Muhafaza/Mimarlık, which translates into English as Conservation/Architecture, is a conservation history of Turkey. It examines the conservation policies and ideologies of Istanbul’s architectural heritage from the Tanzimat Period to the end of the 1960s. It explores the approaches of governments, architects and intellectuals and discusses the resulting conservation projects and practices. The compilation also has […]
“There are two ways to go – towards competition or towards collaboration.” The discourse about how to work together within the complex field of architecture still poses many inconsistencies. How are we going to face the journey ahead of us? Which course do we want to pursue? And above all, with whom do we want […]
I felt disturbed and uneasy when I first read the short story ‘’Kuskus’’ . I even felt the need to stop for a while to think about what was disturbing me. The harsh exposure of the domestic spaces, the questioning of family structures, and the very intimate and ruined mother-daughter relation were not usual themes […]
I have just finished reading Amelia Groom’s book Beverly Buchanan, Marsh Ruins and feel compelled to write about it. Aside from Groom’s clear prose that presents this specific work of Buchanan – Marsh Ruins, 1981 (at the Marshes of Glynn, Brunswick, GA) in an unusually easy to understand and relate to piece of writing about […]
Episode Four of A Book I Love was chosen by Linda Sjoqvist and Paul Grieguszies, the conversation can be listened to here:
King Kong the fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla? King Kong the anti-hero? Not here. Despentes invites us to consider King Kong without sexual attributes, a metaphor of power (he is still King), but of a sexuality that predates the distinction of genders. King Kong beyond the female and beyond the male, indeed, if anything, […]
“The bricks ready for use today were fired last summer, when the king was still on his progress through the western counties; the clay for them was dug the winter before, and the frost was breaking down the clumps while he, Cromwell, was trying to break down Thomas More.” Hilary Mantel, ‘Bring up the Bodies’ […]
On the perception of beauty in Maria Graham’s Residence in Chile It is such accidents as these which the poetical Greeks delighted to adorn with the rich fabulous imagery which spreads a charm over all they deigned to sing of. In Residence in Chile (1824) Graham reflects on beauty and the importance of its transmission […]
A lingering trace of the influence is always present in the work of American Artist Diane Simpson. Her process begins by finding a subject to transform. Taking from the world of applied arts, her research is primarily focused on the female garment and other wearables which enhance bodily proportions, such as Elizabethan petticoats, Amish bonnets […]
The office I worked with gave me the book Anna Viebrock: Das Vorgefundene erfinden as a gift. I didn’t know the famous stage designer at the time and as a rare book out of print, it arrived in a bit of a weary state. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed having seen […]
Exactly 90 years ago, in A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf delineated the necessary conditions for the creation of pure poetry. The foundation of her argument was the so-called room of one’s own, meant both as a weighty symbol and as a very concrete place of retreat, where one can think of things […]
In this essay, Louise Lawler talks about the deconstruction of the conventions in cultural institutions defined throughout history by by men. In the church as in the museum, the pervading power of men made women feel uncomfortable and powerless in the religious sphere. This process begins with illustrations of the 14 apostles, none […]
Embracing the mess and absurdity, commonplace objects and materials are stacked and elevated, and monstrous structure appears. The process and composition of Phyllida Barlow’s sculpture completely alter the perception of the individual objects and the space it occupies. The enormous scale, which in common practice implies a sense of monumentality, is conversely the result of […]
The Shelbourne Hotel is a book about the history of the Dublin Elizabeth Bowen describes in her autobiographical Seven Winters (1942), well-known but no longer available, grand dame touches on the Georgian restraint necessary to hold the rational character of the humanist city. Formerly a terrace of three Georgian houses, the owners of the hotel […]
In Seven Winters (1942), the city of Dublin, where she spent her early years, appears as a reflection, a translation of the felt experience of a seven year old, now in mature years, piecing together the characters of the city, its form and colour where the tense distances that one only slowly demolished gave a […]
One of Elizabeth Bowen’s most well-known non-fiction works is her history of the great house, Bowen’s Court in County Cork, which she eventually inhabited. She allows the reader an intimate knowledge and understanding of the structure and arrangement of the rooms, its relationship to the land, its deep cultural and social history. One is constantly […]
