Jonathan Glancey Architecture Critic, London

Jonathan Glancey, Twenty Century Architecture, England, Books, Design, London

Jonathan Glancey Talk

Architectural Lecture by English Architecture Critic: Built Environment

Jonathan Glancey Architecture

Jonathan Glancey Books

Review of Talk:

The 4th Annual Cockburn Association Lecture by Jonathan Glancey

the architectural correspondent of The Guardian

20 Mar 2001

The Royal College of Physicians, 9 Queen St, Edinburgh

Jonathan had a gleam in his eye as he unwrapped his thinking about architecture, life and dreaming. The unifying strand of dreams linked poetry, biblical and political readings, theoretical discourse and occasional introspection.

We have heard the tirade about the suburb before, but it was an enjoyable talk in that it did stray into unusual territory: it’s lack of tangible solutions to Mr Glancey’s unloved consumerism allowed one’s mind to drift, even dream.

Some attendees maybe wished for a more conclusive addressing of the globalist issues, but the conjunction of powerful landscapes and heartfelt ‘sermons’ put the solving back on us: what are we doing about our World? Where were we when Lothian Road started to sink under a flotilla of fistulae? Where are we now as Leith Docks is scattered with unengaging, ungainly edifices?

The issues surrounding suburbia had a certain resonance for me as my family prepares to move from a war-torn part of Leith. Jonathan Glancey I presume has no children, and I used to think like him; but a sea change comes with birth that alters you forever. It isn’t a false paternalism that creeps in but a meaningful caring that can lead one away from what is left of our expensive and aggressive inner city. It is too easy to knock what is some people’s salvation, other people’s dream.

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Following in the footsteps of British architectural critic Ian Nairn he made a series of four films, Outrage Revisited (2010) on the banality of Britain’s postwar buildings. At the time of writing he reports on architecture and design for the website BBC Culture.
source: Jonathan Glancey, London

A selection of his publications:

New British architecture
(London: Thames and Hudson, 1989) ISBN 0-500-34107-9

The Story of Architecture
(London; New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2000) ISBN 0-7513-4881-3
Norman Foster (Foreword)
£10.49
Paperback

20th Century Architecture: The Structures That Shaped the Century
(London: Carlton, 1998) ISBN 1-85868-519-2
£9.99
Paperback

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