Concrete and Culture

Adrian Forty is Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He is the author of many books including Concrete and Culture: A Material History (2012).

Winner of RIBA President&#39s Award 2013 - AwardConcrete and Culture is divided into thematic chapters, focusing on the materials conjunctions with history, nature, religion, politics, photography, labour and labour relations, and its putative renaissance. Each is full of insights conveyed with a sharp political and architectural intelligence . . . Its hard to imagine a better book on the subject. - Owen Hatherley, Building DesignConcrete and Culture is a good read, rich in enlivening and enlightening detail but with a breadth rarely attempted. Everyone with an interest in architecture since 1900 ought to read it, and everyone who reads it will be left with new knowledge and new challenges to some of their most fundamental architectural assumptions. - Barnabas Calder, Journal of ArchitectureThis book will change your life if you spend any of it wandering past concrete buildings and hardly noticing them . . . Fortys worldwide research as thorough as his analysis is brilliant leads him to fascinating stories of designers, builders, clients, cultures and politics. The history is well illustrated with photographs in black-and-white or, rather, in delicious tones of concrete grey. - ContextConcrete is the quintessential material of architecture. Demanding meticulous pre-planning and design, it forgives nothing and answers only to gravity . . . Concrete is for architects. Without mastering this medium not only technically, but also culturally no architect can surely ever be complete. Concrete and Culture is therefore required reading. - Architects JournalThis account of concrete spans centuries and continents, professions and, indeed, media. He considers concrete through film, photography and broader cultural imaginaries, although he does ultimately remain focused on recognisably architectural artefacts... Forty&#39s readings of buildings - which range from churches to bunkers, east European housing to lost-in-time memorials - are always insightful, and sometimes brilliant. - Architectural ReviewConcrete and Culture is a study for the ages, as rich and enduring as its subject. - Journal of Architectural EducationThe book is carefully knit together, giving a rich sense of the changing status of and associations with concrete over time without being organised in a straightforwardly chronological manner. Nothing is taken for granted in terms of historical development. - Oxford Art JournalBy taking into account the role concrete has played in areas like politics, literature, cinema, and sustainability, [Forty] gives readers a new viewpoint about this material. The book features over 100 black-and-white illustrations portraying a range of concrete edifices from all over the world. Recommended. - Choice