News and Recent Articles by Herbert Wright

April 2021 online:

Togetherness is Here To Stay

A call to architects for post-Covid 'Emotionalist' architecture - and the urgent emotion is joy! 

In French at Chroniques d'Architecture

March 2021 online:

After the tragic horror of the Grenfell Tower fire, the UK cladding crisis rolls on. Why are we cladding anyway?

in French at Chroniques d'architecture

in print:

C3 magazine no.412 carries my essay 'The Corporate Drive to be in Good Shape'. Looking at four big contemporary corporate buildings, it's Helen & Hard's new Stavanger bank HQ that shows the way forward with its timber structural frame.

I also interview Helen & Hard, and Christian de Portzamparc about his new 'grand projet', the Suzhou Cultural Center. 

February 2021 online:

Elephant World: Designing spaces good for companions bigger than us.

A wonderful project designed for coexistence, and an inspiring interview with its architect Boonserm Premthada.

(Scroll the German text to find the English!)

journal A, Feb 2021

What is an architecture critic? Qu’est-ce que d’être un critique d’architecture? Some thoughts - in French - published in France's fine platform Chroniques d'architecture

December 2020

Frances's top architectural magazine l'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui has a theme of Bigness. My contributions include interviewing planetary scientist Ravit Helled, who is working on the Juno mission to Jupiter. We talk of very big things!

My pre-covid talk Post-Digital Psychogeography has just reached 1000 views on YouTube! Not bad for a 50 minute lecture video. It's as super-relevant as ever - jplease WATCH! From Guy Debord's psychogeography, the keynote ranges across urbanism, learning from China and the existential threat of The Singularity.

LISTEN to my Floornature podcast! I'm interviewed by Christiane Bürklein and Virginia Cucchi and we talk about architectural writing, Emotionalism, the Singularity, China and more... It's a good listen!

November 2020

The new c3 magazine no 410 arrived from Korea with my essay 'Market Halls- Links in Civilisation' and interview with Ma Yansong of MAD architects about the cover story, his Beijing nursery project.  

My very interesting month included interviewing planetary astrophysicist Ravit Helled and Italian architect Francesca Torzo. I'm not going anywhere in lockdown, but I'm covering territory!

October 2020

 Tszwai So of Spheron Architects was live in a Hong Kong Venice Architecture Biennale curatorial preview/ presentation, with a glimpse of our film 'E-motion-AI-city'. 

Stepping into the Synthetic Forest with Andreas Greiner. A Berlin artist working in the zone where biology and technology meet has used AI to generate a forest.

Published in CoBo Social

September 2020

Toyin Ojih Odutola's 'A Counterveiling Theory'- a review of a new African myth presented in an epic show at the Barbican

Published in CoBo Social

July 2020

Very honoured to be named Contributing editor for Korea's stunning architecture magazine C3 (published in Korean and English)!

I'm quoted in the Daily Telegraph article ''The future of skyscrapers' by Tom Ough

I talked on InstaLive with Christiane Bürklein, following the fabulous new MVDVR-curated Baumeister (architecture magazine in German and English) in which I question how Germany is going green. Unfortunately tech problems mean no recording of my live interview, but there's related instagrams here. 

9 July 2020 announcement!

My team is shortlisted to curate the 

Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2020

The Emotionalist Team, jointly led with me by Tszwai So, principal of Spheron Architects, made it through to the final 5 shortlisted to curate the next TAB Tallinn Architecture Biennale

We propose that TAB 2022 is the launch pad of an architectural movement called Emotionalism. We see humanity devalued by ever-deepening digitalisation, and our response is to re-assert what makes us human in the design of the built environment.

Let emotions, not algorithms, drive design!

Our team includes Christiane Bürklein, Elo Masing and Veronica Simpson.

More info and press-ready images here

(Photo above is emblematic of our curatorial bid)

June 2020

The new special MVDVR-curated issue (no.117) of German architecture magazine Baumeister carries my epic article I Can See for Miles and Miles which challenges Germany's regulation-driven green dream of sustainability. Not just Germany - emerging from Covid-19, we all need to rethink what sort of future we need - like, yesterday! 

Save the Date: Christiane Bürklein follows up with me on 15 July with an Instagram-Live interview. More details to come!

May 2020

I've posted a blog that asks: Is the COVID-19 pandemic bringing us closer to the digital matrix?  This essay is connected to my City of the Singularity blogs and it's called:

 Hello, Bomb?

April 2020

With the overwhelming viris crisis, I'm frustrated that a key film that Spheron Architects made with me for Hong Kong's pavilion at the Venice Architecture Bienalle awaits the fate of the event. 

In the meantime, there's related material in my 2018 keynote speech on Post-Digital Psychogeography (now moved to YouTube).

