Architecture

Ideal homes investigates the tastes and aspirations of the new suburban communities that emerged in Britain following the First World War. In a period when homeownership was becoming the norm, these communities sought out varieties of architecture and design that were both nostalgic and modern, reflecting longings for ‘Old England’ on the one hand and technological convenience on the other. The book draws on exhibitions, memoirs, advertisements and films, as well as surviving examples of suburban architecture and interiors, to identify a distinctively suburban modernism, embodied by the Tudorbethan semi. Arguing that the ‘ideal’ home of the period was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation, it concludes by considering how such houses are lived in today. This new edition also features an introductory chapter on researching the history of your own home.

The senses in interior design examines how sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste have been mobilised within various forms of interiors. The chapters explore how the body navigates and negotiates the realities of designed interiors and challenge the traditional focus on star designers or ideal interiors that have left sensorial agency at the margins of design history. From the sensually gendered role of the fireplace in late sixteenth century Italy to the synaesthetic décors of Comte Robert de Montesquiou and the sensorial stimuli of Aesop stores, each chapter brings a new perspective on the central role that the senses have played in the conception, experiences and uses of interiors.

Monumental cares rethinks monument debates, site specificity and art activism in light of problems that strike us as monumental or overwhelming, such as war, migration and the climate crisis. The book shows how artists address these issues, from Chicago and Berlin to Oslo, Bucharest and Hong Kong, in media ranging from marble and glass to postcards, graffiti and re-enactment. A multidirectional theory of site does justice to specific places but also to how far-away audiences see them. What emerges is a new ethics of care in public art, combined with a passionate engagement with reality harking back to the realist aesthetics of the nineteenth century. Familiar questions can be answered anew: what to do with monuments, particularly when they are the products of terror and require removal, modification or recontextualisation? And can art address the monumental concerns of our present?

Architecture and ekphrasis examines how eighteenth-century prints and drawings of antique architecture operated as representations of thought. Using original archival material, it considers the idea of the past in the period, specifically how it was discovered and described, and investigates how space and time inform visual ekphrasis or descriptions of architecture. The idea of embodiment is used to explore the various methods of describing architecture – including graphic techniques, measurement and perspective – all of which demonstrate choices about different modes of ekphrasis. This well-illustrated, accessibly written study will be of interest to academics and students working in a broad range of subject areas. It will also be an essential teaching tool for increasingly popular cross-disciplinary courses.

In the corner of a Manchester laboratory in 2004, two scientists stumbled on a major discovery while pulling pieces of Sellotape apart - graphene. This is the story of those scientists, Professors Andre Geim and Kostya Novosolev, their eureka moment, subsequent Nobel Prizes and investigation into the wonder material's potential uses. But it is also the tale of the building they created with architects Jestico + Whiles and others to push graphene's potential ever further. This is the story of the National Graphene Institute.

In his wide-ranging study of architecture and cultural evolution, Chris Abel argues that, despite progress in sustainable development and design, resistance to changing personal and social identities shaped by a technology-based and energy-hungry culture is impeding efforts to avert drastic climate change. The book traces the roots of that culture to the coevolution of Homo sapiens and technology, from the first use of tools as artificial extensions to the human body, to the motorized cities spreading around the world, whose uncontrolled effects are changing the planet itself.

Advancing a new concept of the meme, called the ‘technical meme,’ as the primary agent of cognitive extension and technical embodiment, Abel proposes a theory of the ‘extended self’ encompassing material and spatial as well as psychological and social elements. Drawing upon research from philosophy, psychology and the neurosciences, the book presents a new approach to environmental and cultural studies that will appeal to a broad readership searching for insights into the origins of the crisis.

De Stijl was the title of a magazine founded in the Netherlands in 1917 and is now used to identify the abstract art and functional architecture of its major contributors: Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Van der Leck, Oud, Wils and Rietveld. This book is the first to emphasize the local context of De Stijl and explore its relationship to the distinctive character of Dutch modernism. Examines the connection between debates concerning abstraction in painting and spatiality in architecture and contemporary developments in the fields of urban planning, advertising, interior design and exhibition design. Describes the interaction between the world of mass culture and the fine arts.

The creation of Soviet culture in the 1920s and the 1930s was the most radical of modernist projects, both in aesthetic and in political terms. Modernism and the Making of the New Man explores the architecture of this period as the nexus between aesthetics and politics. The design of the material environment, according to the author, was the social effort that most clearly articulated the dynamic of the socialist project as a negotiation between utopia and reality, the will for progress and the will for tyranny. It was a comprehensive effort that brought together professional architects and statisticians, theatre directors, managers, housewives, pilots, construction workers… What they had in common was the enthusiasm for defining the “new man”, the ideal citizen of the radiant future, and the settings in which he or she lives.

This book explores the aspirations and tastes of new suburban communities in interwar England for domestic architecture and design that was both modern and nostalgic in a period where homeownership became the norm. It investigates the ways in which new suburban class and gender identities were forged through the architecture, design and decoration of the home, in choices such as ebony elephants placed on mantelpieces and modern Easiwork dressers in kitchens. Ultimately, it argues that a specifically suburban modernism emerged, which looked backwards to the past whilst looking forward to the future. Thus the inter-war ‘ideal’ home was both a retreat from the outside world and a site of change and experimentation. The book also examines how the interwar home is lived in today. It will appeal to academics and students in design, social and cultural history as well as a wider readership curious about interwar homes.

This book explores the beginnings of the interior design profession in nineteenth-century France. Drawing on a wealth of visual sources, from collecting and advice manuals to pattern books and department store catalogues, it demonstrates how new forms of print media were used to ‘sell’ the idea of the unified interior as a total work of art, enabling the profession of interior designer to take shape. In observing the dependence of the trades on the artistic and public visual appeal of their work, Interior decorating in nineteenth-century France establishes crucial links between the fields of art history, material and visual culture, and design history.

Imperial cities explores the influence of imperialism in the landscapes of modern European cities including London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Marseilles, Glasgow and Seville. Examines large-scale architectural schemes and monuments, including the Queen Victoria Memorial in London and the Vittoriano in Rome. Focuses on imperial display throughout the city, from spectacular exhibitions and ceremonies, to more private displays of empire in suburban gardens. Cconsiders the changing cultural and political identities in the imperial city, looking particularly at nationalism, masculinity and anti-imperialism.