Architects Journal
Ian Martin
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A round-up of this month’s new books about icons
30-Aug-2012
Ian Martin browses the latest architectural publications -
Observing the space limit, sending out the right signals
28-Jun-2012
Ian Martin meets the Tamworth residents’ vocal group -
As one era draws to a close, the same era begins all over again
21-Jun-2012
Ian Martin includes Dame Zaha in his opening ceremony -
Thinking outside the hub, conceptualising a new club
14-Jun-2012
Ian Martin strengthens the international epic space community -
An encounter with a high streetist, and a bespoke mansion in the style of Dave
7-Jun-2012
Ian Martin pitches Tamworth’s Plan for Retail Revival -
I reach out to the international merging community, with limited success
31-May-2012
Ian Martin re-architecturalises the Coalition’s policy narrative -
The infinite possibilities of Metropolis 3000 and the importance of harvesting ‘sunfall’
24-May-2012
Ian Martin converts smartphones into a trope scanners -
The name of the game may have changed, but it’s still musical chairs for space-parcellists
17-May-2012
Ian Martin redefines the London property development game -
An ambitious plan to twin Tamworth and Los Angeles is put to the test
10-May-2012
Ian Martin Road-tests the beta version of the iPad 5 -
Airbrushing people from the landscapes of the past to create a retro-chic version of the future
3-May-2012
Ian Martin shouts ‘yay!’ at the mention of the Olympics -
I ghost the comeback of HRH The Phantom Menace, and experience a brand new Shardenfreude
26-Apr-2012
Ian Martin is the Prince of Wales’ ghost -
A journey into epic cyberspace, and the branding of a hipster skyscraper
19-Apr-2012
Ian Martin redesigns the internet -
The struggle to reclaim public space in the interests of corporate freedom
5-Apr-2012
Ian Martin reframes public space in the minds of the British people -
Recalibrating the Olympic legacy, recalculating the Ally Palacy
29-Mar-2012
Ian Martin brainstorms some disaster icons -
Known core givens, unknown core givens and an imaginary conversation
22-Mar-2012
Ian Martin pretends to write a blockbuster thriller – Forced Perspective -
How heavy is your urban landscape? Also, what gender is it?
15-Mar-2012
Ian Martin becomes envious of Isis de Cambray -
Maintaining urban form means having to keep up appearances
8-Mar-2012
Ian Martin clashes with an old friend -
A new age dawns with the advent of the Royal Institute for the Pop-Uption of British Architects
1-Mar-2012
Ian Martin redesigns Liverpool and Battersea -
The life, times and misdemeanours of Augustus Pugin, in the style of fossilised music hall
23-Feb-2012
Ian Martin says hello to Bauhau the dachshund -
The importance of having a conscience, and the obligation to keep it properly landscaped
16-Feb-2012
Ian Martin says à bientôt to Darcy Farquear’say -
How the transformative power of art can turn a northern wilderness into a dessert
9-Feb-2012
Ian Martin browses the pudding menu -
An outsider’s view of the royal re-boot, and a tentative proposal for an atheist cathedral
2-Feb-2012
Ian Martin texts the royals -
A bad case of trapped wind mars my towering urban masterpiece
19-Jan-2012
Ian Martin invents matriarchitecture -
A pop-up bubble bursts, a death foretold in blue ironwork, and a grumpy app
12-Jan-2012
Ian Martin designs a Tomb for Thatcher -
Ian Martin's Merry Quizmas!
15-Dec-2011
Ian Martin’s annual crashcourse in Yuletide time wasting for marginalised, misanthropic architects. Illustrations by Bill Bragg -
Seasonal greetings from some key WOMEN of Epic Space, for a bloody change
15-Dec-2011
Ian Martin touches his feminine side -
A bold plan by a ‘metarchitect’ to map the world cloaks a much more sinister agenda
8-Dec-2011
Ian Martin: imagining life beyond the colon -
A moral dilemma, and an encounter with a philanderophist
1-Dec-2011
Ian Martin goes on strike -
Curating the past, hating the present, and berating the future
24-Nov-2011
Ian Martin will not be curating next year’s Tamworth Biennale -
Getting the country back on its feet, and the profession back on its pedestal
17-Nov-2011
Ian Martin invents the design, build, stand and deliver procurement system -
Assorted mosques, and a luxury boutique world-class access space
10-Nov-2011
Ian Martin delivers adjunctive elevation -
Getting a brand new brand, and trying to identify a new identity
3-Nov-2011
Ian Martin thinks in a whole new font -
Ian Martin's speech at the launch of The Coalition Chronicles
27-Oct-2011
I’m 58 years old and standing on a chair…I love a crowd when I don’t know many people. It’s more exciting. -
Forget the built environment, let’s shape a Brutalist protest movement
27-Oct-2011
Ian Martin designs a sparkling crystalline cluster of hope for the new Libya -
How I very nearly moved myself to tears with my own genius
20-Oct-2011
Ian Martin is overcome by the sheer emotional power of his work -
Putting the ‘temporary’ into ‘contemporary’ while ignoring the ‘con’
13-Oct-2011
Ian Martin designs a pop-up cast iron bridge -
Exciting rebrands on the way for anarchism and sustainability
6-Oct-2011
Ian Martin condemns the Stirling Prize fix -
The new place space race, and my five-point plan for shrill recovery
29-Sep-2011
Ian Martin gets his traction on -
What now will go before the 'Mo'?
