Shayan Adham: Critical practice and the cosmopolitan imagination.

For Episode 181 of the A is for Architecture Podcast, I was joined by the Berlin-based artist, Larissa Fassler whose work explores through imagery and sculpture - aesthetic, layered, ambiguous maps, models and interventions - the social and political spatialites of cities and their everyday encounter by people there. Larissa’s work has intrigued and delighted me for quite a long time, so it was a real prize to finally get to meander with her through a very little of her thinking, experiences, background and motivations.As I understand it, Larissa’s work derives from deep engagement in places, documenting them through a host of means and rendering them as something like palimpsests, which in turn demand close and slow encounter by their public, producing a sort-of double coded knowledge of cities and the people who live with them, pointing thus towards space’s meaning and possibilities. It’s all very architectural, or at least, I think, towards that which we in architectural education might in our better moments aspire.Larissa can be found on her website, on Instagram and via Galerie POGGI, with whom she works. Viewshed, a very good book on her work, can be found at Distanz, its publishers, as can the catalogue for Building Worlds here. There are good articles on Larissa’s work in many places.  +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick #LarissaFassler #UrbanMapping #ArchitecturePodcast #Psychogeography #ContemporaryArtAndArchitecture #SocialSpace #CityAsPalimpsest #SpatialPolitics #ArtAndUrbanism #BerlinArtScene

For Episode 180 of the A is for Architecture Podcast, the extraordinary Australian architect, Peter Stutchbury, joined me to speak about a little of his work, his origins, his purpose and his ethic. It’s an extraordinary story, beautifully told by a wonderful man, a worthy addition for this, a jubilee episode. Peter’s work is deeply rooted in the land and culture of his homeland, and all the complexity that implies. There are histories, cosmologies, manners and methods, which are drawn together in places and through this, in Peter’s telling, ‘the work becomes a means of connection, so that as you find the work, you also find yourself becoming of the work, not in a way that you copy it […] or that necessarily makes sense to you, but in a way that allows you to relax and perhaps even not be judgemental, perhaps even to take it with you, as part of your entourage.’That’s quite a way of putting it.Peter Stutchbury Architecture can be found here, are on Instagram and  more or less everywhere that’s anywhere architectural online. The wonderful book by Ewan McEoin and published by Thames and Hudson in 2016, is Under the Edge: The Architecture of Peter Stutchbury. +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick #PeterStutchbury #AustralianArchitecture #ArchitecturePodcast #SustainableDesign #ArchitectureAndLandscape #PlaceBasedDesign #ArchitecturalEthics #ContemporaryArchitecture #ArchitectureInAustralia #AIsForArchitecture

Episode 179 of the A is for Architecture Podcast is a fascinating, expansive discussion with scholar, planner and architect, Dr Shiben Banerji, associate professor in the Department of the History of Art at UC Berkley, about some small parts of his sprawling and wonderful Lineages of the Global City: Occult Modernism and the Spiritualization of Democracy, which he published with the University of Texas Press in July this year.In the shadow of empire-collapsing wars and revolutions, Shiben explains, occult modernists of the early-twentieth-century saw not just chaos, but a rare chance to forge a spiritually united humanity. Across the world, from Argentina to India to America, occultist architects and planners dreamed up radical cities, suburbs and communes designed to awaken a new global subject who would feel bound to all humankind, transcending the impulse for wretched violence. Shiben and I talk all this, and how these new world builders tried to use architecture to engineer souls. Visionary? Indeed. But vision is scary! Listen to Shiben and just relax.Shiben can be found at work and nowhere else, which is very wise. The book is linked above.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick

In Episode 178 of this incessant podcast, Adam Sharr, Professor of Architecture at Newcastle University, discusses his 2007 book, Heidegger for Architects, published by Routledge.Heidegger’s ideas haunt architectural discourse, practice and education, which remain inwardly wedded to concepts like dwelling, place, authenticity, world and building, ideas that are rooted in his work. Arguably, his ideas remain foundational in debates on sustainability and human-centred design too. Yet despite this influence, Heidegger’s writing’s opacity and his philosophical entanglements—intellectual, political, and ethical—make him a challenging figure to approach. So we deal with this, including Heidegger’s Nazi associations, some key concepts – dwelling, the Fourfold, the Thing – how Heidegger suggested buildings participate in the unfolding of place and meaning, and what it means to think of architecture not just as the production of objects but as a way of revealing—or concealing—our relationship to the world around us. Awkward? I guess. Good chat? Yes.Adam is editor of the uber-successful book series Thinkers for Architects published by Routledge. He can be found at Newcastle University, and at Adam Sharr Architects too. He does not appear to be on social media, the lucky blighter.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

In this new episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, writer and organiser, Alva Gotby, discusses her recent latest book, Feeling at Home: Transforming the Politics of Housing, published by Verso in January this year.Feeling at Home is rooted in Marxist feminism, and approaches housing as more-than-shelter, but rather as a key site for reproducing labour power under capitalism, perpetuating all the inequalities. Alva extends this critique, proposing what is called family abolitionism, arguing for the collectivisation of domestic life the better to dismantle the nuclear family as a capitalist institution. But Alva isn’t also pleading for nostalgia and a return to the paternalistic state but proposes instead collective alternatives that prioritize marginalised people and ecological sustainability.How’d you like them apples?Alva is on (but not much on) Instagram and X, and the book is linked above. Alva is in various places online discussing this book, and her previous one, They Call It Love: The Politics of Emotional Life.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

