Kenneth Powell – författare

The Great Builders surveys the careers of forty great architects whose engineering skills were crucial to their success. Sixteen nationalities and seven centuries of architectural innovation make for a survey of spectacular scope and depth: from churches and fortresses to bridges and high-tech skyscrapers, it includes masterpieces from all over the world and covers 700 years of architectural history. Here is Brunelleschi, who built the ‘unbuildable’ dome of Florence Cathedral; Sinan, a Christian engineer who became chief architect to the Ottoman court; Joseph Paxton, scribbling down a design for the Crystal Palace, London, on a piece of blotting paper; and James Bogardus, an early American evangelist of the opportunities offered by cast-iron architecture. Rapid advances in industrial production inspired experiments with new materials and techniques, gradually allowing a whole new architecture to emerge: reinforced concrete, plate glass and steel were central to the creations of Le Corbusier, Auguste Perret and Mies van der Rohe, for instance; and, in the High-Tech architecture of the present day – represented by Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava, among others – computer-aided design has seemingly tested the boundaries of the possible.With 26 illustrations, 19 in colour

John Carr of York (1723 – 1807) was one of the most prolific and significant architects of the eighteenth century, with an output of over 400 designs, most of which were executed. His designs vary from simple gateways through to the grandest schemes, such as that for the palatial hospital at Oporto in Portugal, Harewood House and village in Yorkshire, and Basildon Park in Berkshire.

Edward (Ted) Cullinan set up his practice in 1965 as a cooperative in the belief that architecture needed commitment from the whole team. He was inspired by a year at Berkeley in 1956, and had worked closely with Denys Lasdun – notably at the University of East Anglia. He started with highly inventive low-cost houses, building his own upside-down passive solar home in north London where he lived until his death in 2019. The practice and the projects grew with major local authority housing, public and private buildings before embarking on a sequence of university buildings and master plans in the UK and abroad. Ted composed his buildings, drawing by hand the section, plan and elevation simultaneously. His integration of low-energy and environmental design matured as a team effort of architects and engineers. You did not have to be an architect to be captivated by the drawings he made when giving lectures. With some classic and many new photographs and a selection of his drawings, this is the first complete account of the practice that Ted led for over 50 years. Never more than 45 members strong, the practice morphed into Cullinan Studio with his insistence on thinking and behaving differently for architecture and the greater good. Edward Cullinan Architects is part of the series Twentieth Century Architects, produced in collaboration with the Twentieth Century Society and Historic England.

Arup Associates, a major presence on the British architectural scene for more than half a century, emerged from the famous engineering consultancy founded by Ove Arup in 1946 and reflected Arup’s own vision of “total design”, formed in the 1930s in his groundbreaking collaborations with Berthold Lubetkin. With architects, engineers and other professionals working in groups, it offered a uniquely interdisciplinary approach to the design of buildings. From early groundbreaking factories to a series of university commissions, innovative offices, and cultural projects, including the Snape Maltings concert hall, the practice moved on to become a major player on the London development scene with its projects at Finsbury Avenue and Broadgate. This book, the first monograph on Arup Associates for more than 30 years, discusses the work of the firm from the years of the Arup Building Group in the 1950s to the 1990s and assesses the contribution of its leading designers, including Sir Philip Dowson, Derek Sugden and Peter Foggo. The text is based on interviews with many former and current members of the practice. The book is fully illustrated with images from the Arup archive and stunning new photography offering a new perspective on an exceptional body of work.

Since Seth Stein founded his practice in 1990, he has gained an international reputation and numerous awards for creating extraordinary buildings, both residential and commercial. From new-built coastal retreats to revitalised historic urban townhouses and palazzos, his architecture is always both striking and elegant: sculptural and flowing in form, light-filled, with a mastery of materials and exquisite detailing. There is a strong sense of place in his projects, as a country house curves around the contours of a ridge, making the most of its vantage over the sea, or a futuristic urban interior is juxtaposed within an elegant listed structure, revitalising it for contemporary living. Running through the practice's work is a deceptive simplicity, an exciting and innovative use of new building methods and materials, along with an intrinsic environmental sustainability. This monograph aims not only to bring together the full range of Seth Stein Architects' projects for the first time, but in doing so, to offer insights into the practice's ethos and design processes, setting them within context and exploring key issues and themes.

Completed in 1984 by Arup Associates 1 Finsbury Avenue (1FA), the first section of the Broadgate masterplan, was widely acclaimed at the time and has since been listed as a Grade II building by Historic England. It was commonly acknowledged as having set the exemplar for future commercial architecture in the UK, introducing major innovations in construction methods and materials from the US and adopting a whole new approach to the design and planning of an office block.1FA has recently undergone a prestigious mixed-use restoration by British Land, in liaison with Historic England, designed by award-winning architects Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. While retaining the distinctive listed facade and reintroducing the original plan's full-height interior atrium, AHMM have taken a similarly innovative and experimental approach to the complex, and in doing so, have set a new exemplar for the future of office design in the 21st Century.This book sets the iconic building in its historic context, before detailing the story of its initial development, design and construction, its listing and the effect of this listing on a commercial property in terms of planning and adaptive re-use. It then critically examines the current, similarly innovative scheme and the reimagining of this late 20th-century landmark.

Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK) was established in London in 1961 by three young AA graduates, Peter Ahrends, Richard Burton and Paul Koralek. By the 1970s, ABK was known as one of the most creative and versatile of Britain’s younger practices, its workload ranging from college buildings in Oxford and Chichester to housing, public libraries, retail and industrial buildings. While influenced by High-tech, their buildings were characterised by a concern for strong form and materiality. Major projects of the 1980s included stations for the Docklands Light Railway and the pioneering St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight, as well as buildings at Hooke Park in Dorset designed in collaboration with Frei Otto.ABK’s victory in the prestigious 1982 competition for an extension to the National Gallery in London reflected the firm’s standing but the scheme was abandoned following a controversial intervention by the Prince of Wales. Written by eminent architectural author and critic, Kenneth Powell, and lavishly illustrated with images from the practice’s archive and stunning new photography, this book is an essential read for architects, students, architectural historians and anyone who is interested in learning more about a key practice in British post-war architecture. This book has been commissioned as part of a series of books on Twentieth Century Architects by RIBA Publishing, English Heritage and The Twentieth Century Society.