22-Sep-2011
Ian Martin struggles to find a new design prefix -
How innovative spelling could save a fortune in heating bills
15-Sep-2011
Ian Martin invents ‘smart metres’ -
Molly Bismuth and the funking-up of British architecture
8-Sep-2011
Ian Martin judges the Shit Building Of The Year Award -
Seeking strong voice for profession, rich baritone preferred
1-Sep-2011
Ian Martin hears that the Prince of Wales is challenging Dr David Starkey to a rap battle -
After the looting, Broken Britain clears away the debris – and the architecture
18-Aug-2011
Ian Martin has a riot -
An exciting opportunity to rebuild our entire moral infrastructure with localism
4-Aug-2011
Ian Martin lunches with the balaclava-wearing Amy Blackwater -
The next best thing to the next big nexus thing
28-Jul-2011
Ian Martin heads for a Winter of Disconnect -
A new cultural theory for everyone, and everyone for themselves
21-Jul-2011
Ian Martin joins up to, and splits from, Schismism -
The demise of a publishing giant, the resurrection of a mahoganised pillock
14-Jul-2011
Ian Martin meets Andy Poulson, former architecture news editor of the Sunday Minimalist, and his ironic Staffordshire terrier, Snoopy -
We cannot escape the past, or the extra-heavy molecules that defined it
12-Jul-2011
Ian Martin fits out the last chance saloon -
A Creative Industrial Revolution, historic buildings as benefits cheats, and the Expulsory Purchase Order
23-Jun-2011
Ian Martin dives in to Aeneas Upmother-Brown’s thinkpool -
The BBC signs off, Mercia rebuilds, architecture goes pop
16-Jun-2011
Ian Martin discovers that architecture, like pop music, ran out of fresh ideas in about 1998 -
Public subsidy for privatised excellence – oh, what a Big Clever Society we are turning into
9-Jun-2011
Ian Martin applies to have Stephen Fry listed -
Life imitating art is a lot harder than it looks
2-Jun-2011
Ian Martin’s creative licence expires -
How to turn boring pylons into a fabulous architectural narrative
26-May-2011
Ian Martin considers what measures to take against the Chinese… -
The world of conservation is a small one, even for homeless bees
19-May-2011
Ian Martin attends the Hon. Aeneas Upmother-Brown’s charity garden party -
The architecture of terror, and the engineering of responsibility
12-May-2011
Ian Martin plays the Bin Laden blame game -
Beating the recession is all about restructuring and decorporation
5-May-2011
Ian Martin put the finishing touches on his Paradise Atrium in Jeddah -
Accentuating the vernacular, eliminating the publicly accountable, latching on to the hortus conclusus
14-Apr-2011
Ian Martin reluctantly cancels the Festival of Mercia -
Searching for architectural meaning and salvation in a dogless world
7-Apr-2011
Ian Martin sneers at the Association of Atheist Architects -
Two sides to the Localism debate, not counting the very luxurious inside
31-Mar-2011
Ian Martin putas a tenner on The New Colloquialism -
Lunch, subterfuge, special glasses and the tyranny of a multi-dimensional world
24-Mar-2011
Ian Martin reaches for the 2-D specs -
Launching the Poundbury Roadshow, and sharing the Olympic legacy with a rebranded London
17-Mar-2011
Ian Martin brings Pop-Up Poundbury to a greenfield site near you -
A question for green architects – how much do your occupants weigh?
