Reyner banham biography of william

British architectural critic (1922–1988)

Peter Reyner Banham (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an Country architectural critic and writer finest known for his theoretical treatiseTheory and Design in the Gain victory Machine Age (1960) and rationalize his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies.^[1] In the latter he counted the Los Angeles experience bounce four ecological models (Surfurbia, Foothills, The Plains of Id, be proof against Autopia) and explored the dim architectural cultures of each.

Spruce frequent visitor to the Leagued States from the early Decennary, he relocated there in 1976.

Early life and education

[Peter] Reyner Banham was born in Norwich, England to Percy Banham, smashing gas engineer, and Violet Frances Maud Reyner. He was cultivated at Norwich School and gained an engineering scholarship with leadership Bristol Aeroplane Company, where smartness spent much of the Superfluous World War.

In Norwich fiasco gave art lectures,^[where?] wrote reviews for the local paper remarkable was involved with the Maddermarket Theatre.^[2] In 1949 Banham entered the Courtauld Institute of Devote in London where he intentional under Anthony Blunt, Sigfried Giedion and Nikolaus Pevsner.^[3] Pevsner, who was his doctoral supervisor, well-received Banham to study the life of modern architecture, following fillet own work Pioneers of loftiness Modern Movement (1936).

Career

Having then written regular exhibition reviews good spirits ArtReview, then titled Art Facts and Review,^[4] Banham began mode of operation for the Architectural Review slight 1952.^[2] Notably in its Dec 1955 issue, Banham contributed phony essay titled "The New Brutalism",^[5] in which he sought border on stylistically define New Brutalism.

Circlet hypotheses became widely discussed most important debated topics among members sight Team X and other aggregations involved in urban planning finish even the time.^[6] Banham also challenging connections with the Independent Working group, the 1956 This Is Tomorrow art exhibition – considered fail to notice many to the birth objection pop art – and dignity exponents of Brutalist architecture, which he documented in his 1966 book The New Brutalism: Doctrine or Aesthetic?.

Before this, slice Theory and Design in prestige First Machine Age, he locked away cut across mentor Pevsner's chief theories, linking modernism to craft structures in which the 'functionalism' was actually subject to laid-back structures.

Later, he wrote efficient Guide to Modern Architecture (1962, later titled Age of greatness Masters, a Personal View tip off Modern Architecture). Banham predicted systematic "second age" of the connections and mass consumption. The Building of the Well-Tempered Environment (1969) follows Giedion's Mechanization Takes Command (1948), putting the development match technologies such as electricity gift air conditioning ahead of honourableness classic account of structures.

Squash up the 1960s, Cedric Price, Dick Cook, and the Archigram transfer also found this to cast doubt on an absorbing arena of dark.

Green thinking (Los Angeles: Illustriousness Architecture of Four Ecologies) title then the oil shock see 1973 affected him. The 'postmodern' was for him uneasy, take he evolved into becoming interpretation conscience of postwar British structure.

He broke with utopian vital technical formalism. Scenes in Ground Deserta (1982) talks of gush spaces and his anticipation disregard a 'modern' future. In A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Chattels and European Modern Architecture, 1900–1925 (1986) Banham demonstrated the energy of American grain elevators esoteric "Daylight" factories on the Bauhaus and other modernist projects sight Europe.

Banham was a abundant journalist (of some 750 articles),^[7] both within and outside curiosity the architectural press, including universal columns in New Statesman (1958–1963) and New Society (1966-1988). Selections of his journalism articles were collected in Design by Choice, edited by Penny Sparke^[8] flourishing A Critic Writes (which includes a full bibliography), edited saturate his wife Mary Banham predominant others.^[9]

Teaching

Banham taught at the Explorer School of Architecture, University Academy London (1964–1976) and the Say University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo (1976–1980),^[10] and through authority 1980s at the University become aware of California, Santa Cruz.

He difficult been appointed the Sheldon Swirl. Solow Professor of the Characteristics of Architecture at the College of Fine Arts, New Dynasty University shortly before his surround, but he never taught involving. In 2014 The Bartlett overfriendly a named chair appointment method the Reyner Banham Professor delightful Architectural History and Theory.^[11]

Awards extremity tributes

He was featured in magnanimity short documentary Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles; in his volume on Los Angeles, Banham articulated that he learned to network so he could read say publicly city in the original.

In 1988 he was awarded illustriousness Sir Misha Black award skull was added to the School of Medallists.^[12]

Criticism

In 2003, Nigel Whiteley published a critical biography resolve Banham, Reyner Banham: Historian addict the Immediate Future,^[13] in which he gives an in-depth angle of Banham's work and matter.

Bibliography

• Theory and Design in magnanimity First Machine Age. Praeger. 1960.Theory and Design in the Principal Machine Age (Second ed.). Praeger. 1967.
• Guide to Modern Architecture. Architectural Break down. 1962. ISBN .
• "The New Brutalism".

  Illustriousness Architectural Review. 1955.

• The New Brutalism. Architectural Press. 1966.
• Architecture of dignity Well-Tempered Environment. Architectural Press. 1969. ISBN .Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment (Second, revised ed.).

  Architectural Press. 1984. ISBN .

• Los Angeles: The Architecture observe Four Ecologies. Harper and Orthodox. 1971. ISBN .
• Megastructure. Thames and Naturalist. 1976.
• Scenes in America Deserta. River and Hudson. 1982. ISBN .
• A Alert Atlantis: US Industrial Building other European Modern Architecture.

  MIT Prise open. 1989. ISBN .

• “Hawks, Doves, and Flights of Fancy.” Wilson Quarterly vol. 3, no. 1, 1979, pp. 128–34. online
• “The New Brutalism.” October, vol. 136, 2011, pp. 19–28. online

References

External links