Mark Jarzombek: Design, discipline, labour, craft.

02/14/24 • 56 min

Episode 23/3 of A is for Architecture is a conversation with Mark Jarzombek about his recent book, Architecture Constructed: Notes on a Discipline, published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The book presents ‘the long-suppressed conflict between [...] between those who design, and those who build. [Jarzombek] reveals architecture to be a troubled, interconnected realm, incomplete and unstable, where labor, craft, and occupation are the 'invisible' complements to the work of the architect [and] pushes the boundaries on how we define the professional discipline of architecture’.

Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT. He Instagrams and LinkedIns.

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

Thanks for listening.

Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Mark Jarzombek is Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture, MIT. He Instagrams and LinkedIns.

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

Thanks for listening.

Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Previous Episode

Swati Chattopadhyay: Making empire everyday.

In Episode 22 of Series 3 of A is for Architecture, architectural historian, Swati Chattopadhyay discusses her 2023 book, Small Spaces: Recasting the Architecture of Empire, published by Bloomsbury. ‘With the focus of history so often on the large scale - global trade networks, vast regions, and architectures of power and domination - Small Spaces shows instead how we need to rethink this aura of magnitude so that our reading is not beholden such imperialist optics [and] is a must-read for anyone wishing to decolonize disciplinary practices in the field of architectural, urban, and colonial history.’

Swati is Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara and can be found professionally there.

Available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube.

Thanks for listening.

Music credits: Bruno Gillick

Next Episode

Ken Worpole: Designing social care

Series 3, Episode 25 of A is for Architecture’s is a conversation with social and architectural historian, Ken Worpole, discussing his life and work, and focusing on the new edition of his book Modern Hospice Design: The Architecture of Palliative and Social Care , published by Routledge this year. As the gloss puts it, ‘At its core [the book is] a public discussion of a philosophy of design for providing care for the elderly and the vulnerable, taking the importance of architectural aesthetics, the use of quality materials, the porousness of design to the wider world, and the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces as part of the overall care environment.’ We talk about all this, and the place hospices play in the urban and ethical fabric of contemporary urban life.

Ken’s personal website is here, and you can find links to his other works there, including the important New Jerusalem: The Good City and the Good Society (2017, The Swedenborg Society). Along with the landscape photographer Jason Orton, he also writes the online journal, The New English Landscape (also a book), documenting ‘the changing landscape and coastline of Essex and East Anglia, particularly its estuaries, islands and urban edgelands’.

Available on all good podcast platforms.

Thanks for listening.

Music credits: Bruno Gillick