10-Mar-2011
Ian Martin eyes superfast broadband, tax breaks and an absence of any real planning restrictions -
Negotiating architectural jargon is much quicker if you take the upcycle path
3-Mar-2011
Ian Martin mingles with the halloumi brigade -
From Tripoli to St Petersburg, design-trodden people cry out for Autopoiesis
24-Feb-2011
Ian Martin indulges in some revolutionary design -
From Tripoli to St Petersburg, design-trodden people cry out for Autopoiesis
24-Feb-2011
Ian Martin negiotates his own period of instability -
Reclaiming our public conveniences from the Hipster Terror
17-Feb-2011
Ian Martin contemplates the dawning of the Age of Oxygen -
Rerationalisation and memeweaving: The challenges for post-smoking Britain
10-Feb-2011
Ian Martin negotiates a period of moral fluidity -
Striving for the greatness of the past in the participle of the present
28-Jan-2011
Meet Ian Martin, the creator of TWITTERBOROUGH - a futuristic suburb near Corley Services on the M6 -
What ARE Moral Qualms anyway? Fairtrade travel sickness pills, I think
20-Jan-2011
There is a place in my Big Contacts Book for everyone, whatever the invoicing procedure, says Ian Martin -
Ian Martin's selected Epic Spaces of 2010
16-Dec-2010
What were the most significant ‘thinking moments’ for architects in 2010? The people, the objects, the ideas, that reshaped our perception of what the building environment really means? -
Ian Martin's New Year Resolutions
16-Dec-2010
New Year Resolutions from the people who really, really matter to you -
Flying a notional flag for the world’s most hated whistleblower
9-Dec-2010
Ian Martin gets in too deep with Wikileaks -
Towards a Novelty Architecture, with Novelty Vision and Novelty Regeneration
2-Dec-2010
Ian Martin is served by gorgeous young Brazilian men in the Architecture Gentlemen’s Club -
Q: What would Vitruvius do? A: Work out the Latin for ‘social capital’
25-Nov-2010
Ian Martin suggests a New Vitruvian mantra of ‘social capital, local distinctiveness and properly insured’ -
Ian Martin: A new London superhub, a good design ‘vibes harvester’ and a housebuilding Thunderball
18-Nov-2010
Ian Martin measures aesthetic experience, from transcendent epic space to poorly-designed bollocks -
Twelve centuries later, Destiny calls at last for the plucky New Republic of Mercia
11-Nov-2010
Ian Martin convenes an emergency meeting of the Tamworth League -
Ian Martin: My alternative to alternative energy
4-Nov-2010
Ian Martin harnesses the power of human neuropathy -
Can Magic Arborealism overcome the Architecture of Absence?
28-Oct-2010
Ian Martin comforts Isis de Cambray after the demise of the Commission for Arborealism and the Barked Environment -
Architecture schools, museums, iconic lumps of Birmingham – everything’s popping up roses
21-Oct-2010
Ian Martin watches AAAble Builders Yes We Can accidentally go into administration -
If I could turn back the hands of time, I’d never let the bastard stay
15-Oct-2010
Ian Martin feels the Call of Beauty at the RIPBA -
Architecture’s finding new partners, and dancing to a strictly Latin beat
7-Oct-2010
Ian Martin imagineers some rebranding -
When butch comes to shove, it’s time to change your style, man
30-Sep-2010
Ian Martin visits the Residents’ Associations Association while investigating the hot autumn look for architecture -
Ian Martin: Yes we can value engineering, but engineering values is much more profitable...
23-Sep-2010
Ian Martin’s ‘rational/aspirational’ idea has found some traction -
Ian Martin: 'This is our future heritage we are shrilly talking about'
16-Sep-2010
Ian Martin tackles interfering quangos, critical members of the public, fractious community space -
Ian Martin is shocked and appalled
2-Sep-2010
Scheme-fixing: the shame of a profession throwing projects for cash -
Is it possible that TV eugenics could one day develop a MasterSpace?
26-Aug-2010
Ian Martin develops a new TV show -
Ian Martin. ‘Remaining true to urban principles’ is no match for our ‘Mend A City’ initiative
12-Aug-2010
Ian Martin explains the fate of Tamworth -
Ten per cent less is ten per cent more for Architecture’s Big Society
6-Aug-2010
Ian Martin and The Decimators slash epic space emissions -
A journey into deep epic space with the Masters of the Quangoverse
29-Jul-2010
Ian Martin decides the coalition has gone too far -
Farewell to a jazz architecture legend, hello to a mighty hangover
13-Jul-2010
Ian Martin explores some Portable Dystopia -
A marvellous, magical tour through London’s architectural back passages
24-Jun-2010
Ian Martin heads to Barkitecture 2010 -
Architecture and Education in a scramble for Gove’s ‘yummy money’
17-Jun-2010
Ian Martin joins The Gove’s Rethinking Taskforce -
A middlebrow Middle East, and a medieval future for Middle England.
