About Buildings + Cities

The 1990s were when computers really entered the mainstream of architecture. The rise of personal computing, with wider access to inexpensive machines, the world wide web, advances in software and hardware, all took place against the background of global political transformation that at the time was theorised as the End of History, the breakup of the Soviet Union, democratisation, and the apparent rise of a single, global, liberal capitalist world order. But the exploration of CAD, rendering, generative design and CNC manufacture would all be theorised through a pre-existing set of ideas and agendas, drawing heavily on ‘French theory’ — Derrida, (and particularly) Deleuze — and a partially pre-digested blend of complexity mathematics. We find ourselves — among the blobs, deformed surfaces, landscapes and evolutionary forms — in a world of ‘affective singularities’, ‘the Fold’, pliancy, Catastrophe Theory… We talk technology, key actors, and attempt a glossary of key concepts… Under discussion —  — Frank Gehry’s fish sculpture — Revit / BIM — The F117 and B2 defense projects — Peter Eisenman — John Frazer — MIT Computer Lab — the Bilbao Guggenheim — Cardiff opera house — Yokohama ferry terminal — NOX’s Freshwater and Saltwater pavilions — The Affective — Catastrophe Theory — D’Arcy Thompson — The Fold — Singularity — Max Reinhardt Haus — Phallogocentrism & Helene Cixous Recordings are from Peter Eisenman’s Lecture ‘Architecture in the Age of Electronic Media’ (1993) (AA archive)[https://www.aaschool.ac.uk//VIDEO/lecture.php?ID=737] Music — Lee Rosevere ‘Quizitive’ Lee Rosevere ‘Curiosity’ Lee Rosevere ‘Thoughtful’ all from (Free Music Archive)[freemusicarchive.org] Clips of —  Awesome 3 ‘Don’t Go’ (1992) Liquid ‘Sweet Harmony’ (1992) 2 Bad Mice ‘Bombscare’ (1992) M.A.N.I.C ‘I’m Coming Hardcore’ (Original Mix) (1991) Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode. Projects like the Villa Stein and Villa Savoye are icons of modernist architecture — among the most famous of all modern buildings — images and symbols of what modern architecture is. Below all the machine age crispness, there's also a certain amount of weird bourgeois sex stuff as well. This is the second part of the conversation we began in episode 37 — it's best to listen to that one first. Music —  'Easy Living' Bob Howard and his Orchestra from archive.org Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We now have a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanerret's 'Five Points' (1926) were an attempt to condense the fundamental structural and design principles underlying their new architecture. Drawing on the discoveries made during design and construction of their early villa projects, the points are in a sense the culmination and fulfillment of the original 'Maison Domino' idea of 1914. The points set the template for the most famous 'Purist' villas of the later 1920s, culminating in the Villas Stein-La Monzie and Savoye, icons of what became the 'International Style.' This episode started off as a single chat but there was too much so we've split it. We discuss —  — Villa Church (need photos of spaces) — Pierre Chenal's film 'L'architecture d'aujourd'hui' — Five points towards a new architecture — Villa Meyer — Villa Ocampo — Ramps — Villa Cook Music — 'Modern Design' Johnny Messner And His Orchestra from archive.org Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

