The Architectural Review Podcast

In this episode, architect, artist and critical urban theorist Dele Adeyemo takes us to the modernist Meridian Hotel in Tema New Town in Ghana. The 1975 song Meridian by Ghanaian group Wulomei provides evidence of its former grandeur and the ambition of post-independence Ghana – evidence that cannot be found in traditional archives.   This AR Bookshelf episode is part of a collaboration between Th...

In this episode, architectural historian, writer and educator Huda Tayob takes us to the now destroyed Sophiatown in Johannesburg, South Africa, through recordings of the neighbourhood found in the 1959 film Come Back Africa. This AR Bookshelf episode is part of a collaboration between The Architectural Review and the  Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) around the book Fugitive Archives: A Sou...

The Architectural Review is joined in this episode of the AR Ecologies by the Canadian Centre for Architecture , as we follow the research of CCA's ‘How to: do no harm’ residency, curated by Lev Bratishenko and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes. AR host Ellen Peirson looks at the harm that architects do to land, cities, materials and workers. Stories from Sahar Shah, Guujaaw, Sename Koffi Agbodjinou and...

The Architectural Review is joined in this episode by the Canadian Centre for Architecture . On our bookshelf in this chapter is the CCA's CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the archive by Yann Chateigné, Kitty Scott and Hila Peleg, co-published with Koenig Books in July 2020. This episode dwells on the peripheries of Matta-Clark's work – in his library, his travel snaps, and his discarded film...

Completing the tree-filled trilogy, the AR turns to focus on timber, our fundamental link between trees and architecture. Timber, especially mass timber - is seen to be one of the most ecologically sustainable building materials and an obvious alternative in construction. But when a virtuous material is used to replicate capitalist models, the result can exacerbate, rather than counter the climate...

Can designing with trees result in more than just salad garnish? In the second episode of AR Ecologies, the conversation unpicks architects' obsession with trees in order to progress beyond superficial greenwashing. Scientist Suzanne Simard, architect Paulo Tavares and engineer Maria Smith get below the roots to reveal how to design for trees to thrive, not perform. Hosted by Sabrina Syed.  AR Eco...

In the first episode of the AR Ecologies series, the ecological silver bullet of planting trees is put under scrutiny. From Amazonia to London, planting and its colonial history is unravelled by different voices, including photographer Sebastião Salgado, scientist Suzanne Simard, research director at human rights organisation Survival International Fiona Watson, architect Paulo Tavares and enginee...

This episode features  In praise of darkness, a waning reserve by Sigri Sandberg, published in AR April 2020. We chose to revisit this piece, which we published as the keynote for the Darkness issue nearly 18 months ago, as this week we mark the launch of our Light issue. With the Darkness issue we explored how darkness is a critical resource that is increasingly endangered, where shadows can be s...

This episode features a piece by Peter Buchanan which asks whether early acclaim for an architect can be a handicap – or even the kiss of death? We’re revisiting this piece now as our July/August issue features the work of Enric Miralles (1955 - 2000) in our Reputations column, who, as a believer in designing through making, left a vast archive of drawings and models. This essay looks at the archi...

With the publication of our Collage + AR New into Old issue, we return to an essay by Douglas Murphy on Cedric Price, published as part of an issue on adaptive reuse, picking up on the ideas of adaptability, indeterminacy, and progress that underlie Price’s work.  The AR New into Old awards celebrate the creative ways buildings are adapted and remodelled to welcome contemporary uses. This year, we...

This episode features an essay by Carlos Quintáns called Make do and mend , published in AR December 2019/January 2020 issue on Preservation. The essay looks at how practices of persistent upkeep in Burkina Faso are themselves a piece of heritage that must be maintained. We’re revisiting this piece now as we publish our June issue on Waste where we confront the life cycles of materials, objects an...

Harnessing failure: on this Earth Day, we have chosen to revisit this essay Keller Easterling wrote for our Failure issue, published in February 2019, about the catastrophic failures of our contemporary world, from climate crisis to financial crashes to the apparent inability of global infrastructures of space to adequately accommodate refugees. In the face of such failure at such scale, Easterlin...

Published in AR November 2016, Housing the dead , by Ken Warpole is about the environmental, economic and cultural factors that have shaped funerary architecture throughout the ages. Following on from the publication of our April 2021 issue on the underground, this piece burrows into the underground as not something that is hollow and empty – infinitely filled and extracted from, but a site full o...

How female architects were erased from history: published in AR March 2017, The Invisible Women by Eva Álvarez and Carlos Gómez traces how architectural discourse and history has favoured the sole (male) starchitect, erasing collaborative realities and the work of women as it does so. As part of this year’s W Awards, celebrating exceptional work by women in architecture, we will host a full week o...

Havana’s unique agricultural infrastructure emerged from punishing trade sanctions following the fall of the USSR but today provides an exemplary precedent that could be applied worldwide. This episode of AR Reads features Cuba’s urban farming revolution: how to create self-sufficient cities by Carey Clouse, published in AR March 2014.  AR Reads is a podcast by The Architectural Review, bringing y...

The British landscape architect of the Modern garden, Sylvia Crowe is known for the gardens of the Commonwealth Institute in London, the Rutland Water reservoir in East Anglia, and texts such as Garden Design and Tomorrow’s Landscape. This episode of AR Reads features our Reputations on Crowe by Jonathan Glancey Also referenced in the text is Timothy Brittain-Catlin’s  Outrage on the betrayal of t...

In the third chapter of the AR Bookshelf, Owen Hatherley reveals Southampton’s secrets, how to solve the housing crisis and why Brutalism mania has gone too far. Join us on a journey from Southampton to Moscow, via Los Angeles, London and Warsaw, all without leaving home.   The AR Bookshelf, a podcast by The Architectural Review, invites the most interesting and influential names in architecture t...

Lesley Lokko talks to The Architectural Review about the books on her bookshelf, from Reni Eddo-Lodge and Nadine Gordimer to Rem Koolhaas and Hello magazine. Through these books, we discuss corporate Black Lives Matter statements, bad book covers, and the truth found in fiction.   The AR Bookshelf, a podcast by The Architectural Review, invites the most interesting and influential names in archite...

Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats take The Architectural Review around their bookshelf, from Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier to TS Eliot and Georges Perec. On the way, we discuss the death of drawing, books that hold memory, and bringing buildings back to life.   The AR Bookshelf, a podcast by The Architectural Review, invites the most interesting and influential names in architecture to put books on an im...