ARCHITECTURE DEPENDS

"A provocative declaration of war on utopia, powered by a fuel rich in social justice and sharp humor. Architects, hide it from your clients and your students - it is an unusual and explosive mixture that produces difficult questions like spores. With this book Jeremy Till raises the starting price on all our discussions of architecture."--Paul Shepheard, author of What is Architecture? and Artificial LoveJeremy Till is Dean of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Westminster and a partner at Sarah Wigglesworth Architects. Their projects include the pioneering 9 Stock Orchard Street (The Strawbale House and Quilted Office), winner of multiple awards. He represented Britain at the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale."Boldly and elegantly, Architecture Depends asserts that architecture is absolutely dependent upon the 'contingent', difficult and perverse factors that architects have long tried to ignore in an effort to be pure, self-important and professional...What Till's book achieves is to set out with great clarity the territory in which the debate around future action must take place." Robert Mull Architects" Journal" Architecture Depends is an attempt to save the profession from itself and a manifesto for an architecture that acknowledges its relationship with the world and its duty to others...This is a brave, enjoyable, affirming and important book and I actually felt sad to have finished it." Flora Samuel, Times Higher Education (Book of the Week)"The book performs a wonderful contextualizing function, making architectural intervention, from idea to event, depend on the wide range of human habits and spheres of influence that we normally sum up as "the world"." Lucas Freeman Scapegoat"This is a brave, enjoyable, affirming and important book and I actually felt sad to have finished it." Flora Samuel Times Higher Education"Thought-provoking and important... Architecture Depends raises the question of the relationship of architecture and life to a new level." Anni Vartola Arkkitehti (Finland)