10-Jun-2010
Ian Martin gets a taste of corpulent materialism -
Rebranding Scotland for people who don’t really like Scotland that much
3-Jun-2010
Ian Martin meets His Royal Highness -
Encounters with Cocky, Toddler and the Hon. Aeneas Upmother-Brown
27-May-2010
Ian Martin takes a trip up the Thames -
Hey there Georgian Girls – adding value to our heritage by charging for it
20-May-2010
Ian Martin heads to the beta-village of Block Rocking Heath -
It’s time for architects to roll up their sleeves, and their trouser legs
13-May-2010
Ian Martin goes masonic -
A new political mindset in epic space: heaven knows we’re miserabilist now
6-May-2010
Ian Martin wakes up to the new political narrative -
My thrilling dream journey with Claude, the Globitectübercelebrauteur
30-Apr-2010
Ian Martin gets lyrical on his statements -
Why architecture on the internet is for ‘Men Only’…
21-Apr-2010
Ian Martin joins the latest online sensation: Charrette Roulette -
Election appeals to the architects of Great and/or Broken Britain
21-Apr-2010
It’s baby-kissing time for Ian Martin -
My anarchist friends have very fragmented views about architecture
25-Mar-2010
Ian Martin rebadges Old Stepney, deploying double bluff and doublethink -
Shhh, silence please, we’re trying to think about public libraries
18-Mar-2010
Ian Martin experiments with the Bluster Effect -
Charade or facade, it doesn’t matter as long as you have the front
11-Mar-2010
Ian Martin experiments with Affordable Poverty and an illusory bourgeois hinterland -
Yet another attempt to engage with young people and their stupid haircuts
4-Mar-2010
Ian Martin destination enhancements the shit out of Loch Ness -
Exploring the idea of ‘authenticated space’ in a pop-up Thinking Room
25-Feb-2010
Ian Martin considers backing a campaign to save a library and designs a pop-up high street -
London 2012: vision delivery, social rendering and inclusive narrativism
25-Feb-2010
Ian Martin’s Olympic Vision wins a prize -
Keeping it nice and short is the height of good manners
18-Feb-2010
Ian Martin enters a competition to design the Nicest Building In The North -
The sky is apparently not the limit for conservationists
11-Feb-2010
Ian Martin has an interview for a prestigious religious commission -
Reshaping our world one app at a time with the Etch-a-Space
4-Feb-2010
Ian Martin has a breakthrough and puts Etch-a-Space to the test -
Bright lights, big city, affordable luxury and Sting’s Flying Circus
28-Jan-2010
Ian Martin dishes out some premium content -
All those years of 'special advice' - it's like talking to a brick wall
21-Jan-2010
Ian Martin is ousted as special advisor, in favour of the nation’s number two hate figure… -
2010: 20 years of stuffed lions, epic space-filling and very long lunches
13-Jan-2010
Lack of hoverscooters and sex robots leave Ian Martin’s 2010 feeling a little flat -
Looking forward to 2010 with some friends and acquaintances
17-Dec-2009
ISIS DE CAMBRAY. As a leading spiritual consultant, psychic counsellor and magic arborealist, I say to the impending 2010: Namaste, bienvenue, welcome. It will be an auspicious year. I have had my auspicions for some time now, and a glance at my Vibe Matrix confirms everything. There will be radiance and an upturn in workload, though some bipolarity will persist. I have just written this architectural haiku. *Sigh*. Enjoy. -
A sounding board for what sounding boards ought to look like
26-Nov-2009
A very congenial six-hour ‘thinking lunch’ helps Ian Martin formulate a 10-point plan -
Round, like a circle in a spiral, like the windmills of your mind…
19-Nov-2009
Ian Martin thinks mini-icons for the masses and using martial arts on developers -
Advancing civil architecture, one compound noun at a time
12-Nov-2009
Ian Martin has his brutalist makeover for Buckingham Palace Gardens thwarted -
It's Memetrope 2, Hashtag Cloud 1 in the five-a-zeitgeist Theory League first leg playoff
9-Nov-2009
Ian Martin meets Hugh Grantley, the beleagured new secretary of state for fun -
The Olympics sculpture should show Sebastian Coe astride a grotesque winged beetle
29-Oct-2009
Ian Martin deals with the BBC and ideas for the new Olympics sculpture -
Ian Martin. The Great Civil War of Epic Space is now a theoretical certainty
21-Oct-2009
Ian Martin enjoys the Jazz Architecture Awards aftermath -
Two pods are better than one, whether it's Stonehenge or a local 'hubbubble'
16-Oct-2009
Ian Martin worries about dwindling soot supplies and is shortlisted for the Jazz Architecture Prize -
Deconstructing the Tory conference, one bleating meaningless platitude at a time
13-Oct-2009
Ian Martin swops Posh Whining Liberal for Meritocratic Whining Bastard -
Late 6th-century celebrity chefs as seen through Channel Four's Whatifoscope
5-Oct-2009
Ian Martin finds the venue ‘where noblefolk may eat and quaff, though up alot they needs must cough’ -
SX Girl leads the Vegetable Liberation Front into battle over living walls
24-Sep-2009
Ian Martin initiates the hanging basket guerilla campaign -
Ian Martin. Magical brutalism, modern sausages and two very happy Royals
16-Sep-2009
Ian Martin bargains with RIPBA president Dame Helen -
Optimism for the future at last - from Her Majesty the Queen, and Beansy
10-Sep-2009
Ian Martin enters the fractal laboratory -
Thinking myself into a corner, then painting my way out of retirement
17-Aug-2009
Ian Martin gives BA Flight a right old painting -
Dragging the BBC from a world of sticky-back plastic into where it's @
30-Jul-2009
Ian Martin climbs into the White City Think Tank -
One region under a groove: how to revitalise the North East
24-Jul-2009
Ian Martin blueskies how to revitalise the North East -
Lowdown, not so sweet
16-Jul-2009
Ian Martin enjoys some freeform jazz, an improvised lunch and an architectural jam session -
Tell me when we’ll pull the plug, tell me quango, quango, quango...
