Subterms
The passing of time tends to mellow architecture, so that buildings that might once have seemed startlingly new or original appear politely respectful to us today. We are no longer shocked, for instance, to see a Palladian building next to a gothic one or an exuberant Victorian extension to an elegantly proportioned Georgian house. The […] More
In an age increasingly plagued by the overuse of the word ‘iconic’, it is salutary to be reminded of what makes an image truly deserve the tag. Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California (1936) is one of those photographs in which the combination of compositional brilliance, human empathy, and political significance makes for something simultaneously […] More
For those growing up, as I did, in Glasgow in the 1980s and ’90s, the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928) felt omnipresent, a part of the fabric and texture of the city. The stylised rose motif, like a tray of sweet cakes, the impossibly high-backed chairs, and of course the modern typefaces based on […] More
Béla Lajta is a name little known outside Budapest and, frankly, one not that well known there either. While other figures from the fin de siècle – Gaudí, Mackintosh, Loos, Wagner, Hoffmann – have been beatified and transformed into tourist icons, Lajta (1873–1920) languishes as a central European curiosity. Yet this architect was, without doubt, […] More
In 1815 Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted. It is considered one of the largest volcanic eruptions ever – bigger than Krakatoa and Vesuvius. Twelve thousand people were killed directly by the volcanic activity, but the fallout was felt far beyond the immediate area and resulted in tens of thousands more deaths. The poet Li Yuyang […] More
There was, as she intended, a combative note in Minnette de Silva’s idiosyncratic scrapbook of an autobiography, The Life and Work of an Asian Woman Architect. It took the last ten years of her life, and emphasised her role as a nerveless pioneer and professional, instigator of what became known as ‘regional modernism’. Yet for […] More
An index is a list of names or subjects to be cross-referenced; it is a symptom, or an indicator which measures scale, value or success. Our index fingers are termed as such because they are our ‘pointing fingers’ – the fingers with which we single out, select, warn, admonish, unify and praise. In photography, the index is […] More
In 1905, the Architectural Review stated that ‘the architectural historian of the distant future may well be excused if he formulates a theory that there were two Decimus Burtons’. Literally speaking, this was remarkably prescient, for today we associate Burton’s name not only with various inventive classical revival buildings around Regent’s Park and Hyde Park […] More
