With the exciting period of construction following German reunification now over, German post-war reconstruction has finally come to an end. For a brief period, reunification enlivened the building market with great visions, but now the demand for architecture and employment in the construction industry has sunk dramatically.

Brazilian Antropofagist strategies of cultural decolonisation and empowerment, radicalise the ’primitive‘ Other and subvert catechising models

It has always been thought that there are two dimensions in museum experience: the experience of space which can be distinguished from that of exhibits, as the former is largely non-discursive while the latter is more in the discursive domain. This paper aims to contribute to the description and understanding of the intricate pattern of interdependencies between the two parameters of the microstructure of the gallery space, the design of space and of the display layout. The paper uses rigorous methods of ‘spatial data’ collection and analysis (analytic representations of spatial relationships, and systematic representations of the movement pattern) and on this objective foundation builds an interpretative and critical argument.

In relating stories about origins that recall an idealized ‘Primitive’ condition, Vitruvius seeks legitimacy for judgement about architecture. At issue is the problem of authority, and Vitruvius is anxious about authority, and about order. Vitruvius' audience for his story of the Primitive dwelling, as for the rest of his treatise, the Ten Books on Architecture, is the emperor Octavian, introduced in the dedicatory preface as ‘imperator Caesar.’ His book to Caesar asserts a commonplace among rhetoricians, that authority is sought in a distant past, and in exemplars, useful precedents that promise a perfect work. ‘Décor,’ writes Vitruvius, ‘demands the faultless ensemble of a work composed, in accordance with precedent, of approved details. It obeys convention, which in Greek is called thematismos, or custom or nature’ (trans Granger, 1983, I.2.5). The task of the orator was to ‘demonstrate’ (demonstratio) that authority, and so for architecture, in his mythmaking and concern to demonstrate the truth of his opinions, Vitruvius establishes that the task of architecture is the representation of order.

Questions concerning the significance and meaning of sacrifice in our secular age, whether in the form of a ritualized or purely contemplative construct, lay bare much that is problematic and troubling about modern consciousness. This paper examines the mortuary significance of baptism and its influence on architecture, drawing comparison between Early Christian and modern views of sacrifice. By referring to key theological writings, the study considers the baptistery as a site of human conversion where the search for redemption unfolds as both a cosmological and mytho-historical drama. The investigation distinguishes between the literal meaning of sacrifice and its more complex Platonic-Christian symbolism, the latter defining the nature of human piety and ultimate spiritual immortality. The study concludes with an examination of the baptismal font at St Peter's in Klippan. It asks whether this seminal work attests to a continuity of symbolic meanings or whether it is the product of hermetic thought.

The unique site conditions and burgeoning economy of Venice were the catalysts for an ingenious new house type, as Giorgio Gianighian explains in the first of two papers.

There are at present considerable concerns with how architectural research will be assessed in the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) of 2008. In RAE 2001, most architectural research was submitted to one of three Units of Assessment (UoA): 33 Built Environment, 60 History of Art, Architecture and Design, and 64 Art and Design. There were subtle, but important, differences in output definition and assessment criteria between UoA 33 and UoA 64 with respect to practice-led research. Most importantly, in UoA 33 practice-led outputs were accepted by the panel, but only as publications, whereas UoA 64 assessed practice-led research outputs accompanied by a 300-word statement that clarified the contributions of that particular research to the development of original knowledge in the field. The diversity of methods and complexity of output types, combined with the composition of UoA 33, led to results that many feel did not properly reflect the strengths of architectural design, particularly practice-led research. This methodology essentially disenfranchised a significant part of the community from the rae process to the detriment not only of the community, but to the credibility of the process itself.

This paper investigates the sublime as manifested in the architecture of Tadao Ando. The primary object of interpretation is his Azuma House (1976) in Osaka. However, according to Ando, the sublime equally characterises his religious work such as the Church of the Light (1989) near Osaka. One unique characteristic of Ando's architecture is the treatment of residential and religious buildings according to common spatial themes, challenging the conventional dichotomy between the profane and the sacred. The evocation of the sublime can be claimed as one such theme. Both buildings are particularisations of the theme of the sublime: in the case of the Azuma House into the context of the everyday and, in the case of the Church of the Light, into the context of the theological horizon of Christianity. This paper elucidates how the spatial setting of the Azuma residence conditions, in a distinguishing manner, the experience of the sublime. Given that, in the history of Western architecture, Etienne-Louis Boullée's architecture of immense emptiness (as manifested in the Metropolitan Basilica and Newton's Cenotaph) presents itself as one of the most distinctive articulations of the sublime, it is employed here as the dialogic partner for Ando's architecture of the sublime.

The essence of the art of architecture is the medium of the enclosure of space at a scale that embraces the body as well as the eye. The medium has its greatest potential when it is revealed in daylight because it is the strongest, purest and most subtle of lights. This medium is the product of the synthesis of skills that are often held to be discrete, the ability to manipulate surface and the ability to manipulate volume. Across civilization the conjunction of these skills has been rare; moreover because architecture is a complicated applied art, it is only in the church and temple where the medium can be unfettered and attain great spirituality.

Leslie Martin’s ill-fated plan for a cohesive Government Centre assumes new relevance as growing traffic and the declining role of Parliament highlight Whitehall’s continuing problems.

A studio in which students act as practitioner-researchers brings together communities, local authorities and professionals, offering a case study in design as research.

Adrian Stokes (1902–72) — aesthete, critic, painter and poet — is linked to John Ruskin and Walter Pater as one of the greatest aesthetic thinkers in this English empirical tradition. This paper explores his insights on the reciprocity of colour and form in relation to architecture.

The crisis in modern architecture in the middle of the twentieth century brought about a reaction to total Utopian solutions and ideas and the realization of the importance of ‘place’ and identity. These notions found expression, among others, in a renewed interest in vernacular construction. Vernacular construction is evolutionary and contains key, a priori, aspects of identity and place. As such it constituted a focus of attention and gained special exposure and popularity after the exhibition ‘Architecture without Architects’, held in MoMA, New York in 1964. As a result of this attention, the patio, that external room constituting the heart of the house in the Middle East, in the Mediterranean basin and in the Far East, gained architectural significance. At the same time it found a place in modern housing in the Western world.

Is it possible to create successful ‘sky gardens’ – spaces which encourage outdoor living and communal interaction – as part of high-rise high-density apartment developments?