Laughing at Architecture

Michela Rosso is Associate Professor of Architecture at the Politechnico di Torino, Italy. In 2014 she was elected General Chair of the Advisory Board of the European Architectural History Network, and in 2016 she was awarded a residential fellowship at the Yale Center for British Art.

Satire opens the mind even as it leaves the mouth gaping... and it turns out to have been an inherent ingredient in the symbiotic rise of public debate and modernization since the mid-18th century. That is one of the many conclusions of this anthology of ribald images and erudite analyses that place humour in its social ad political context. The collection is as delightful as it is insightful, the humor runs the full gamut from affectionate to wickedly biting.

• List of Figures List of Contributors Introduction, Michela Rosso 1. Laughing at the Baroque: A Drawing and Some Texts Compared, Susanna Pasquali 2. From Reportage to Ridicule: Satirizing the Building Industry in the Eighteenth-century Irish Press, Conor Lucey 3. The Thorn of Scorn: John Nash and his All Souls Church for a Transformed Regency London, Daniela Roberts 4. 'A Joke that has Gone on Far too Long': Mocking the Completion of the New Hôtel des Postes de Paris (1886–1888), Guy Lambert5. Deconstructing Gaudí: Intertwined Relationships between Satire and Architectural Criticism, Josep-Maria Garcia-Fuentes6. Confronting Problems with a Sense of Humour: Adolf Loos’s Architectural Polemics and Viennese Journalism, Ruth Hanisch7. Words and Images of Contempt: Il Selvaggio on Architecture (1926–1942), Michela Rosso 8. Osbert Lancaster: Architectural Humour in the Time of Functionalism, Alan Powers9. Irrational Interiors: The Modern Domestic Landscape Seen in Caricatures, Gabriele Neri 10. From ‘Little Russia’ (Klein Rusland) to ‘Planet of the Apes’ (De Apenplaneet): Nicknaming Twentieth-century Mass Housing in Belgium, Evert Vandeweghe11. Saul Steinberg’s Graph Paper Architecture: Humorous Drawings and Diagrams as Instruments of Critique, Christoph Lueder12. The Modern City Through the Mirror of Humour: A Different Portrait, Olivier Ratouis13. Splendid?! Preposterous! Chinese Artists Mock the Architectural Spectacle, Angela Becher Index