9-Jul-2009
Ian Martin helps a flailing government gear up for cuts -
Charles and Richard - the return match
2-Jul-2009
Ian Martin finds himself in a battle royale for the hearts and minds of Epic Space’s archiblogoverse -
A right royal punch-up
1-Jul-2009
Ian Martin thinks it’s time we set up a wrestling match between Lord Rogers and Prince Charles -
Prepare for Tamworth: future capital of England
18-Jun-2009
Can we create a livelier, denser England by dumping Lancashire? Yes we can, says Ian Martin -
Quiz time with Ian Martin
11-Jun-2009
Are you a national architectural treasure? Let’s find out… -
Should the RIPBA be reduced to a Twitter feed?
4-Jun-2009
And should architecture be predatory, or imaginary? Ian Martin tackles the big questions -
How to juggle ‘Mr X Al-X’, Rock Steady Eddie and Isis de Cambray
28-May-2009
Ian Martin discovers what horrors lie beyond the outer limits of luxury -
My Olympic pitch in Sir Alan Sugar's fantasy bollocking suite
14-May-2009
Ian Martin plans for the unthinkable with an emergency four-hour Olympic lunch -
Landscape Architecture RIP – it’s time for some Magic Arborealism
7-May-2009
Ian Martin goes back to his hippie roots -
A kick in the barracks from Bungalow Bill
30-Apr-2009
The Chelsea saga is doing Ian Martin’s head in. Is it, he wonders, time to sack the client… -
Preserving the ruins of our heritage, reviving the ruins of our high streets
23-Apr-2009
Ian Martin aims for the moon, but hedges his bets over the Richmond Palace bunfight -
Ask not what the private sector can do for you...
16-Apr-2009
… they’ll want a 40 per cent stake, says our man with the string course and the coarse jokes, Ian Martin -
Tough times call for Chartered Architectural Busking
2-Apr-2009
‘Opinion modeller’ Ian Martin is asked to ‘shape a narrative’ for the profession -
Men of Architecture - How Sexist Are You? Take Ian Martin's survey
27-Mar-2009
Small practices present the biggest obstacle to gender parity in the architectural profession today. -
I have seen the future and it’s Stand-Up Architecture
26-Mar-2009
This week in Ian Martin’s fantasy architectural world: the link between comedy and building -
Frozen music, melting verse. One is bad, the other’s a wind-up
19-Mar-2009
This week in Ian Martin’s fantasy architectural world: the launch of the Campaign for Real Poetry -
A week in the south of France, drinking for new work
12-Mar-2009
I flee the room, shouting ‘sorry, food poisoning’ in Latin -
Your work may be shameless, but never, ever nameless...
5-Mar-2009
The Parenthesis. The Fat Bonus. The Clumpty. The Saucy Dalek. The Eco-Eco-Bang-Bang. The Big Ask. The Dreamed Vortex. The Petrified Discharge -
Talking buildings, synchronised panic, and a newer gender
26-Feb-2009
Meeting of the Olympic Rebadging Task Force. We begin as usual with prayers and a Mexican Wave, followed by synchronised panic -
I can take a joke, as long as it's about someone else...
5-Feb-2009
Darcy was done up in an art deco linen suit and Bauhau was a pepperoni-shaped approximation of Che Guevara -
Here's a tip: get clients to pay you a service charge
29-Jan-2009
The government naturally falls for the whoreish appeal of an epic space collective willing to do anything to survive, and consummates the relationship -
Getting to know the new wave of green Tory architects
22-Jan-2009
She smiles grimly inside her balaclava and burps, which I take to mean they’ve planted a landmine -
A creative liberal's response to the Middle East situation
15-Jan-2009
One minute she wants to be Eleanor Roosevelt, the next she’s all ‘what would Jackie O do?’ -
Christmas messages from some of my so-called friends
18-Dec-2008
I am a good dog. Yes. Yes. I am a good dog. I am. No. I do not want any more paté. I feel sick -
Ian Martin's 2008 Architecture News Quiz
16-Dec-2008
How closely were you paying attention to architectural events this year? God, were you even AWAKE? Ian Martin tests your memory. -
How dare the Ethics Constabulary call my scheme ‘pure evil’?
