Design Yearbook 2017

On Repetition: Photograhpy in/as Architectural Criticism - Working
through the Archives of Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s German
Pavilion and the North American Concrete Grain Elevators
Catalina Mejia-Moreno
www.travesiafoundation.org
‘Many of us, maybe all of us, look at some images repeatedly, but it seems that we do
not write about that repetition, or think it, once written, worth reading by others’.
T.J.Clark. The Sight of Death. An experiment in Art Writing. (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2006) pp. 9.
In the photo-archives of two of the most recognised British architectural
historians of the late twentieth century - Robin Evans and Reyner Banham -
two iconic buildings come across repeatedly, almost compulsively. In Evans’, the
Barcelona Pavilion (1929- reconstructed 1986) and in Banham’s, the Buffalo
Grain Elevators (late nineteenth Century). While these slide sets can be
understood as the result of the empiricist English tradition and the relevance
of direct experience for the buildings’ histories and criticisms, they are also
evidence of a wider phenomenon in architectural history: the drive to re-visit,
the compulsion to re-photograph and the instinct to repeat. In this context,
my PhD project questions photography as the inherent means of repetition
in architectural history, while arguing that the photograph as material object
and object of representation also performs as the criticism itself. By studying
two important moments in time for the photographic dissemination of the
two aforementioned buildings, and by understanding the material history of
photographs as commodities and objects of transaction, I critically examine
the relationship between architectural history, architectural criticism, and
photographic and ideological techniques of (re)production.
Looking Towards Retirement: Alternative Design Approaches to Third-
Ager Housing
Sam Clark
UK society was first categorised ‘aged’ during the 1970s, and is currently
heading towards ‘super-aged’ status, whereby 20 per cent of the population
will be aged sixty-five and over by the year 2025. Indeed scientific evidence
indicates linear increases in life expectancy since 1840, such that UK
population ‘pyramids’ are now looking more like ‘columns’, with fewer
younger people at the base and increasing numbers and proportions of older
people at the top. There are 10,000 centenarians living in the UK today, with
demographers anticipating a five-fold increase by 2030. Half of all babies born
this year can expect to live one hundred years.
Housing plays a significant role in sustaining a good quality of life, and there
is growing opinion that moving to specialist or more age-appropriate housing
has a positive impact on the wellbeing of older people, as well as potential
benefits to the property market as a whole. Recent design research includes a
competition commissioned by McCarthy & Stone to ‘re-imagine ageing’, and
an RIBA report illustrating future scenarios in which ‘Active Third-Agers’ have
made a huge impact on UK towns and cities. Both initiatives were predicated
on the idea that today’s older population (colloquially known as the ‘babyboomers’)
have alternative and more demanding lifestyle expectations that are
likely to drive a step-change in housing choice for older people.
Sam is working in collaboration with national house builder, Churchill
Retirement Living, to further explore the needs and aspirations of those
entering retirement. In this instance a PhD by Creative Practice is being used
as a vehicle for applied design research that will contribute to contemporary
visions for retirement living.
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