Bleak Houses by Timothy J Brittain-Catlin

Bleak Houses by Timothy J Brittain-Catlin

Why some architects fail to realize their ideal buildings, and what architecture critics can learn from novelists.

The usual history of architecture is a grand narrative of soaring monuments and heroic makers. But it is also a false narrative in many ways, rarely acknowledging the personal failures and disappointments of architects. In Bleak Houses, Timothy Brittain-Catlin investigates the underside of architecture, the stories of losers and unfulfillment often ignored by an architectural criticism that values novelty, fame, and virility over fallibility and rejection.

As architectural criticism promotes increasingly narrow values, dismissing certain styles wholesale and subjecting buildings to a Victorian litmus test of "real" versus "fake," Brittain-Catlin explains the effect this superficial criticality has had not only on architectural discourse but on the quality of buildings. The fact that most buildings receive no critical scrutiny at all has resulted in vast stretches of ugly modern housing and a pervasive public illiteracy about architecture.

Brittain-Catlin, Timothy J.: - Timothy Brittain-Catlin is a Reader at Kent School of Architecture, University of Kent. His writing has appeared in The World of Interiors, Architectural Review, and many other publications.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262528856
ISBN 10	0262528851
Title	Bleak Houses
Author	Timothy J Brittain-Catlin
Series	The Mit Press
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2016-02-12
Number of pages	192
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.