Architecture Foundation's Book Week 2023

John Hill
28. November 2023
Image via the Architecture Foundation

First, here is the list of fourteen books — kudos on a diverse selection made by the AF — presented in alphabetical order by title:

  • Africa Modernism: The Architecture of Independence edited by Manuel Herz (Park Books, 2022; reprint, originally published in 2018)
  • Architecture in Islamic Countries edited by Helen Thomas (gta Verlag, 2023)
  • Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria by Samia Henni (gta Verlag, 2017)
  • Architect, Verb by Reinier De Graaf (Verso, 2023)
  • First Quarter by John Tuomey (The Lilliput Press, 2023)
  • Gentrification is Inevitable and Other Lies by Leslie Kern (The MIT Press, 2022)
  • Grundkurs: What is Architecture About? by Pier Paolo Tamburelli (MACK, 2023)
  • Iconicon: A Journey Around Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain by John Grindrod (Faber, 2022)
  • Modelling the Metropolis: The Architectural Model in Victorian London by Matthew Wells (gta Verlag, 2023)
  • On the Street: In-Between Architecture by Edwin Heathcote (HENI Publishing, 2023)
  • Paolo Portoghesi: Architecture between History, Politics and Media by Silvia Micheli and Léa-Catherine Szacka (Bloomsbury, 2023)
  • Sharing Tokyo: Artifice and the Sharing World edited by Mohsen Mostafavi and Kayoko Ota (Actar, 2023)
  • Wide Angle View: Architecture as Social Space in the Manplan Series 1969-1970 by Valeria Carullo (RIBA Publishing, 2023)

All of the videos can be watched on YouTube via the Book Week 2023 playlist on the Architecture Foundation channel. Below are embeds of a half-dozen highlights, also presented in alphabetical order by title.


Architect Manuel Herz presents Africa Modernism: The Architecture of Independence. Ghana, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Zambia, the 2018 book he edited with Ingrid Schröder, Hans Focketyn, and Julia Jamrozik. The large-format, lavishly illustrated book featuring photographs by Iwan Baan and Alexia Webster was reprinted last year by Park Books.


Two books are involved with the output of Italian architect Paolo Portoghesi: Helen Thomas's Architecture in Islamic Countries: Selections from the Catalogue for the Second International Exhibition of Architecture Venice 1982/83 looks at Portoghesi's less-famous Biennale, done two years after The Presence of the Past; Paolo Portoghesi: Architecture between History, Politics and Media by Silvia Micheli and Léa-Catherine Szacka, a critical work that looks at postmodernism through Portoghesi, is the latest installment in the Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture series. Their talks:


OMA partner Reinier De Graaf presents Architect, Verb. The New Language of Building, which was published in February of this year and reviewed in our Magazine.


Irish architect John Tuomey, who practices in Dublin with his wife, Sheila O'Donnell, in O'Donnell & Tuomey, speaks with AF director Ellis Woodman about First Quarter, Tuomey's memoir of his life leading up to his career as an architect.


Valeria Carullo, Photographs Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), presents Wide Angle View: Architecture as Social Space in the Manplan Series 1969-1970, the companion book to the exhibition of the same name that was also curated by Carullo. The book and exhibition digs into a series in the Architectural Review magazine that explored architecture’s impact on society.

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