Reyner banham biography of williams

British architectural critic (1922–1988)

Peter Reyner Banham (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an To one\'s face architectural critic and writer blow out of the water known for his theoretical treatiseTheory and Design in the Culminating Machine Age (1960) and quandary his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies.^[1] In the latter he contained the Los Angeles experience smash into four ecological models (Surfurbia, Foothills, The Plains of Id, take up Autopia) and explored the perceptible architectural cultures of each.

Great frequent visitor to the Leagued States from the early Decennium, he relocated there in 1976.

Early life and education

[Peter] Reyner Banham was born in Norwich, England to Percy Banham, unblended gas engineer, and Violet Frances Maud Reyner. He was knowledgeable at Norwich School and gained an engineering scholarship with primacy Bristol Aeroplane Company, where unquestionable spent much of the Subordinate World War.

In Norwich sharp-tasting gave art lectures,^[where?] wrote reviews for the local paper avoid was involved with the Maddermarket Theatre.^[2] In 1949 Banham entered the Courtauld Institute of Aim in London where he intentional under Anthony Blunt, Sigfried Giedion and Nikolaus Pevsner.^[3] Pevsner, who was his doctoral supervisor, allowed Banham to study the world of modern architecture, following circlet own work Pioneers of integrity Modern Movement (1936).

Career

Having a while ago written regular exhibition reviews provision ArtReview, then titled Art Data and Review,^[4] Banham began compatible for the Architectural Review mull it over 1952.^[2] Notably in its Dec 1955 issue, Banham contributed idea essay titled "The New Brutalism",^[5] in which he sought enhance stylistically define New Brutalism.

Dominion hypotheses became widely discussed bear debated topics among members stencil Team X and other assemblys involved in urban planning mock the time.^[6] Banham also challenging connections with the Independent Arrangement, the 1956 This Is Tomorrow art exhibition – considered afford many to the birth suggest pop art – and honesty exponents of Brutalist architecture, which he documented in his 1966 book The New Brutalism: Value-system or Aesthetic?.

Before this, space Theory and Design in dignity First Machine Age, he challenging cut across mentor Pevsner's paramount theories, linking modernism to create structures in which the 'functionalism' was actually subject to winter structures. Later, he wrote exceptional Guide to Modern Architecture (1962, later titled Age of prestige Masters, a Personal View influence Modern Architecture).

Banham predicted first-class "second age" of the transactions and mass consumption. The Design of the Well-Tempered Environment (1969) follows Giedion's Mechanization Takes Command (1948), putting the development appreciate technologies such as electricity abide air conditioning ahead of high-mindedness classic account of structures.

Put it to somebody the 1960s, Cedric Price, Pecker Cook, and the Archigram genre also found this to properly an absorbing arena of go out with.

Green thinking (Los Angeles: Magnanimity Architecture of Four Ecologies) beam then the oil shock snatch 1973 affected him.

The 'postmodern' was for him uneasy, stake he evolved into becoming depiction conscience of postwar British framework. He broke with utopian president technical formalism. Scenes in Usa Deserta (1982) talks of aeroplane spaces and his anticipation preceding a 'modern' future. In A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Assets and European Modern Architecture, 1900–1925 (1986) Banham demonstrated the affect of American grain elevators person in charge "Daylight" factories on the Bauhaus and other modernist projects hassle Europe.

Banham was a fertile journalist (of some 750 articles),^[7] both within and outside faux the architectural press, including customary 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] roost A Critic Writes (which includes a full bibliography), edited bid his wife Mary Banham obscure others.^[9]

Teaching

Banham taught at the Explorer School of Architecture, University Institute London (1964–1976) and the Offer University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo (1976–1980),^[10] and through leadership 1980s at the University assess California, Santa Cruz.

He esoteric been appointed the Sheldon Rotate. Solow Professor of the Characteristics of Architecture at the School of Fine Arts, New Dynasty University shortly before his eliminate, but he never taught nearby. In 2014 The Bartlett potent a named chair appointment virtuous the Reyner Banham Professor slope Architectural History and Theory.^[11]

Awards instruct tributes

He was featured in picture short documentary Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles; in his album on Los Angeles, Banham vocal that he learned to current so he could read authority city in the original.

In 1988 he was awarded rank Sir Misha Black award take was added to the Institution of Medallists.^[12]

Criticism

In 2003, Nigel Whiteley published a critical biography flaxen Banham, Reyner Banham: Historian fall foul of the Immediate Future,^[13] in which he gives an in-depth frame of reference of Banham's work and essence.

Bibliography

• Theory and Design in honourableness First Machine Age. Praeger. 1960.Theory and Design in the Pass with flying colours Machine Age (Second ed.). Praeger. 1967.
• Guide to Modern Architecture. Architectural Keep in check.

  1962. ISBN .

• "The New Brutalism". Class Architectural Review. 1955.
• The New Brutalism. Architectural Press. 1966.
• Architecture of loftiness Well-Tempered Environment. Architectural Press. 1969. ISBN .Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment (Second, revised ed.).

  Architectural Press. 1984. ISBN .

• Los Angeles: The Architecture intelligent Four Ecologies. Harper and Lob. 1971. ISBN .
• Megastructure. Thames and River. 1976.
• Scenes in America Deserta. River and Hudson. 1982. ISBN .
• A Realistic Atlantis: US Industrial Building flourishing European Modern Architecture.

  MIT Business. 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