The Big Rethink
The Big Rethink: Transcend And include The Past
Major regenerative change provoked by crisis involves both a leap forward and a reappraisal and integration of the best of the past - a process known in Integral theory as ‘transcend and include’. The quest for sustainability has also given rise to a new interest in vernacular forms of construction and placemaking, and the lessons they might have for current architecture
Big Replies
Pedagogy
Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Moscow, Russia
Pushing at the boundaries of the conventional academy, this architecture school is where technology meets internationalism
View from Iran
In a country blighted by mass urbanisation and mediocre planning, Iran’s mountain villages retain a strong sense of vernacular identity
Buildings
Swiss School in Grono by Raphael Zuber
Purist geometry and a sophisticated structure elevate this apparently modest project for a Swiss school into an expressive contemporary homage to Neo-Rationalism
Delhi Defence Colony House by Vir Mueller Architects
As a riposte to the typical Indian luxury home, this brickwork house in Delhi’s Defence Colony sensitively reworks historic precedents and explores a poetic synthesis of weight and light
Rafael Moneo's Iesu Church in San Sebastian, Spain
This suburban church is a box of light that draws on Iberian archetypes
Perkins+Will's University Campus in Luanda, Angola
Drawing on and updating precedents for designing in the tropics, this new university campus in Angola cultivates an architectural language that responds to place and climate
Belfast's Metropolitan Arts Centre by Hackett Hall McKnight
Belfast’s new arts centre explores the idea of architecture as collage in a city understood as an assemblage of fragments, elements and materials
Issues Library
Broader View
Reality Bytes: THE DigitalLY-MEDIATED Urban REVOLUTIONS
Digital media plays an important role in the galvanisation of social movements, says social scientist Merlyna Lim, but can it ever supplant urban space?
Urbanism
Living Bits and Bricks
From brick to rare earth metal, the elements of our architecture - though remaining geological in origin - have evolved to the point of bursting into life, rather than merely mimicking biological form. This presages a brave new feedback-fuelled world where we don’t just inhabit our architecture but integrate with it
Digital Edition
Campaign
The Big Rethink: The Purposes of Architecture
In common with many aspects of modern civilisation, architecture has lost its enriching sense of purpose, leading to toxic anomie. In seeking to restore architecture’s rightful place in culture, as a truly qualitatively and quantifiably sustainable art, we must look deeper and redefine what it is to be human and what sort of lives we want to lead. In this, Integral theory offers a means of rebalancing and reconnecting with deeper transcendent meaning and purpose
Viewpoint
Exploring Eye: DAMASCENE DERELICTION
An architectural study trip to Syria shortly before the Arab Spring revealed the Old Town of Damascus to be long-abandoned and lamentably neglected. A year on, this precious heritage continues to deteriorate unregarded amid escalating violence and crisis
Reputations
AUGUSTUS PUGIN
Assessing the legacy of Big Ben’s creator on the bicentennial of the architect’s birth
Reviews
Nicholas Hawksmoor: Architect of the Imagination
The Royal Academy reflects on the 350th anniversary of the architect’s birth
MONDRIAN AND NICHOLSON IN PARALLEL
This exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery explores the relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson
Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream at MoMA
New York’s Museum of Modern Art joins the conversation about the national financial/housing debacle
John Pawson's Visual Inventory
The architect’s ‘obsessive’ passion for the photography collected in his new book
British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age
The Victoria & Albert Museum’s collection of the best of British design
Houses without windows
Jeroen Hofman photographic book of the architectural props used to train the western military paint a gloomy picture of archetypal european community
Lectures
Future Frontiers RCA/AR Lectures: Humanity
The filmed RCA/AR lecture series raises questions on humanity
