A is for Architecture Podcast

Ambrose Gillick
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Feb 14, 2024 • 56min

Mark Jarzombek: Design, discipline, labour, craft.

Episode 23/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Mark Jarzombek about his recent book, Architecture Constructed: Notes on a Discipline, published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The book presents ‘the long-suppressed conflict between […] between those who design, and those who build. [Jarzombek] reveals architecture to be a troubled, interconnected realm, incomplete and unstable, where labor, craft, and occupation are the 'invisible' complements to the work of the architect [and] pushes the boundaries on how we define the professional discipline of architecture’. Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT. He Instagrams and LinkedIns. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick
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Feb 7, 2024 • 1h 1min

Swati Chattopadhyay: Making empire everyday.

In Episode 22 of Series 3 of A is for Architecture, architectural historian, Swati Chattopadhyay discusses her 2023 book, Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire, published by Bloomsbury. ‘With the focus of history so often on the large scale - global trade networks, vast regions, and architectures of power and domination - Small Spaces shows instead how we need to rethink this aura of magnitude so that our reading is not beholden such imperialist optics [and] is a must-read for anyone wishing to decolonize disciplinary practices in the field of architectural, urban, and colonial history.’ Swati is Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara and can be found professionally there.  Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. Thanks for listening. +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick
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Jan 31, 2024 • 49min

Jim Stephenson (with Sofia Smith): Photography, architecture and everyday life.

In Episode 21/3 of A is for Architecture, filmmaker and architectural photographer Jim Stephenson discusses his work, his method and his inspirations. Jim and Sofia Smith are currently exhibiting their work ‘The Architect has Left the Building’ at The Farrell Centre, Newcastle – an immersive film installation that explores ‘how people use buildings and spaces once the architect‘s work has finished’.  Jim can be found on Instagram as clickclickjim. His personal website is here. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.   Thanks for listening. + Music credits: Bruno Gillick
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Jan 24, 2024 • 1h 11min

Katie Lloyd Thomas: Architects, builders, specifications

Episode 20, Series 3 of A is for Architecture, is a discussion with Katie Lloyd Thomas, Professor of Architectural History and Theory at Newcastle University, about her 2021 book, Building Materials: Material Theory and the Architectural Specification, published by Bloomsbury. The book ‘offers a radical rethink of how materials, as they are constituted in architectural practice, are themselves constructed and […] uncovers [in the construction specification] a vast and neglected resource of architectural writing’. Katie can be found professionally here, and socially here. The Production Studies 2024 conference can be found here, and is still open for attendees. Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music.   Thanks for listening. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Music credits: Bruno Gillick + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Jan 17, 2024 • 1h 7min

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 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Jan 11, 2024 • 51min

Dana Cuff: Architecture and spatial justice.

Dana Cuff, Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, speaks about her book on architectures of spatial justice and the work of cityLAB. They discuss the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in addressing social justice, redefining design for spatial justice, making incremental moves in architecture, co-production in empowering communities, and engaging with history to understand broader context and preserve erased histories.
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Jan 3, 2024 • 48min

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
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Dec 27, 2023 • 1h 2min

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
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Dec 20, 2023 • 48min

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
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Dec 13, 2023 • 59min

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

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