This annotation has been constructed by WWA from ‘A Conversation with Kenneth Frampton: Kenneth Frampton, Stan Allen and Hal Foster’ published in the journal October (vol. 106 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 35-58, this reference p.42 and 43): Frampton: … Somehow we’ve reached this point in our conversation without mentioning Hannah Arendt, who was also a key […]
There are many things I love about the book Schizogenesis : The Art of Rosemarie Trockel by Katherine Guinness. Katherine Guinness is an Australian art historian currently working at the University of Visual Arts at Colorado. First of all, it’s the first real theory book about Rosemarie Trockel, a German conceptual artist, which is […]
This book was recommended to me by a friend when I somewhat stumbled into starting my own practice, and was searching for guidance on how to do just that. How do I connect our studio’s ideological, creative and intellectual pursuit in architecture to a fair economical compensation and entrepreneurial value? More than once I have heard complaints […]
As an experienced architect and professor of building construction, Annette Hillebrandt co-founded IRBau (Initiative for Resource-Conserving Building) and the Urban Mining Student Award in 2016 and established www.urban-mining-design.de in 2017. The Recycling Manual is a comprehensive and detailed guide to environmentally sustainable construction with intelligent use of decommissioned materials. It provides quantified comparison between conventional […]
Light Revealing Architecture is an inspiring book I got during my research on the translucent effect created not by the opacity of glass but by the reflection on its surface. It coincides with Marietta’s observation that the luminous effect of all light sources depends upon the source, the geometry, the surfaces that receive and modify […]
A study of the technological, theoretical, and cultural significance of the transparency of the glass structures of François Mitterand’s Grands Projects in Paris.
Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick is both a novel and an essay on the role of women (and men) in our society, whose story is based on her own life. Chris is a flailing middle-aged indie film-maker married to Sylvere, a famous literary scholar 15 years her senior. The marriage has slipped into a sexless […]
I chose this magazine, Rimon (in Hebrew/Milgroim in Yiddish the word for pomegranate), a large format, trail blazing, glossy magazine for the arts and letters with a focus on Jewish art of the past and the present, because it was co-founded by Rachel Bernstein Wischnitzer, who acted as its art editor. The vision and ambition […]
One uses a word when describing the phenomenon of having experienced something in the past that is happening to the self in the now. It is called déjà vu. I have never been to Scotland nor its mountains, but as I read Nan Shepherd’s book, I strongly believe that I fell into this state of […]
The Cairngorm mountains in the heart of Scotland inhabit my dreams, a constant provocation. This is perhaps because I have never been in the area long enough, or with enough energy perhaps, to make the long preparatory journey that a walker must make before arriving. Instead, Nan Shepherd’s account of her observations made during many […]
Helen Maria Williams was a contemporary of Mary Wollstonecraft and the two met at the time of the French Revolution in Paris, both British and both women concerned with politics. Williams sided with the moderate faction of the Girondists, was imprisoned for a time under the reign of terror and soon undertook a journey to […]
Besides contributing to art criticism and historiography, Maria Graham (1785-1842, née Dundas and later Lady Callcott) was most successful at publishing the diaries of her travels. In these, she drew on a range of registers, from aesthetic and scientific to economic and political, besides that of gender. It is this range of approaches to understanding […]
Before having the chance to see Ulmann’s film, I came across this printed matter accompanying its release. Very interested in her new work after a few years of pause since her infamous on self-exposure and foreseeing the increasing dominance of social media – Ulmann a “jeune-fille”, an amateur “avant la lettre”. The booklet invitation as well Natasha Stagg, […]
Julia Kristeva analyses Giovanni Bellini’s work as a representation of successive stages in his processing of the absence of a mother figure in his childhood. By linking the evolution of Bellini’s art to the theme of motherhood, she provides a different perspective on the establishment of the Venetian Renaissance. At a time where a prevailing […]
It was in another city. A sunny day with a colleague. We have heard different kind of music at various place. We sit on a bench beside the window of a coffee shop on the street by the lake, enjoying the sunshine like lazy cats, hearing the most exciting music form the local band in […]
This book takes you by the guts. You are captivated but also disgusted. However, you have to face a truth, you are not scared of a space, you are scared of a specific specimen, men. Why are we scared at night, walking, biking or driving home alone ? What is the problem with today’s public […]
