A is for Architecture Podcast

In Episode 18 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Ola Uduku, Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, University of Liverpool. We speak about two of her books, Learning Spaces in Africa (Routledge, 2018) and Africa Beyond the Post-Colonial (Routledge 2017), a volume she co-edited with Alfred Zack Williams. We talk about the impact of modernity on indigenous modes of dwelling in Africa and ways architectural modernization been experienced there, colonialism and modern architecture's awkward relationship to it, and the ownership of modernity, as a paradigm, a project and an architectural expression.

I met Ola when she was up in Scotland, our paths crossing on the architectural historiography scene, I think. Her work has become increasingly important to me as an educator, as more of my students investigate the modern architectural heritage and culture of Africa.

The two books we spoke about are linked in the text above. Ola's academic profile can be viewed here and her Twitter profile is here.

Happy listening!

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 17 of A is for Architecture, I speak with architect Professor Richard Brook of the Manchester School of Architecture, and creator and curator of the online archive Mainstream Modern. We talk about Manchester, its renewal and redevelopment in the postwar years, and the strategic, cultural and creative visions that underpinned its shift to a postindustrial city.

I met Richard through a mutual friend, Bob Proctor, whilst working as Bob's research assistant on a project about postwar churches. Richard's encyclopaedic knowledge of the context and details of British modernism, particularly in the north of England, opened my eyes to a rich and largely ignored seam of ordinary and everyday architectural modernism, and the hopeful, utopian visions that underpinned it.

Mainstream Modern: mainstreammodern.co.uk

Manchester School of Architecture: rbrook 

Instagram: @mainstream_modern 

Happy listening!

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Music by Bruno Gillick.

www.aisforarchitecture.org/ instagram/ twitter/ facebook

In Episode 16 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Johnny Rodger, Professor of Urban Literature in the Mackintosh School of Architecture at the Glasgow School of Art. We discuss his new book, Key Essays: Mapping the Contemporary in Literature and Culture, published by Routledge in 2021. The written essay has a key role in the education of architects and designers, so understanding its function is a worthwhile endeavour. Johnny addresses this, discussing the essay’s identity as a distinct literary form and its function as a critical practice and academic activity. We also touch on ideas of performativity, the capacity of language to effect change in the world, and the idea of ‘the contemporary’.

I worked alongside Johnny when up in Glasgow at the School of Art, at an inflection point it now seems, in that fine place. It was good to have him there then, to teach me how to teach and to give me a foot up, which he did. He is a prolific writer, so seek out his other works, and see him lecture live if you can.

For more on Johnny:

w. gsa.ac.uk/johnny_rodger

w. thedrouth.org

Cheers.

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 15 of A is for Architecture, I speak with artists and writer Liam Gillick. We start with concrete, move to St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross by Gillespie Kidd and Coia and then sort of let it run, discussing the architectural qualities - spatial and programmatic and critical - of his work. We touch on three pieces Liam has written - Should Be, We Lived and Thought Like Pigs and Why Work? – and talk about the value of art education as an exercise in learning to see. And a lot of other things.

liamgillick.info

Other things:

Enjoy.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 14 of A is for Architecture, I spoke with Scottish Architect, Malcolm Fraser, founder and director of Fraser/ Livingstone Architects, based in Edinburgh. We talk about sustainability in the context of culture and place, an important nuance in the face of the bulldozer of one-size-fits-all eco-technic sustainability agendas, elegantly expressed by the nonsense of jet-fuelled COP26. We discuss Malcolm's pieces, Architecture and the Wee Blue Ball and Green Virtues, Green Shoots, and discuss an alternative approach to sustainability which foregrounds people, history and tradition and the accommodation of, or even the promotion of, the intricacies of everyday life, through careful engagement with reality, and judicious uses of good materials.

I first met Malcolm when he came to give a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art, one of the last I saw in the old Mackintosh Lecture Theatre there. Sat on the narrow wooden pews in that amazing room, Malcolm, in a kilt, was a bit of a special presence to a sassenach like me. You can watch that here. Another video worth a sticky is A Wee Nation and an Architecture of Belonging.

For more on Malcolm's practice:

Enjoy.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In Episode 13 of A is for Architecture, I speak with John Letherland, urbanist, masterplanner and director of John Letherland Ltd. John was a founding partner of Farrells, having worked alongside Sir Terry Farrell for 35 years, before setting up his own firm. I work alongside John at the Kent School of Architecture & Planning, where until recently, John ran the urban design Masters programme, MAUD.

