks for listening.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
Music credits: Bruno Gillick
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
aisforarchitecture.org
Apple: podcasts.apple.com
Spotify: open.spotify.com
Google: podcasts.google.com
Amazon: music.amazon.co.uk
1 hr 5 min

About A is for Architecture Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Explore the world of architecture with the A is for Architecture Podcast hosted by Ambrose Gillick. Through conversations with designers, scholars and practitioners, Ambrose unpacks the creative and theoretical dimensions of architecture. Whether you're a professional, student, or design enthusiast, the A is for Architecture Podcast offers the best insights into how buildings shape society and society shapes buildings. To keep it free and good, subscribe to the podcast on Patreon.