Your leader (arq 6/1, p3) correctly concluded that the latest round of the UK Government's Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) results are the best yet overall for those departments in universities that include the subject of architecture. But we are in danger of misinterpreting this complex set of results as a result of some other more emotive and unclear arguments. Let me take the process apart slightly in order to clarify.

The entwined relationships between the physical and the computational continue to produce sensibilities where our understanding of the division between them is becoming blurred. The prolog to Rustic Figurations identifies a growing interest in disciplinary questions on the role of history and the history of digital tools and techniques of representation to support and understand the cultural context of architecture. The second part of the text tries to describe, define and situate rustic figuration as an aesthetic and material concept in architecture that has developed through the architectural design research of the practices servo and Brrum, in parallel with research into the history of rustication.

The notion of rustic figuration is imbued with architectural qualities that oscillate between the legibility of form and geometry and the disappearance of that legibility. Aspects of legibility are discussed in relation to related discourses in architectural history, as well as in the context of a few contemporary practices and projects that engage both computational and analogue techniques for design, communication and fabrication. The qualities of rustic figuration in the projects are neither bound by the unique properties of the building materials, nor by the computational information but happen in the translations between digital information and material manifestation or vice versa.

Between 1965 and 1975 there was an intense debate in Italy about theatrical culture, which encompassed theatre building and the urban, social, and political roles of theatre. It was articulated around three terms that imply three ways of relating the theatrical building and the city: the temple, the machine, and the caravan. This unusually rich debate has been largely ignored in the historiography of Italian and European architecture, despite its intensity and the importance of its protagonists for the architectural culture of the twentieth century.

Scholarly analysis of the writings on architecture of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) has largely focused on passages in Twilight of the Idols where he claims that ‘Architecture is a kind of eloquence of power in forms – now persuading, even flattering, now only commanding.’1 Yet, considering Nietzsche’s theory of the will-to-power – that an innate drive towards power, might, and self-overcoming is the dominant force of existence – architecture gets interpreted in this passage as he would likely have interpreted sculpture. Any recognition of the social, political, physical, and psychological accommodations of architecture are absent. However, in a passage in Joyful Wisdom entitled ‘Architecture for the Perceptive’, Nietzsche wrote of architecture as a carefully crafted space to inhabit. This discussion of architecture as a lived space has received considerably less attention.

The Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Toyo Ito work with the formation of mental processes, which include spatial perceptions, but also haptic experiences. In this regard, they both connect to the Japanese architectural tradition. Therefore, it is interesting to compare their work, especially since visually the architecture of these two architects differs. However, through staged, unexpected and changeable experiences of materiality and spatial organisation – interacting in dynamic flow with the surroundings – similar mental processes are evoked when conceiving and perceiving their architecture that are an integral part of the ongoing processes to transform their architecture into ‘abstractions’. The point of departure for being involved in these similar, processual stage-settings is the creation of uncompleted experiences of wonder; a void, which is recognised from the traditional Japanese expressions for beauty – shibui and yugen – and described by Soetsu Yanagi as a hidden, subjective beauty. This in turn leads to a new subjectivity in connection with traditional Japanese conceptions of space, where space is a subjective perception and a changeable process in the mind of the beholder, and not an outside object. The references to the architectural tradition include the villa and the garden of Katsura and the architect Kazuo Shinohara, who opposed and criticised Western Modernism with the basis in his own Japanese tradition.

The concept of typology has recurred in architectural discourse since the term’s conception in the early nineteenth century. To describe an architectural object usually involves an act of typifying; a generalisation of built form to common characteristics. Both the analysis of architecture and its creation require this abstraction, which offers the potential to form types and expose initially unapparent relationships. Typology’s Enlightenment origins sought to link architecture to a natural order, but its terminology has subsequently been adopted in modernist rejections of mass culture and Neo-Rationalist pursuits of continua and meaning. Despite widespread use of the term, the role typology plays in the process of design remains unclear. Attempts to link its academic origins to the creation of architectural form (notably by Gottfried Semper in the nineteenth century, and Guilio Carlo Argan and Aldo Rossi in the twentieth century) have done little to synthesise the two and merely succeeded in alienating it from practice.

The human body once provided the fundamental measurements by which to gauge human creations – but the metric system offers ‘mere number without concrete being’. A synthesis is needed.

Measure: mens (L – mind), mensurare = measuring/measure

Metre: metron (Gk), metrum (L – measuring rod), mètre (Fr) = metre

Irony: eironeia (Gk – simulated ignorance), eiron – dissembler and simulator of power = irony

No civilization has existed without measures, and each has described measures in a manner specific to its needs. To exist at all, measures must be practical and useful, and most have their origins in everyday experience. At some stage in the development of a civilized society measures will be refined, standardized and regulated and represented physically. To endure and be accepted by hundreds, thousands, even millions of people – across great civilizations and around the globe – measures must reflect and extend the authority of leaders. Measure is therefore a statement and record of the changing balance of power and independence. It is an expression of culture.

