Smithy, Sheerness Naval Dockyard Kent (1858) Eric de Mare photograph 1956
AA Files issue 70 has just been published, with a wealth of diverse material including texts about Robin Evans, Jan Kaplicky, Piano and Rogers and 'possible' Pompidou Centres, and Niemeyer's Copan building, among much else. There is an essay by me on the photography of Eric de Mare in relation to what was termed 'the Functional Tradition:' he travelled throughout Britain in the Summer of 1956 looking at old and completely forgotten industrial structures. This voyage of discovery of multifarious buildings including dock warehouses, mills, breweries, canal buildings and so on culminated in an Architectural Review article, and following that a book of the same name which appeared in 1958.
Although 'architecture without architects', to use Rudofsky's later phrase, there was much that was relevant to architects of that period, who saw these structures as expressing a refreshing originality of form not limited by traditional aesthetics. This essay narrates and interprets this body of work- which, incidentally, turned de Mare from being an architect-journalist to being a celebrated photographer- and, we hope, will also be later published in a far more comprehensive as a book.
Although 'architecture without architects', to use Rudofsky's later phrase, there was much that was relevant to architects of that period, who saw these structures as expressing a refreshing originality of form not limited by traditional aesthetics. This essay narrates and interprets this body of work- which, incidentally, turned de Mare from being an architect-journalist to being a celebrated photographer- and, we hope, will also be later published in a far more comprehensive as a book.