Newly blogged: A Bridge over Troubled Water originally in Blueprint, about Renzo Piano and his new Genoa bridge to replace the Morandi Bridge which fatally collapsed in 2018. 

Hoping you're all okay out there! Let's get ready for life beyond these strange times!

March 2020

From Washington and New York there are fantastic things to report, but of course the virus crisis swept in, and everything is on hold. Mecanoo's simply amazing library projects will be opening, hopefully soon! 

Meanwhile, the new Blueprint carries my articles on the exciting rebirth of the Express Building, Mancheser, and a partly-woven building for Homes England near Cambridge.

And two exhibition reviews published in CoBo... but venues are closed for now.

Langlands & Bell at the Soane, London

Countryside, The Future at Guggenheim NY

Here's hoping we all get through this in good health!

February 2020

After shooting some footage with Spheron Architects, we sat around talking. Here's a simple but important comment about feelings and architecture!

Great to see C3 magazine no.405 with my lead story Major Offices: New Positions in Sustainability ... I ask, why the hell are we building out-of-town offices with huge car parks? 

January 2020

I've posted the next part of an exploration of superintelligence in the urban future:

The City of the Singularity Part 2:

Missions Too Important to Jeopardise

Missions that direct AI city management have political and social implications. We may be sleepwalking into a digitally immersive future, but there's one path that's good for the planet and us. 

Now Online:

The Centre de Conservation du Louvre at Lens, France, designed by RSHP - a fortress to defend culture!

Blueprint Nov 2019/ designcurial Jan 2020

December 2019

I met Renzo Piano in Genoa to talk about his new bridge to replace the city's Morandi Bridge which collapsed in 2018, killing 43. Read about it in January's Blueprint 367 

Flowers on Mars looks at the prospect of colonising Mars, including a very different idea from Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, currently in a London Design Museum show

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2019 has closed. One show rose above the pleasures of aesthetics - Agriculture and Architecture had a powerful message for cities, and curator Sébastian Marot jumped the gun on Koolhaas's 2020 show to spotlight the issues... Read the review in January's Blueprint 367

A Buldge in a Tight Alley- Neon, Leather and Drama in Studio SODA's Soho scheme. My Blueprint 366 article now online

The City of the Singularity: You See Us

The first part of a speculation about machine intelligence in complete control of the city and its citizens. The technical feasibility of this science-fiction scenario may come soon, with political, philosophical dimensions

blog November 2019

Monday 21 October 2019

I chaired a Negroni Talk at the

Groucho Club, London

Theme:    The Soul of Soho

Organised by Fourth Space

The panellists: Katrina Larkin, co-founder of Fora + Charlotte Skene Catling, architect, Skene Catling De La Pena + Russell Potter, SODA Studio architects + Darren Coffield, artist & writer

The question: What happened to the gritty bohemian neon-edged Soho of illicit pleasures? Is it all to be bland and brands... or can we save the Soul of Soho? 

Read more here 

Nice turn-out, good discussion, stimulating speakers, great evening - worth the walk-up! 

October 2019

 I report from Gwangju Design Biennale in Korea, decipering its theme 'Humanity' for CHAMP

I contributed words & voice-over to ArtHertz's film Tamesis Trilogy 1 which won a Cult Critic Award! More to come...

László Rajk 1949-2019

An extraordinary Hungarian architect, set-designer and dissident has died. 

I have posted a brief personal tribute.

also in September 2109

I visited the Chicago Architecture Biennial - a report to follow in Blueprint!

Blueprint magazine 366 Sep/Oct 2019 includes my feature coverage of David Chipperfield's James-Simon-Gallerie, Berlin + insights into London's Illuminated River, the first installment of artist Leo Villareal's vision + review of Alexander Calder show in Santander.

C3 magazine 403 carries my essay Come Together, considering several Community Buildings and issues they raise

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SAVE THE DATE! 24 June 2019

Francine Houben:

Designing for Culture

I'm in conversation with Francine Houben at the V&A Museum London, discussing cultural venues her practice Mecanoo have designed around the world - including Taiwan's vast National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts. Part of the London Festival of Architecture program 

Book here!

Summer 2019 Project - feedback welcome! 

I'm re-publishing the link to my talk

Post-digital Psychogeography 

given at Element Urban Talks in Krakow last December:  https://lnkd.in/e8AyatR 

Why am I doing this now?

With specific objectives in mind, I am now developing some of the thoughts I presented. One particular focus is The Singularity's potential impact on urbanism. I am therefore interested in any comments, suggestions -- and any potential opportunities to present an updated talk.

 You can email me

*The Krakow talk was very much a first draft of a work in progress - and I recognise shortcomings in its original presentation!   

