A is for Architecture Podcast

Tahl Kaminer, architect-turned-academic at Cardiff University known for writing on architecture and politics. He explores how architectural training, institutions and symbolism shape political identity. Conversations cover participation’s co-option, tensions between grassroots praxis and neoliberal forces, and how planning, scale and professional roles affect agency in architecture.

Amica Dall, a writer, designer, and strategist from the design collective Assemble, delves into the role of language in architecture. She shares insights from her keynote on the complexities of architectural language and its impact on social practice. Amica highlights challenges like consultation fatigue and the need for precise definitions to reinvigorate meaning. Discussing local engagement versus large-scale solutions, she argues for embracing discomfort and vulnerability in architecture, ultimately advocating for a more inclusive and situated approach to design.

In this conversation, Professor Bob Brown, an esteemed architecture educator and practitioner, delves deep into the world of vernacular architecture. He emphasizes the importance of community engagement, sharing insights from his work in India and Africa. Bob challenges rigid definitions of 'vernacular' and celebrates its hybrid nature. He advocates for valuing everyday builders over architects while stressing the need for architects to design flexibly for real-life use. His ideas also touch on critical pedagogy, encouraging students to retain their unique voices in a profession that often pressures conformity.

In the second episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Kathleen James-Chakraborty about her research and writing on twentieth century modernist architecture and design, looking at the nature and impact of the Bauhaus. Fronted by totemic modernists, the Bauhaus only lasted 24 years and yet its influence on everyday culture, even now, has been enormous. Unpacking that, Kathleen and I discuss the ways the Bauhaus was intentionally curated, towards an image of progressive liberalism which perhaps it didn't entirely deserve, particularly in its relationship to the women who were essential to its success and influence.  Kathleen's academic profile can be seen here: https://people.ucd.ie/kathleen.jameschakraborty. Her book Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar to the Cold War can be gotten here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/bauhaus-culture. Kathleen was recently awarded a European Research Council grant on a project entitled Expanding Agency: Women, Race and the Global Dissemination of Modern Architecture, which you can read about here: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101019419 www.aisforarchitecture.org ++++++++++++++ Music credits: Bruno Gillick.

In this, the first episode of A is for Architecture, I speak with Professor Richard Williams about his new book, Reyner Banham Revisited, published by Reaktion Books in May 2021. Here's a link: www.reaktionbooks.co.uk The Professor of Contemporary Visual Cultures at the University of Edinburgh, I first met Richard when he came to give a lecture at the Glasgow School of Art in October 2013, in the Mackintosh Lecture Theatre, before the first fire, after the publication of his book, Sex and Buildings (Reaktion Books 2013). It was a wonderful, rye, candid and witty talk, and the theatre was packed out, the aisles and floor at the front occupied, as well as the awkward, hard benches, with students (mostly) emitting a strange energy, wordlessly: this is what university is supposed to feel like.  Richard's on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/rjwilliams44 Enjoy. www.aisforarchitecture.org + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +  Music credits: Bruno Gillick.