8 C O N T E X T 9 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 7 Book reviews Positive spin Concrete Architecture Catherine Croft, Laurence King, London, 2005, hardback, 240pp, 100 b&w and 200 colour illustrations, ISBN 1 85669 364 3, £35 This is a superbly illustrated and nicely presented book. according to the flyleaf it ‘celebrate(s) the intrinsic qualities of concrete and how they work to make the places in which we live, work and play.’ The book begins promisingly with a wide-ranging introduction to the history of concrete, its various types and the many different uses to which the material was put across the world during the 20th century. This, the book’s most substantial and useful section, includes a stimulating examination of the controversy concrete has inspired, not only among ‘traditionalists’, but also among social commentators and the wider public. Even here, though, the author gives free reign to her clear (and unashamed) bias in favour of the material. Thus a short section on the problem of concrete staining is illustrated rather more prominently by an image of ‘deliberate’ staining on the oskar Reinhart Collection extension at Winterhur, Switzerland (1998) than it is by the photograph showing the now slum-like appearance of Le Corbusier’s workers’ housing at Pessac, france (1925). The preface states that ‘this book is a celebration of concrete’, and after the preface and introduction this is precisely what it is. The houses included in chapter 1 (‘Home’) are all strikingly austere, even clinical, in their execution and are well served by the excellent photographs that illustrate them. The text is, however, disappointing. In places it borders on little more than an uncritical puff for the work of the architects concerned. Direct quotations from the architects themselves do little to aid our understanding of the design process or what the architects are seeking to achieve. Typical among them is Timothy Hill’s bewildering statement that in the C House, Brisbane, he and Brian Donovan were attempting to discover ‘the poetic potential of the pragmatic determinates’. Just as the houses illustrated in chapter 1 are largely devoid of any signs of everyday living, so are the vast majority of the buildings in the following chapters, ‘Work’, ‘Play’ and ‘Landscape’. again the emphasis is very much on the aesthetic rather than on the practicalities of use, or even on the analysis of architectural form. apparently ‘the plain interior walls (of the Haslach School at au, Switzerland, 2000) look great when covered with… pictures’, but they are photographed without a child or picture in sight. Likewise, we are told that the ‘monumentality of the design (of CanaryWharf Station) recalls religious architecture’ without being told how or, even more crucially, why. By the end of the book the reader’s head is reeling with images that are as striking as several of the architects’ explanations are overblown and ultimately meaningless. This volume includes many handsome buildings (it is notable how few are from this country) but there is surprisingly little depth of analysis. The book is a pleasure to look at but one is left wondering where concrete architecture really is heading in the 21st century. This is a book that will delight the converted but may well fail to persuade others to the cause. Nicholas Doggett, a director of CgMs Ltd Terry’s gold Radical Classicism: the architecture of quinlan Terry DavidWatkin, Rizzoli, 2006, 255 pp, many colour illustrations, ISBN 10 0 8478 2806 9 ISBN 13 9 780847 828067, £35 When I agreed to write this review, it hardly occurred to me that the televising of the 2006 RIBa Stirling Prize awards would be in any way relevant. But comparable themes emerged. Lord Rogers and others inveighed against the uK planning system for its failure to recognise good design, and for the inordinate delays that accompany requests for permission. Lord Rogers, who won the award for his Madrid airport, is an unlikely ally for ProfessorWatkin, but their views in this instance coincide, for the author has written what is essentially a piece of polemic. attacks on the international modern style are interlaced with his text. It is a eulogy for post-war classical revivalism. Quinlan Terry is clearly a more than compliant springboard forWatkin’s stand. Since the 1960s he has now created a substantial corpus of work in the classical manner in the uK, uS and Europe.Watkin postulates that Terry ‘has attempted more completely than any other architect in Britain to pull the rug from beneath the false certainties of modernism’. His career has ‘had to be a continuous and sometimes almost solitary battle against the architectural establishment’. Is this true? Terry has clearly been successful in attracting commissions and clients with means, notwithstanding his battles with his contemporaries. Moreover, international modernism has long since moved on from Miesian strictness to freer forms made possible by structural innovations and client requests. In chapters, which divide Terry’s work by building type, about 40 buildings are analysed and presented in glorious photographs. Sketches and drawings, many by Terry’s son francis, illuminate the argument and demonstrate the influence of closely studied Italian models. Terry’s attention to detail, careful craftsmanship, choice of materials and embellishment are everywhere apparent, as is his single-mindedness. Included are Terry’s Regents Park houses, the skilfully planned Richmond Riverside buildings and the gently reticent Merchants Square inWilliamsburg. There are country
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