_________________

hashtag

March 2019

Now online: 

A Vibrant Hong Kong Arrival

West Kowloon Station by Andrew Bromberg at Aedas

designcurial March 2019

Challenging Traditional Teaching

The University Is Now On Air is about the Open University/BBC's 1975 architecture course. There's a lot to lean from it in 2019.

designcurial March 2019

A Small Palace in Lisbon

A classy refurb and extension by Barbos Lopes Arquitectos

Blueprint/designcurial Jan/March 2019

January 2019

I spent a few days in Manchester and was blown away by the energy and transformations in that marvelous city! A survey of the residential boom will be published in summer.

Save the Date!

5pm, Saturday 26th January 2019

I will be chairing Architectural Scale: Physical and Virtual Resolution in the Post-digital Image at Anise Gallery 13 Shad Thames London SE1 2PU. The panel comes from digital artists (ab)normal, architects D*Haus and architectural renderers VR studio AVR... We promise to stimulate! 

Helsinki Midnight Blue- a short story 

posted December 2018

Save the Date and go to Poland...

I'm giving a talk!

Post-Digital Psychogeography

from Paris to Shenzhen

 from Debord to the Digital Matrix

 from the Streets to the Singularity

Can the Situationists Save the City… and the Human Race?

Saturday 1st December 2018

part of the Element Urban Talks conference

October 2018

I've been in Kaohsiung in Taiwan, where I visited the Mecanoo-designed Weiwuying Center for the Arts, then I went on to Hong Kong and Shenzhen. More updates to follow, but in the meantime check out some instagrams!

4th October 2018, Berlin

It was an honour to moderate and interview photographer Ken Schluchtmann at his exhibition Architecture and Landscape in Norway, at the Nordic Embassies, Berlin! We had a packed house and most of all, Ken's photos are simply sublime... if in Berlin, see the show!

July 2018

The new Blueprint 359 includes my feature on Ingenhoven's Marina One, Singapore + review of London Festival of Architecture and....

Venice Architecture Biennale - (almost) the Whole Thing. With Francesca Perry, Ruth Lang and Johnnny Tucker, Blueprint tries to digest this impossible offering. 5 pages online. I'm left with 'an underlying anxiety that the poetry of architecture cannot be oblivious to the problems of the real world'

May 2018

Dreams of Nature and Concrete: Studio Drift at the Stedelijk - What do those floating concrete blocks mean? And much else from Studio Drift's Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta

profile in Elephant May 2018

interview in CoBo Social June 2018

The new Blueprint 358 includes my cover story about Elizabeth de Portzamparc's Musée de la Romanité in Nimes

+ CentrePoint appartments

+ review: Superstructures exhibition about High-Tech architecture at Sainsbury Centre, Norwich

March/April 2018

I have been in Singapore and I will report on Marina One by architects Ingenhoven and landscapers Gustaf Porter + Bowman!

My interviews with Bjarke Ingels of BIG, Grand Paris Aménagement and Benoit Chang CEO of developers EuropaCity, about the planned €2 billion green leisure neighbourhood, are published in a special issue of l'Architecture d'Aujoud'hui 

The new Blueprint 357 includes many of my articles including:

Billion Dollar Cube- Trump tweeted that he'd steer clear of the new US Embassy in London, by Kieran Timberlake - but I checked the $1B outpost out

Jan/February 2018

Design Society - Views from the Top

An interview with Ole Bouman, director of Shenzhen's cool new museum/institution that's out to set China's design agenda

CoBo Social

A spotlight on Shenzhen's Urban Villages - and the future of cities

Unexpected lessons from UABB 2017 and the miraculous not-so-instant megacity

blog 

... and see article below...

Talking of Shenzhen's Urban Villages- interview with Meng Yan of Urbanus, co-curator of UABB Shenzhen 2017, about the hidden wonders of the Urban Village

CoBo Social 

Note: a full review of UABB SZ will appear in Blueprint magazine in March, and an essay on Shenzhen's urban villages will be published shortly 

Andreas Gursky- Getting the Big Picture

An epic retrospective of photographer Andreas Gursky at the re-opened Hayward

FAD magazine 

Blueprint 356 (Feb 2018) now published - my articles includes my look at Foster's new Bronzed and Breathing Bloomberg HQ, London + a house in Portugal by Miguel Arrudas

December 2017

We weren't selected to curate Oslo Architectural Triennale 2019, but the proposal from me and my 'FUBuLoUS' team was in the final 5 from 71 entries! 

We now REVEAL our curatorial proposal for OAT 2019... titled 'NO WAY BACK' 

The Christmas podcast of Nibble Night by CAMP features Christmas diaries of the famous, from Andy Warhol to Che Guevara - females read by Melanie Coles, males by me!

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