11-Dec-2008
This is what happens when architecture operates in a moral vacuum. I blame society -
It’s simpler to imagine new people instead of new buildings
4-Dec-2008
By making the Olympics part of Decarbonised Britain, we’ll save money through sanctimony, which is morally superior to parsimony -
The rise of iTecture; the fall of Auto-Modernism; Darcy in love
19-Nov-2008
‘Who now remembers the (true) story about how the young Mies van der Rohe had his left eyebrow plucked to avoid making a Gothic arch when he did his ‘haughty’ face?’ -
How to spin trends and influence people
13-Nov-2008
Can Wap Biddly Pish work up a detailed iTectural profile for each member of the First Family? And the puppy? -
A new world of egology, futurology and Liverpology
6-Nov-2008
'Frank calls. He's proposing a Centre for Cultural Reconciliation, shaped like a carburettor, on the Mount of Olives' -
How I won first prize in the London quadrant lottery
4-Nov-2008
Ian Martin accepts a commission to rework the whole of south London in the style of John Betjeman -
Wall Street redesigned with a 'Tamla Motown' transparency
24-Oct-2008
Ian Martin extends fantasy professional advice to Prince Charles, the Olympics and Wall Street -
Brickwalling a way through the crisis, with louder architecture
1-Oct-2008
MONDAY. Finish the conceptual proto-drawings for my new Peopling of Britain Museum. It’s a narrative architecture. Lots of spaces, or ‘chapters’, linked by a ‘story’ of corridors, circulation areas and signage. You can’t be too careful, or too patronising. -
Manchester's sinking gasbags, London's floating aerodrome
26-Sep-2008
MONDAY. To Manchester, and the Labour Party conference. For a few days MPs can forget they're barristers or journalists or PR consultants or whatever and walk around like tribunes of the people, without ties on. -
That crashing sound is your derivative workload collapsing
18-Sep-2008
MONDAY. Marx would have made a great estate agent. He loved rhetoric, and spotted Clerkenwell’s fantastic potential years before anyone else. -
One Olympic world, one Titanic dream, one 'legacy offsetting' scam
20-Aug-2008
MONDAY. I'm in China for a few days, with the rest of the Olympic Rebadging Task Force. Not on some morally dubious junket subsidised by hard-working British taxpayers, either. -
It's renewable, local and versatile. Hard air can reshape our world
30-Jul-2008
MONDAY. Lunch with Helen Mirror, president-elect of the RIPBA. She takes over next year from the current incumbent, who now spends the rest of his two-year term trying to remind us what his name is.It's madness. Someone's elected president, then spends 12 months waiting, and 'preparing for office', which is bullshit for waiting. Waiting for the free breakfasts and the plenary sessions and the right to wear the institute's fabled Blue Djellaba, ... -
Globalisation is the new civilisation, but with much nicer hotels
22-Jul-2008
MONDAY. Conceptual sketching for Eco Beach, my new sustainable leisure scheme in Bulgaria. There are protests already about habitat destruction and inappropriate development, which seems a bit selfish and parochial. -
I'd rather destroy Finsbury Health Centre than pimp it out
22-Jul-2008
MONDAY. Great excitement at the launch of our campaign to Rebuild The Tampon. This elegant structure, originally known as the Tamworth Pontlevis, was an ornamental drawbridge fixed permanently in the raised position to salute the 1951 Festival of Britain. -
Towards a new, inclusive Epic Space Communion
2-Jul-2008
MONDAY. A schism is now inevitable in the worldwide Architectural Communion. We all have to search our souls and decide whose side we're on. -
How Amy's Essex treehouse became a renewable trailblazer
25-Jun-2008
MONDAY. I've been asked by a shadowy cabal of reactionary Londoners to 'un-design' Battersea Power Station. I start by removing the ludicrous new 'chimney' that looks like a cheap vacuum cleaner attachment. And the preposterous 'ego-dome'. And the stupid 'fluid geometry' of the luxury flats. -
A week of Corbusian Skillsets, dogs and breakfasts
20-Jun-2008
Monday. There’s a whining sound coming from the construction industry. I think the boiler’s gone. Luckily we’re on a three-star PFI contract, so the engineers will be out to fix it as soon as possible. Are we in this afternoon? Most definitely. What’s the point of a recession if you can’t bunk off at lunchtime? -
Rethinking London as a molecular clump of sad pretension
11-Jun-2008
MONDAY. It is with heavy heart that I join the M6 at junction 33 and head the wrong way. I'm in London for the week. Mental checklist: have I got everything? Passport. ID card. Grand a day cash for sandwiches and social drinking. -
How a giant nickel-plated python has made us all think harder
6-Jun-2008
MONDAY. Mentoring lunch with Brad Pitt. Bit of panic in his voice, to be honest. He's just landed his first commission - a luxury hotel complex in Dubai - and he has lots of questions. -
Celebrating the terrible importance of architecture and pudding
23-May-2008
MONDAY. Emergency meeting of the Olympic Rebadging Task Force. It turns out that Zaha's splashtastic International Waterworld has been 'over-designed' while nobody was looking. -
Ian Martin: Quick, call the convergency services. There's been an accident.
15-May-2008
MONDAY. A strange mood in the air at the Department of Entertainment. I'm led in silence to the conference room by a surly boy listening to his iPod and texting his mates. He turns out to be a junior minister. -
Top 10...Facebook groups
7-May-2008
1. Robin Hood Gardens Hedge Fund Investors2. Baggy Urban Zoomorphs Rule3. Pre-Modernism Rocks The House4. Olympics - Yay!5. Second Home Self-Builders With Attitude6. We've Been To Siena And Sketched In A Straw Hat7. Architects and Planners for Justice in Pimlico8. Absorbing The Gherkin9. Freemasons Facebook Lodge10. I Studied For Seven Years So Why The Fuck Do I Earn Less Than A Vet? -
Top 10...Client Complaints
30-Apr-2008
1. 'Finished building looks smaller than in original daydream'2. 'Architect not wearing traditional frock coat'3. 'Houseguests less glamorous than in brochure'4. 'Now we've moved in, turns out to be in wrong part of country'5. 'Wanted double Georgian garage not lecture on aesthetics'6. 'Cost overrun very dramatic but with no clear narrative'7. 'Channel 4 uninterested, despite huge financial outlay'8. 'Thought contextual restraint meant yachting wire or ... -
A mysterious cartel. A secret society. A new ethical conspiracy...
