Darkitecture: Learning Architecture for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Iwona Blazwick and published by Two Little Boys.
(available on amazon UK
Darkitecture is an anthology of texts and projects exploring how we learn about and build architecture for real communities in the twenty-first century. It draws on the ideas and methods of the late architect and Royal College of Art tutor Gerrard O’Carroll, a vibrant and unorthodox thinker of architecture. Along with his writings and statements are texts and projects by his contemporaries and alumni. Together they represent some ‘what if?’ scenarios with which to proceed on the journey towards becoming an architect; towards the conception of a design vocabulary that expresses everyday lives; and the creation of buildings and urbanities that embrace the irrational and celebrate the social. Darkitecture is a revolutionary handbook that will challenge students, designers, architects and citizens to review the way they look at, think about, learn and build architecture.
Assemble Folly for Flyover, 2011
The figure of architect and senior tutor at the Royal College of Art Gerrard O’Carroll is at the center of the book. I couldn’t remember where i had heard his name until i leafed through the book and i realized i had visited some of the exhibitions he had organized and blogged about the work of several of his architecture students.
A critic called O’Carroll the “King of Darkitecture” after having visited an exhibition of his in 2007. The neologism made for an attention-grabbing book title. However, I don’t find the book nor the projects and ideas it presents dark at all. I found them thought-provoking, relevant to our times (which i admit are fairly dark) and lucid. Even if most of the essays and works are dealing with “speculative near future and alternative nows.” There’s plenty of humour in the book as well. And not necessarily of the dark kind. My favourite quote was by O’Carroll asking why the modulor man has no penis.
O’Carroll called for a more thoughtful brand of architecture, for an architecture that engages with society, with the ‘fragility of human behaviour’, for an architecture that doesn’t enclose but create a framework for things to happen.
Tom Greenall‘s 2009 project Cultivating faith: The feeding of the 59,000 imagines that a UK shortage of halal meat might be answered by the building of an in-vitro meat production facility.
The content of the essays is eclectic. One moment you read about how radical architecture emerges with times of economic crisis, unrest and doubts. Next, you read about aspiring models knocking on the doors of photographer Juergen Teller. Or about the way technology interferes with the way we love, about the handing over of our streets and squares to private developers, the role of the anti-hero in architecture, the tension between our nostalgia for unspoilt ‘natural’ food and our interest for the consumption of fruit enhanced with drug-delivery systems. The people evoked in the book include J. G Ballard, radical architects Superstudio, Jacques Tati, Gaetano Pesce and Ennio Morricone.
SuperStudio
The book is edited by Iwona Blazwick OBE and includes contributions from Iain Aitch (journalist), Paola Antonelli (MoMA), Iwona Blazwick (Whitechapel Gallery), Nigel Coates (architect), Emma Dexter (curator), Tom Greenall (RCA), Rosy Head (RCA), Jonathan Hill (Bartlett), Claire Jamieson (RCA), Anna Minton (writer), Rowan Moore (critic), Jake Moulson (RCA), Richard Noble (Goldsmiths College), Lucy Pengilley Gibb (RCA), Fiona Raby (RCA), Alex Smith (RCA), Noam Toran (RCA), Anthony Vidler (Cooper Union) and Gilda Williams (writer).
View inside the book
Pretty nice design by Luke Fenech and Morag Myerscough too!
Image on the homepage from Mon Oncle, the film by Jaques Tati, 1958.