The A is for Architecture Podcast’s latest episode is a discussion with the architect, writer, teacher and broadcaster, Piers Taylor. It is Piers’ second time on the show, but rather than his practice, this time we discuss his freshly minted book, Learning from the Local: Designing responsively for people, climate and culture, published by RIBA Publishing last month.In Learning from the Local, Piers presents global examples of low-carbon, context-responsive architecture. In arguing for a post-global architecture, examining geology, waste, ecology, self-build and community engagement, the book proposes a sort-of vernacular. We talk this, Oz, practice, good practice and a very elegant proposal for what Piers calls restless innovation. Quieten down why don’t you and have a solid listen.Piers is Professor of Knowledge Exchange in Architecture at UWE and director of Invisible Studio, (which posts on Instagram), and he’s so all over the internet he literally has a Wikipedia page. The book is linked above.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: The Rural Studio (Haybale House) by Timothy Hursley.  

In the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast Jeana Ripple, Chair and Vincent & Eleanor Shea Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, joined me to discuss her recent book, Type V City: Codifying Material Inequity in Urban America, published by the University of Texas Press in August this year. In Type V city, Jeana describes how building codes or regulations in the USA have shaped urban landscapes. Specifically, Jeana explores how the construction of light, combustible wood-frame buildings – known as Type V construction - have codified inequities in social, economic, environmental and health outcomes for residents. We discuss this idea – the entrenchment of ethics in the materials of building making – but also that where the technology is restricted, in the exacerbation of labour inequalities. Materials, huh? Who’d have thought it? Well, you will, if you listen to (and read) Jeana.The book is linked above. Jenna can be found at work and on LinkedIn.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

The A is for Architecture Podcast’s newest episode is a conversation with North American scholars, social scientist Patrick Lynn Rivers and design historian Kai Wood Mah, about their book, Situated Practices in Architecture and Politics, published by Dalhousie Architectural Press in 2024.In our conversation, Patrick and Kai speak of the importance of situated learning and practice, which involves architects engaging with communities to co-create knowledge as a mode not just of transforming spaces and making things, but as an ethnographic means of seeing things through the eyes of communities. Situated practices, they argue, force a necessary politicisation of design thinking, and are as such essential for architects to adapt to post-colonial challenges and contribute to global change.Patrick is professor at SAIC in Chicago, has a personal website here, and can be found on LinkedIn and Insta. Kai is Associate Professor in the McEwan School of Architecture at the Laurentian University, Canada and also has a website. Both Patrick and Kai co-direct the design research practice a.field. The book is linked above.Much to ponder, so little time. Get to it!+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: Pilgrimage to Biete Gabriel-Rufael by Robert Wilson. 

In the latest episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast Amsterdam-based architect Hans van der Heijden discuss themes of his design work and writing. Founder of Hans van der Heijden Architects, a practice which track context through deep research realised in, as I see it, a sort-of fitting architecture.Hans and I connected over a mutual interest in the pursuit of the/ a common city. Our conversation centres on Hans’ book, The Residential Palazzo (Het woonpalazzo) in Design Research, Education and Practice, published this year by HvdHA which, along with the built work Hans speaks of, raises important questions. How must we build, given all the things, to accommodate the lineage of a common culture and place? And why do we still, even after all, fail to do so? What drives contemporary urban incoherence? And how might we arrest this? The answer, of course, is study, observation, seeing and hearing. It’s an architecture Hans proposes that is ground in attentiveness and, I would say, generosity. Through the careful study of the city and its parts, and by designing in concord with the city’s fabric as is, and the people who actually live and work there, architects can, in Hans’ words, ‘develop a sort of reservoir of a priori knowledge which […] lends you a kind of professional integrity.’Strong medicine indeed.Hans van der Heijden Architects are to be found here. Hans is on Instagram here.  +Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick 

In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast the journalist, writer and Deputy Editor at Inside Housing, Peter Apps discusses his very recent book, Homesick: How Housing Broke London and How to Fix It, published by One World Publications in September this year.Peter became something of a big noise when he won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2023 for his book, Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen, also published with Oneworld. In that, Peter’s account exposed the systemic failures, negligence and cost-cutting in construction and regulation that led to the preventable 2017 Grenfell Tower fire. In Homesick, and sort-of by extension, Peter examines London's housing crisis, details how skyrocketing costs, inequality, and policy failures have made homes unaffordable, and proposes solutions to address another systemic issues towards housing justice.Listen to Peter, read his books and think on’t. It’s time.Thanks to Peter for the time, effort and conversation. Thanks to Margot at One World for the PDF of the book and images. The book is linked above; Peter can be found on Substack, LinkedIn and X.+Music credits: ⁠Bruno Gillick Image credit: Trevor Patt (2015) Creative Commons Licence off Flickr: Robin Hood Gardens, London. Allison and Peter Smithson, 1972