24-Apr-2008
MONDAY. To Portland Place for a 'secret, but not sinister' meeting to sort out the niggling Freemasons problem. I'm five steps inside when a smartly-dressed young man wearing a namebadge approaches at speed, head-on. 'Hey!' he shrieks, chest-bumping me to the floor. 'How are you today?' He helps me up, spins me round. Whack! I'm suddenly clapped hard on the back by a woman with an insane grin. 'My name is Purina! Welcome to the Home of Architecture!' -
Top 10...London smells
24-Apr-2008
1. Incontinental Europe.2. Atomised milky coffee.3. Conservative pheromones.4. Tubed human meatloaf.5. Kerosene with herbal essences.6. Wafting, melancholy gastropub.7. Guilty fag breath.8. Concessionary chip fat.9. Blocked fear.10. Simmering line managers enthused with garlic. -
Ian Martin. A mysterious cartel. A secret society.
23-Apr-2008
MONDAY. To Portland Place for a 'secret, but not sinister' meeting to sort out the niggling Freemasons problem. I¹ve only got five steps inside when a smartly-dressed young man wearing a namebadge approaches at speed, head-on. -
Top 10...Architectural jellies
16-Apr-2008
1. Miniature Millennium Bridge.2. Sydney harbour, with wafers.3. Recession-moulded City of London.4. Wobbling New Delhi.5. Green jelly earth with bitter fondant eulogy.6. Tower of Trifle.7. Model City of Bath in aspic.8. Royal jelly Poundbury.9. Saudi Arabian lubricating jelly airbase.10. Naked Will Alsop moulded by Lucian Freud. -
On wikitecture, petrified existentialism and a barking-mad icon
11-Apr-2008
MONDAY. I'm preparing a lecture for the department of wikitecture, Memehampton University. It's one of the newer unis. The website makes it sound like Plato's grove. Leafy. Attracts young enquiring minds. And 'non-materialist', as it exists on the internet only. -
Top 10...Eco-Towns
9-Apr-2008
1. High Purberley2. Greenham Conyers3. Sustainby Neuterall4. Glazing-upon-Glazing5. Burbish6. Spralling7. Greywater Butts8. Compellinghampton9. Reuseable Bagshot10. Smugby. -
Top 10...Richard Rogers' Lordly gripes
1-Apr-2008
1. Urban Task Force still ignored despite rhetoric.2. Terminal 5 now carrying too much cultural baggage.3. Suburbia remains ghastly...4. ...AND in breach of recent Guardian article guidelines.5. Food today too fast.6. Planners today too slow.7. Too few pompous shits at heart of decision-making.8. New communities developing sense of place, belonging and identity despite incorrect design.9. Nowhere civilised enough in Thames Gateway to have lunch.10. ... -
The curious incident of the dog and the Bedford Square Lovepouch
28-Mar-2008
MONDAY. Darcy's inconsolable. Sausage, his beloved Tibetan terrier, has passed away. It was a good death, swift and kind, in Bedford Square. 'Heart attack…' blubs Darcy, who's swathed – not for the first time – in black Issey Miyake. -
Top 10...Items on Frank Gehry's 'To Do' List
27-Mar-2008
1. Print out rendering of new office block.2. Take printout to Hall of Mirrors, photograph reflection.3. Feed crazy distorted image back into aeronautical design program, hit the 'make this happen' button.4. Print out new rendering, send to client with invoice.5. Punch LA Times critic in face.6. Fix 'seemingly random' meeting with Russian oligarch.7. Identify appropriate ass in Hove.8. Kick ass all the way to goddam Brighton.9. Articulate 'chaotic' ... -
From Cannes to Tamworth, via karaoke seminars and 'hypercrete'
20-Mar-2008
MONDAY. The property world gathered last week in Cannes for MUPIT, the annual celebration of decaffeinated architecture, environmental profiteering and conquest shagging. -
Martin Pawley, 'our most admired architectural commentator', remembered
13-Mar-2008
Typical. Just days before an evening at the Architectural Association to celebrate the life of our most admired architectural commentator, he dies. How rude. Yet for those who knew Martin Pawley, worked with him, or read with astonishment the ruthless prose he seemed so effortlessly to produce over four decades, it seems appropriate somehow. -
Tesco versus Unesco. Who will win the battle to take Stonehenge?
