Matrix: Making Space: Women and the Man Made Environment (1984)
Filed under book | Tags: · architecture, feminism, urbanism, women
“One of the first moves of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative set up in 1980 was to publish the book, where they explored the socio-political context of designing the built environment, and traced the implications of feminist theory and critique on urban design, such as the viewing of domestic work also as a form of labour. In the book they set out one of the fundamental guiding principles of their work, the idea that ‘because women are brought up differently in our society we have different experiences and needs in relation to the built environment’.” (Source)
Publisher Pluto Press, 1984
ISBN 0861046013, 9780861046010
ix+148 pages
via dubravka
Reviews: Ruth Madigan (Crit Soc Policy, 1985), Anne Gartner (Urban Policy and Research, 1985), Pleasantine Drake (Atlantis, 1988).
PDF (28 MB)
Comment (0)Wellington Reiter: Vessels and Fields (1999)
Filed under book | Tags: · architecture, art, city, urbanism
“A collection of Wellington Reiter’s experimental projects, presented through a series of drawings that owe as much of a debt to Lebbeus Woods for their frenetic and intense energy as they do to Piranesi for their ability to use simple pen-and-ink linework to create unusually complex spaces. These fantastical projects-a mix of architecture, museum installations, and public art-often involve the reuse of obsolete military installations (abandoned missile silos, historic battlefields, and decommissioned aircraft carriers), which adds to the provocative nature of the work.”
“This collection of images was drawn, for the most part, from a lecture entitled, ‘The Necessity of Fiction in Architecture,’ (MIT, June 1994). In essence, the talk buttressed the role of speculation within the discipline and expressed the need for an operative mythology for the city. Rather than recount the arguments of that appeal, this visual text offers sub-plots which link the various works in ways that could only be discerned through graphic comparison. The result is neither a chronological record of development, an explanation of the projects, or even an accurate portrayal of the works in question. Instead, several formal and metaphoric consistencies are revealed and compounded. … Believing that much of architecture exceeds construction, this document is part of a tradition of proposing alternative pasts and futures for architecture and especially for the city. It is believed that such hypothesizing can influence our recption of real sites and therefore must remain an essential component of practice.” (page 10)
Foreword by Patricia Phillips
Publisher Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1999
ISBN 1568981872, 9781568981871
188 pages
via tlukejones
PDF (68 MB)
Comment (0)Constant. New Babylon (2015) [EN, ES]
Filed under catalogue | Tags: · architecture, art, art history, city, situationists, urbanism, utopia
“Constant. New Babylon brings together a selection of works that Constant held in the framework of this project, whose realization and materialization has turned into a wide range of expressive means (architectural models, drawings, watercolors, prints, collages, modified maps, films, slides…), as well as an intense theoretical activity in the form of texts and lectures, with three representative examples in this catalog. There are also texts by Laura Stamps, Pedro G. Romero, Mark Wigley and a conversation between Rem Koolhaas and Pascal Gielen, among others.”
Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 20 Oct 2015-29 Feb 2016.
Publisher Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2015
ISBN 9788480265232, 848026523X
310 pages