In this episode, we speak about the nature and character of urban design and masterplanning as distinct disciplines, related to – and obviously complimentary to - but fundamentally different from architecture. We touch on urban design’s core functions and how it is enacted, discuss its relationship to community, and the natural, organic processes of development common to non-formal and less formal urban spaces. Of course, we also talk about how it should – but isn’t often – taught.

John’s KSAP profile can be seen here and his LinkedIn profile is here. Our conversation was informed by two particular documents, the first an article by David Rudlin called ‘What is it about architects and urbanism?’ which attempts to explain to architects the difference between architecture and urbanism; and the second, the Canterbury Campus Masterplan (‘The Framework Masterplan for the Canterbury campus’) for the University of Kent which John wrote for the University in April 2019, finalised in Oct 2019, particularly Chapter 5.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p8d9t7p

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/3va6a6b3

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In this, the twelfth episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Hana Loftus, co-director of HAT Projects, architect and town planner and Engagement and Communications Lead at the Greater Cambridge Shared Planning Service and Chair of Creative Colchester. HAT Projects are an Essex-based architecture, design and strategy practice. Hana’s role as planner-architect is rare and valuable, offering specific insights into a process often seen as opaque and arbitrary for design professionals. We speak about this, the whys and wherefores of planning as it intersects with the practice of architecture, and ways the discipline might (or should) open up to enable fairer and more just outcomes.

I met Hana many years ago, when we were both students (at rather different schools…) and have been ever impressed by the varied career in architecture, making, building, teaching, speaking, writing, theatre, and now planning she has carved out.

Hana’s writing can be read at virtualhana.blogspot and her Twitter is here. Follow this, to hear Hana speak at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014, as part of the Mackintosh School of Architecture’s Friday Lecture series.

Happy listening!

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Music by Bruno Gillick.

www.aisforarchitecture.org/ Instagram/ twitter/ facebook

In Episode 11 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Anne Marie Galmstrup, director of Galmstrup Architects, London, about local identity, the social practice of architectural design, and the tangible and intangible, which should be at the heart of the processes and outputs of the design of good places.

I met Anne Marie at the 2018 Venice architecture biennale. I was still director of Baxendale with Lee Ivett at the time, so was either helping make the Scottish collateral project or drinking *coffee*. Anne Marie and I spoke about it all - Freespace, community, identity and participation - themes close to both of our practice - and kept in touch. 

Watch Anne Marie's residency 'Time for play' with the V&A , and her project Imaginations Cross Cultures, a non-profit which seeks to foster cross cultural understanding between young people through co-creation. 

As ever, thanks for listening. Like, subscribe, follow and share, of course. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Facebook too.

Happy listening.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 10 of A is for Architecture, I speak with the architects and educators Maggie Ma, assistant professor of Architecture at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Mark Kingsley, who collectively run the Hong Kong-based not-for-profit architecture practice, Domat. We discuss their work in detail, focusing on the social production of community spaces, particularly for lower-incomed and informal people. 

I first met Mark at Sheffield School of Architecture when we both studied in Doina Petrescu's Unit 2, an educational moment which has had a lasting impact on both our careers, orientating us (I think) towards the social capacity and identity of architecture and its production. Through Mark I got to meet Maggie and have watched as their expertise has moved from paper to the real world of practice and enactment. 

Domat can be found here: https://www.domat.hk/; Maggie's academic profile is here: http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/person/ma-kit-yi-maggie/

Happy listening.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick

In Episode 9 of A is for Architecture, I speak with Robert Adam, architect, urban designer, author, and visiting professor of urban design at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, about his work in the fields of classical and traditional design. We discuss his mode of practice, outputs and built work in relation to accepted ideas of architectural and spatial modernism, the value of tradition for architecture and urbanism, and the problem of authenticity in the twenty-first century.

I first met Robert in Glasgow, when he came to give a talk for the students. We went to a restaurant beforehand, where the menu was, appropriately, written in a sort-of hybrid neo vernacular Scots patois, which we didn’t understand. I think we both got fried egg on rice.

Robert’s practice can be found here and his former one here. He’s on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/classical_man?lang=en-gb. His book, Time for Architecture: On Modernity, Memory and Time in Architecture and Urban Design is available via the publishers; his discussion piece ‘Modernism has become a tradition’, was published in the RIBA Journal (13 February 2020).

Enjoy.

www.aisforarchitecture.org

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Music credits: Bruno Gillick