11-Mar-2008
MONDAY. Gales, floods, power cuts, widespread building damage. Yet still no sign of a Weather Czar. -
Top 10...gay spaces
5-Mar-2008
1. The William Morris Pink House. 2. Senior Consenting Room, Fingersmiths College. 3. The Dancing Bear prosthetic nightclub, Soho. 4. Lawrence of Arabia suite with walk-in closet, Burj Dubai. 5. Sub-prime non-dom housing, Queens, NYC. 6. Rufus Wainwright's dressing room. 7. Dorothy Cottage, Wordsworth, Cumbria. 8. Anything indoors in Brighton. 9. Pre-booked pod on The London Queer Eye.10. Your scrupulously tidy study. -
Top 10...pencils
28-Feb-2008
1. The Graphito by Banksy & Banksy.2. Stubby Lines' Doodlebug Pro.3. Suzuki left-handed mechanical in B Minor.4. The Böring Seminar Bullet Point.5. Zaha Stiletto Space Probe 3000.6. Fair Trade natural unpainted cedar pencil with pretend carbon.7. The 2B Hamlet Soliloquy.8. The Blairwrite Memo with sneery, retractable point.9. Tarantino HB 5mm with smooth-barelled fixed eraser and ass-cap popper.10. Wooden stylus dipped in own blood. -
Top 10...Designer toilets
19-Feb-2008
1. The Herzog and de Meuron close-coupled Europan.2. Wayne Hemingway's Flush Hurry.3. The Renzo Piano Urban Macerator.4. Studio Libeskind Biomass Exodus.5. Ceramic Shitpod on tubular steel legs by Will Alsop.6. Norman Foster's Effluvium Overlord.7. The Vitrinius Vitruvio Latin Commodium by Quinlan Terry.8. Converted K8 phone box at bottom of garden.9. The Calatrava Cable-Stayed Passing Place.10. Personal reed bed. -
Some thing has found us, and bitten the head off St Paul's...
7-Feb-2008
MONDAY. I’m leading a refresher workshop for architects returning to the profession after a career break. They’re an eclectic bunch. Some left to have children, others have been in prison. One bewildered old gent retired 14 years ago and wants to find out more about the ‘information superhighway’. -
Top 10: Angel of the South Ideas
6-Feb-2008
1. Cast-iron Ken Livingstone with his arms out as if to say 'it's not my fault'.2. Global warming thermometer protruding from a pair of buttocks representing Essex and Kent.3. Huge plasma screen showing highlights of the 1966 World Cup final.4. Big pointless metal thing by Tonkin Liu with an infantile name e.g Boingy Woingy Wobbly Bobbly Snivelly Drivelly Frollocky Bollocky Blinging Frigging Thing Plus Vat.5. Overscaled reproduction of the empty Trafalgar Square ... -
Top 10...HATS FOR ARCHITECTS
31-Jan-2008
1. Rain-harvesting sombrero.2. The BlackBeret Highbrowser.3. Visor in form of miniature concrete brise-soleil.4. False turban containing 50 Gigabytes of extra memory.5. The Shigeru Ban emergency cardboard cocktail hat.6. Photovoltaic yarmulke.7. Tricorne made from locally-sourced Observer Business & Media section.8. Adobe mudflat deerstalker, with mudflaps.9. The Frank Gehry Biretta 2.0 - 'Designed by computers, irritated with style'.10. ... -
Q: Why is China like a compulsive gambler? A: It has Tibet
23-Jan-2008
MONDAY. My friend Danny Hackshaft rings. He’s an international press fluffer at Downing Street, and he’s ‘constructing a forward narrative’. I wouldn’t mind, but Sarah Beeny’s on the telly, bollocking some idiot for trying to do the plasterwork herself. It’s hilarious, I think she might stab her with the trowel in a minute. -
TOP 10...GREEN STATUS SYMBOLS
23-Jan-2008
1. Garden wormery modelled on the Unité d'Habitation.2. Bamboo-framed 'intelligent' spectacles.3. Weekend minimalist cottage with climate-healing properties.4. Trevor Baylis wind-up slide projector.5. A smirking eco-blog called something like Environmentality, chronicling your whimsical journey through a dictionary of quotations.6. Hydrogen-powered bicycle with unisex handlebars.7. Misconceived concept drawings composter.8. A Brazilian foster-sapling ... -
Modernism inquest verdict: death by auto-erotic asphyxiation
16-Jan-2008
MONDAY. Leisurely morning in the recliner. Remind self that urbanism is not a style at all. It’s actually just a series of timeless place-making options. Then remember I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. -
Top 10....NEOLOGISMS
15-Jan-2008
1. CO3. A volatile gas produced by filtering 'carbon dioxide issues' through a windbag.2. Alchitect. A blurred visionary.3. Afforwardable. Type of low-cost housing that is conceived in situ, then permanently deferred.4. 'McCloud'. A forceful sigh, exhaled before conceding that something might just work.5. Platitudinum. Recycled material used as a covering for cultural landmarks.6. ...
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