Forty Ways to Think About Architecture (PDF)

How do we think about architecture historically and
theoretically? Forty Ways to Think about Architecture
provides an introduction to some of the wide-ranging ways in which
architectural history and theory are being approached today.

The inspiration for this project is the work of Adrian Forty,
Professor of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of
Architecture, University College London (UCL), who has been
internationally renowned as the UK's leading academic in the
discipline for 40 years. Forty's many publications, notably
Objects of Desire (1986), Words and Buildings (2000)
and Concrete and Culture (2012), have been crucial to
opening up new approaches to architectural history and theory and
have helped to establish entirely new areas of study. His teaching
at The Bartlett has enthused a new generation about the exciting
possibilities of architectural history and theory as a field.

This collection takes in a total of 40 essays covering key
subjects, ranging from memory and heritage to everyday life,
building materials and city spaces. As well as critical theory,
philosophy, literature and experimental design, it refers to more
immediate and topical issues in the built environment, such as
globalisation, localism, regeneration and ecologies. Concise and
engaging entries reflect on architecture from a range of
perspectives.

Contributors include eminent historians and theorists from
elsewhere - such as Jean-Louis Cohen, Briony Fer, Hilde
Heynen, Mary McLeod, Griselda Pollock, Penny Sparke and Anthony
Vidler - as well as Forty's colleagues from the
Bartlett School of Architecture including Iain Borden, Murray
Fraser, Peter Hall, Barbara Penner, Jane Rendell and Andrew Saint.
Forty Ways to Think about Architecture also features
contributions from distinguished architects, such as Tony Fretton,
Jeremy Till and Sarah Wigglesworth, and well-known critics and
architectural writers, such as Tom Dyckhoff, William Menking and
Thomas Weaver. Many of the contributors are former students of
Adrian Forty.

Through these diverse essays, readers are encouraged to think
about how architectural history and theory relates to their own
research and design practices, thus using the work of Adrian Forty
as a catalyst for fresh and innovative thinking about architecture
as a subject.