Architecture is more than buildings and architects. It also involves photographers, writers, advertisers and broadcasters, as well as the people who finance and live in the buildings. Using the career of the critic J. M. Richards as a lens, this book takes a new perspective on modern architecture. Richards served as editor of The Architectural Review from 1937 to 1971, during which time he consistently argued that modernism was integrally linked to vernacular architecture, not through style but through the principle of being an anonymous expression of a time and public spirit. Exploring the continuities in Richards’s ideas throughout his career disrupts the existing canon of architectural history, which has focused on abrupt changes linked to individual ‘pioneers’, encouraging us to think again about who is studied in architectural history and how they are researched.
This book is a history of J. M. Richards’ career as editor of The Architectural Review and as an architectural critic and writer from 1933-73. The book explores Richards’ ideas about anonymity, modernism and public participation in architecture.
Introduction
1 Critical connections: Jim Richards network 192438
2 What is wrong with architecture? The Architectural Press, the profession
and the architectural public
3 Cranks and laymen: Propaganda for modern architecture 193541
4 The Castles on the Ground: Reconstruction, public participation and the
future of modernism, 194151
5 Stocktaking: The contesting voices of architectural criticism, 195161
6 Life is Right, the Architect is Wrong: Public participation and
architectural criticism 196273
Postscript
Bibliography
Index -- .
Jessica Kelly is Reader in Architectural and Design History at the University for the Creative Arts -- .
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