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'engrossing ... Glendinning's polemic argues that the "spectacularisation" of architecture creates alienated places and people. Late 20th-century modernist architecture's failure to give form to a humane socio-industrial revolution collapsed in the 1980s and 1990s into a veneration of inherently capitalist design geniuses. Their arbitrarily flamboyant buildings have little social or historical integrity. Glendinning marshals his arguments deftly and his quoted material burns bright ... admirable.' - The Independent 'Miles Glendinning's book hits the spot ... like all effective polemics this one turns swift and stylish, and comes to a positive conclusion: rebuild your cities slowly and carefully; integrate into them what was good about what was there before; remember that buildings are supposed to dignify people; shut up and stop showing off.' - Architecture Today 'a racy polemic and structured indictment of an architectural world obsessed with vanity projects and 'starchitects' ... Glendinning writes both passionately and with the perspective and insight of an architectural historian ... Architecture's Evil Empire? offers informed articulation of what many have been thinking and saying for at least a decade.' - Context 'Anyone who knows the buildings of Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid will know that architecture has been getting more like the fashion industry in recent years. Where its stock in trade once resembled the M&S underwear department, there's now an army of John Gallianos designing building for the catwalk. In a fascinating study, Mile Glendinning explains the rise of this global phenomenon and documents its most rampant examples.' - Jewish Chronicle 'It's not architectural icons that Glendinning fears most, but the hidden iceberg of decadent causes and effects on which they perch.' - Sunday Tribune, Ireland 'an impressive undertaking which charts the political and economic climate, philanthropists and architectural visionaries, attitudes to urban planning and the effects of globalisation ... a provocative read, sure to fuel debate on the future of architecture and the city.' - The Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland 'One of the effects of our brand-led and time-starved world is that whatever cultural endeavour you choose to undertake: staging an art exhibition; hosting a club night; or commissioning a building of a new skyscraper, people only seem to notice if there is a big named involved. Consequently, architecture has seen a rise in celebrity "Starchitects". This handful of names is often given carte blanche to dump masses of concrete and steel in conceptual yet dysfunctional heaps around the world with scant regard for the cultural mores of the folk who live there. The trend for such gestural constructs is finally and rightly challenged here in this wry and passionate polemic addressing the state of contemporary architecture. An unsettling book for some, but of interest to all.' - The Bookseller
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@font-face { font-family: Times New Roman ; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Helvetica; }table.MsoNormalTable { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times New Roman ; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } From Los Angeles to London to Bilbao, cities around the world nowadays boast iconic buildings by celebrity 'starchitects' that compete for attention on the skyline and in the media. But in recent years, criticism of these 'gestural' structures, famous for their exaggerated forms, has been growing. Miles Glendinning's impassioned polemic, Architecture's Evil Empire?, looks at how such cult works have fatally subverted the built environment as a whole. How a world-wide 'empire' of contemporary modernism emerged within the context of global capitalism's excesses is explained in this book. Arguing against the excesses of iconic design, Glendinning advocates a modern renewal that seeks to remedy the tragically alienated state of contemporary architecture, although his is a renewal that contrasts strongly with the traditionalist visions of America's New Urbanists or Britain's Prince Charles. Mingling scholarship with wry humour and a genuine concern for the present situation, Architecture's Evil Empire? will raise heated debates across the continents, for this book is essential reading for architects, planners and everyone else concerned about the built environment of now and tomorrow.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a good, fast read - unusual in the field of architectural studies - in which the author reviews some of the most abnormal buildings produced in the last 30 years, and offers a Thucydidean pre-history to try and account for them. That's not an easy call: it requires Glendinning to explain buildings that are the product of what he calls architecture's "semi-detached" relationship with power, and the raising of important and too-often unasked questions about who's actually responsible for buildings: the architect or the client?
Glendinning's view is that a culture of communalism that gave architecture a valuable coherence even in its most despised periods - Victoriana and 20th-century Modern - has finally broken down, leaving the landscape wrecked by vulgar, unnecessarily expensive, attention-seeking would-be icons. His tone is critical, sometimes bordering on outrage: at the head of his list of villains are, of course, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, and he blames Rem Koolhaas's writings for the climate in which their works have thrived.
Out of this chaos he attempts to find some consolation, however, and for that, he ends up praising the civic planning of modern Hong Kong and Shanghai.
This is an excellent essay - selective, inevitably, in imitating the very focus on high-status monuments that he rightly blames the architectural media for - but as a structured explanation of numerous factors that had not previously been brought together, it's well worth reading.
Glendinning's view is that a culture of communalism that gave architecture a valuable coherence even in its most despised periods - Victoriana and 20th-century Modern - has finally broken down, leaving the landscape wrecked by vulgar, unnecessarily expensive, attention-seeking would-be icons. His tone is critical, sometimes bordering on outrage: at the head of his list of villains are, of course, Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, and he blames Rem Koolhaas's writings for the climate in which their works have thrived.
Out of this chaos he attempts to find some consolation, however, and for that, he ends up praising the civic planning of modern Hong Kong and Shanghai.
This is an excellent essay - selective, inevitably, in imitating the very focus on high-status monuments that he rightly blames the architectural media for - but as a structured explanation of numerous factors that had not previously been brought together, it's well worth reading.
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