We’re launching a Patreon — you can subscribe to get additional content for every episode. Bernard Rudofsky’s exhibition Architecture Without Architects at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1964 — and the fantastically successful book which followed it, have become an iconic polemic in support of the architectural ‘vernacular’. Ever-keen to play up his own iconoclastic distance from mainstream of architectural thought, Rudofsky would later claim that the idea was, at the time he proposed it, ‘simply not respectable.’ In hindsight though, the exhibition actually fits very clearly within a broader ‘return’ to an image of architecture’s pre-industrial roots among the postwar avant gardes all over the world. Architecture Without Architects definition of vernacular architecture is (typically) idiosyncratic. It contains more or less everything outside the canon of architectural history, and free from entanglement in industrial supply chains. There are 3000-year-old rock dwellings, bamboo houses under construction. The images in the catalogue are carefully paired — the hollowed-out tufa pinnacles of Göreme in Turkey above a village of Apulian trulli — each one an ingenious conical pile of stones around a pitched circular chamber — mountains above and below. But what matters is that these houses, towns, and structures, the anonymous creations of these isolated and anonymous designers are presented, in the clarifying light of black and white photography, as a window into a world outside the prison of modernity — organic, communally unified and bizarrely and daringly creative. We’re talking about Architecture Without Architects within the context of Rudofsky’s polymathic, crankish, sarcastic and wholly inimitable vision and career. Music —  Eddie Dunstedter — ‘Dancing Tambourine (Pandereta)’ Dick McDonough and his Orchestra — ‘My Cabin of Dreams’ from archive.org Athenian Mandolin Quartet — ‘Cacliz March’ Chris Zabriskie — ‘The Dark Glow of Mountains’ From the Free Music Archive Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Jacques Tati's 'Mon Oncle' (1957) and 'Playtime' (1967) playfully dramatise the clash between old and new in the fast-changing cities of post-war France. Nostalgia, alienation, the absurdity of modern life and work, play, rhythm, rebellion and the curious affordances of materials and everyday items... serious fun, with silly noises. Hope you're all enjoying the summer weather and speak soon! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Adolf Loos’s essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ (1910) is considered the classic modernist polemic against the frills and folderols of the established arts of the day. We're in the city of Freud — and the neurotic subtext is very close to the surface. We discuss a little of Loos’s career as an architectural iconoclast, jersey fanatic, and pervert :-/ Then we go on to a more freeform discussion of ornament in the contemporary, during which we massively contradict ourselves several times. We discussed —  Freud Nietzsche Hegel Darwin Louis Sullivan Mrs Beeton English Free Building — Hermann Muthesius Peter Behrens Karl Friedrich Schinkel Joseph Maria Olbrich Henry van der Velde Joseph Hoffmann Josephine Baker’s 'Banana Dance' The black granite bathroom at Villa Karma (On the subject of reprehensible characters) Albert Speer Contemporary ornamenters —  Caruso St John Farshid Moussavi & her book on facades Music —  Victor Sylvester and his Ballroom Orchestra ‘Vienna, City of my Dreams’ The Three Suns ‘Alt Wien’ (1949) Philharmonic Orchestra Berlin ‘Von Wien durch die Welt' Oldbrig's zither trio ‘Wien bliebt Wien’ All from archive.org Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

In this episode we explore in two early schemes for mass housing, at Pessac and in Stuttgart. Among many other things, we talked about — Bourneville New Lanark - Arnold circus - Bruno taut’s horseshoe estate - Pessac - Henri Frugès - The Weissenhofseidlung - Margarete Schutte-Lihotsky - Hannes Meyer’s essay ‘The New World’ Music & Interlude — Harry Ross ‘Get Me an Apartment - Part 1’ from archive.org Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The concluding part of our discussion of ‘Urbanism’ (1925) — we look at the proposals for a Contemporary City for Three Million (1923), and the notorious Plan Voisin (1925). For Le Corbusier’s detractors, these are really the crimes of the century. We did our best to think of something nice to say about them. Music — Dave Gabriel ‘Midst of their morning chimes’ Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Nobody Here’ Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The first of a two part episode exploring Le Corbusier’s infamous and much-derided urban proposals, exhibited in the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion in 1925. In this part, we’re conducting a close reading of ‘Urbanism’ (sometimes known as ‘The City of Tomorrow and its Planning’). We mostly stayed on topic but there are allusions to Camillo Sitte Augustus Welby Pugin’s ‘Comparisons’ Music — Glass Boy ‘WELP’ Lovira ‘All Things Considered’ Loyalty Freak Music ‘Once More With You’ and ‘Waiting TTTT’ Three Chain Links ‘Heavy Traffic’ All from the Free Music Archive Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Franz Kafka’s first, and least-finished, novel is an imaginary journey around the USA (a country he never visited). Written in 1912, it’s a fantasy of America at a time when seemed, to Europeans at least, to be the most futuristic (and mysterious) place on Earth. Kafka’s fascination with machinery, technology and engineering is on display in ‘Amerika’, in which the young Karl Rossmann finds himself cut adrift in a land of glass elevators, miles-long traffic jams, endless hotels, filled with delirious extremes of luxury, poverty and inventiveness. The edition we read is the current Penguin translation by Michael Hoffman. We made brief reference to Joseph Roth, and to Neuromancer’s ‘Villa Straylight’. Thanks for listening and Happy New Year! Music: David Rose and his Orchestra / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1946) archive.org Felix Arndt / Anton Dvorak ‘Humoresque’ (1917) at archive.org Dvorak, Casals, Szell, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra ‘Cello Concerto’ I / II (1937) archive.org Dvorak, Szell, Cleveland Orchestra ’Slavonic Dances’ 2, 4 & 5 (1947) archive.org Efrem Zimbalist; Sam Chotzinoff; Zimbalist ‘Hebrew Melody and Dance’ (1912) archive.org Riccardo Martin; Dvorak; Victor Orchestra ‘Als die alte Mutter’ (1910) archive.org Ukrainska Orchestra Pawla Humeniuka ‘Kozak-Trepak’ from the Free Music Archive Jack Perry & the Light Crust Doughboys ‘Oklahoma Waltz’ (1947) youtube Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebook We’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.org This podcast is powered by Pinecast.