Design Studio : Designs on History: the Architect As Physical Historian

Each architectural design is a new history. To identify what is novel or innovative, we need to consider the present, past and future. We expect historical narratives to be written in words, but they can also be delineated in drawing, cast in concrete or seeded in soil. The aim of this volume is to understand each design as a visible and physical history. Historical understanding is investigated as a stimulus to the creative process, highlighting how architects learn from each other and other disciplines. This encourages us to consider the stories about history that architects fabricate. An eminent set of international contributors reflect on the relevance of historical insight for contemporary design, drawing on the rich visual output of innovative studios worldwide in practice and education. Wide ranging and thought-provoking articles encompass fact, fiction, memory, time, etymology, civilisation, racial segregation and more. Features: Elizabeth Dow, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Terunobu Fujimori, Perry Kulper, Lesley Lokko, Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Niall McLaughlin, Aisling O’Carroll, Arinjoy Sen, Amin Taha and Sumayya Vally.

Jonathan Hill is Professor of Architecture and Visual Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where he directs the MPhil/PhD Architectural Design programme and tutors MArch Unit 12. Jonathan is the author of The Illegal Architect (1998), Actions of Architecture (2003), Immaterial Architecture (2006), Weather Architecture (2012), A Landscape of Architecture, History and Fiction (2016), and The Architecture of Ruins (2019); editor of Occupying Architecture (1998) and Architecture – the Subject is Matter (2001); and co-editor of Critical Architecture (2007).