This paper sets out to investigate the origins and legacy of a significant 1960s modernist public housing estate in the North East of England. This estate at Kenton Bar remains virtually intact, and as such represents a unique example in Newcastle upon Tyne. Its architects, Ryder and Yates, had personal contact with Le Corbusier, Georges Braque, Berthold Lubetkin, Ove Arup and Clive Entwistle; and the influence and mentorship of these individuals is clearly evident in the design. Being selected to join the small team at Peterlee New Town in 1948, provided the opportunity for Ryder and Yates to work together for the first time. The experience enriched their architectural vocabulary and modernist values; and ultimately led to the establishment of their business partnership in 1953. By the time of Kenton Bar, it was by far the largest project that their architectural practice had undertaken. The office was greatly appreciative of Eric Lyons and Span Developments, and their work appears as a distinct precedent in the layout. With a pyramid in its central square, and an assortment of innovative design installations, the estate resonated strongly and immediately with residents.Today, even the pyramid that was removed some years ago, lives on in the collective memory of residents, past and present. Recently, weblogs have been established; and collages and models produced by artists, as well as adults and children from the Estate, in the style of the original design presentations. Fifty years after it was conceived, the interest of local artists and galleries, the tenants’ association, former residents, and pupils of the primary school specifically designed to be at the heart of the estate may not be unprecedented but it is certainly rare. Ryder and Yates have created a living monument to twentieth-century ideas.

The concepts of succession and duration are used to identify different temporal aspects of architecture. Typically architecture that is based on duration seeks to persist unchanged within time whilst that based on succession engages with change, transience and rhythm. The organisation of succession and duration, according to different temporal structures, is used to inform a series of design studies. Structures relating to the weather, programmed and unconsidered use, clock time, mechanical time, circadian rhythms, entropy and space-time are examined in a discussion on the architectural chronotope which ‘artistically connects temporal and spatial relationships’.

The Glasgow School of Art has a long history of the cultivation of the art of drawing. Many types of drawing have been taught and practiced within the institution since its establishment in 1845. Mackintosh's Glasgow School of Art building, completed between 1897 and 1909, can be seen as one great outcome of that design-through-tradition. The building not only sheltered and thus enabled a further cultivation of the art of drawing, but became itself a model for the practices of that drawing tradition. There is a strong body of work, much of it by teachers and students of the Mackintosh School of Architecture, which has focussed on the building and explored through drawing the architectonic features and significance of the structure. This work has been useful as a teaching and critical aid but also as a contribution to the art and discipline of architecture. In the wake of the first 2014 fire, which destroyed part of the building, this body of work suddenly became of use as a design tool rather than simply an exploratory or critical tool, as the institution sought to reproduce exactly what had been lost. The most recent 2018 fire wreaked a destruction much more comprehensive across the whole building. Accordingly, we are forced to completely review the relationship of that drawing heritage to the building. That is to say, the building largely no longer exists, and the drawings take on a life of their own in a way not previously attached to them. The school may, however, be rebuilt, recreated ‘as was’ at some point in the future, potentially instigating yet another type of relationship between the existing drawing work and a new ‘Mackintosh’ building.

This issue of arq contains a selection of papers first presented at an event titled Further Reading Required held at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in 2011. Here, the conference organisers reflect on the distinctive strand of architectural research – comprising historical and theoretical readings of technical construction literature – which it sought to consolidate.

In this previously untranslated text, Gustave Eiffel explains the technical rationale of his then controversial tower and argues persuasively for its practical uses and cultural value to Paris.

There is little question that we live in an age of images, in a mediated environment in which the image is ever-present – with its effects nevertheless still growing [1]. This essay – as an introduction to the four papers that follow – examines aspects of the complex questions surrounding the image and those that accompany the shift from print to pixel.

A green Unimog, the penultimate agricultural utility vehicle, makes its way through a curved, potholed road in the dark woods of Lower Bavaria. What differs from an otherwise everyday scene is the strange, compact structure that rises from its rear body and partly overhangs the driver's cabin. Painted in a warm yellow and oxblood red it contrasts vividly with the muted dark green of the surrounding fir trees.

At the end of the road, the forest opens up and the wide plain of the river Inn leads the way towards the west, towards Munich. Looking southwards through the driver's window one can see the profile of the Bavarian Alps in the evening sunset. Arriving in Munich the vehicle makes a stop at a busy boulevard lined with cafés and bars.

Although hailed by Sigfried Giedion as the leader of the Third Generation of modern architects, Jørn Utzon has generally been interpreted as a Nordic regionalist, in succession to Asplund and Aalto. Drawing on both familiar and unpublished material, taken from a monograph to be published by Edition Bløndal later this year, the paper explores striking, but previously neglected or ignored parallels between the work of Utzon and Le Corbusier. A comprehensive assessment of Utzon's work is long overdue, and should situate him in the mainstream of international modern architecture.

At first glance, it might seem counterintuitive to insist upon Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc's (1814-79) critical interest in the human body as a metaphor for style in architecture. Not only did he oppose the anthropomorphic metaphors for style touted by Neo-Classical theorists at the École des Beaux-Arts, but he was most widely known in the nineteenth century for his preoccupation with the monumental and structural potential of modern materials such as iron. This reception of Viollet-le-Duc's thought persisted in the twentieth century with Sir John Summerson's estimation of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier's debt to the constructive principles of his architectural organicism. Such accounts have made it possible to interpret construction and/or structure as the main ‘body’ of Viollet-le-Duc's architecture theory. However, this reading confuses the eclipse of Neo-Classical anthropomorphic metaphors for style - which translated the proportional relationships between the human body's constituent parts into a compositional system of design - with the complete eclipse of critical references to the human body in the French style debates of the nineteenth century. As we trace the role of the human body in Viollet-le-Duc's style theory, it becomes clear that the principles of human variation in biology and ethnography enabled him to account for the cultural variations of national peoples in his conception of style.