Adrian Forty

As much as architects would like to think otherwise, they do more than just draw and build models. They also write – a lot, anything from correspondences and specifications to project descriptions and monographs. Therefore language is extremely important for conveying ideas, intentions and other things that may be expressed through drawings, models and even completed buildings, but need to be articulated as well through words. Adrian Forty's excellent book must be the only one that takes show more aim at how architects use language, specifically in terms of modern architecture, which had to stake out its own definitions in the 20th century. Just look at a dictionary of architecture to see how the language of architecture has changed from highly detailed building ornaments and elements to relatively intangible and abstract terms: context, form, space, transparency, truth, type, etc. Forty unravels the history of these and other terms in the second part of the book, following six chapters that discuss how architects use language and how meaning of particular words evolved in modernity. In addition to a strong grasp of history, Forty is adept at understanding how contemporary architects use language as a polemical tool to accompany their drawings and other visual output. show less

Writing about concrete as both a medium and expression of modernity and postmodernism is a big task, but this book pulls it off. The chapters on the relationship between concrete and national politics and cultural aesthetics are so interesting at explaining differences in architectural uses of reinforced concrete. But it's the chapters on concrete as a medium of expression, like paints for an artist or words for a poet, where the author really captures something special. Those chapters are show more fascinating and have changed how I look at the ubiquitous surfaces and structures of poured concrete around me show less

The author’s goal is to relate design history to social and cultural history, rather than picturing individual designers as artists. It is important for interaction designers to think about digital artifacts in terms of social and political contexts; Forty provides excellent examples of such thinking.

Unusual book, written for general public but scrupulously sourced, almost paragraph by paragraph. A lot of emphasis given to the transforming nature of attitude to hygiene and role of women in the household reflected in the design of consumer products.

Solidly written but just not very revelatory.