GSA Library Architecture News

Post-War Glasgow Buildings

2012-05-21T14:32:00.000+01:00

The style and variety of Glasgow’s architecture in the decades after the Second World War is celebrated in a new book. The free book, Glasgow’s Post-war Listed Buildings, is a partnership between the city council and Historic Scotland and Glasgow. There are 38 post-war listed buildings in Glasgow considered of national, regional or local importance.

The first lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest in Glasgow were compiled in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1980s all of its building stock was comprehensively resurveyed and at this time many of the prominent Victorian and Edwardian buildings were added to the lists, along with a handful of outstanding interwar buildings - many of which were begun before the Second World War and not completed until afterward.
Unsurprisingly, it was not possible to recognise the best post-war buildings a mere decade or so after they were first erected, therefore an understanding of them has been built up gradually. In the mid-1990s, with the benefit of growing research into this area of study, post-war buildings have been suggested to Historic Scotland as individual listing proposals, or have been listed following reviews of the work of well-known architects, such as the practice of Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, or Sir Basil Spence and more recently as part of the reviews of significant estates such as the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde.
Download this free book

Architecture, Design & Engineering Drawings

2012-05-10T10:23:00.003+01:00

The Architecture, Design, and Engineering category covers about 40,000 drawings (described in more than 3,900 catalog records), spanning 1600 to 1989, with most dating between 1880 and 1940. The designs are primarily for sites and structures in the U.S. (especially Washington, D.C.), as well as Europe and Mexico. American architects and architectural firms created most of the images. Building types range from the United States Capitol and the Library of Congress to private residences and hamburger restaurants.
Works by distinguished figures in the history of architecture, design, and engineering in the United States are well represented including Benjamin Henry Latrobe, William Thornton, Stephen Hallet, Thomas Ustick Walter, Montgomery C. Meigs, Cass Gilbert, and Frank Lloyd Wright.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/ade/

Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South

2012-05-10T10:21:00.001+01:00

Noted architectural photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952) created a systematic record of early American buildings and gardens called the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South (CSAS). This collection, created primarily in the 1930s, provides more than 7,100 images showing an estimated 1,700 structures and sites in rural and urban areas of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana, and to a lesser extent Florida, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
Johnston’s interest in both vernacular and high style structures resulted in vivid portrayals of the exteriors and interiors of houses, mills, and churches as well as mansions, plantations, and outbuildings.
The survey began with a privately funded project to document the Chatham estate and nearby Fredericksburg and Old Falmouth, Virginia, in 1927-29. Johnston then dedicated herself to pursuing a larger project to help preserve historic buildings and inspire interest in American architectural history.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/csas/

Architecture and Design Scotland’s Materials Library

2012-04-30T09:41:00.001+01:00

Explore a range of sustainable materials in Architecture and Design Scotland’s newly launched Materials Library – Material Considerations.
A brand new materials library offering visitors a chance to explore and analyse a wide range of sustainable building materials has been opened by Architecture and Design Scotland on Level 2 of The Lighthouse, Glasgow. The purpose of the library is to showcase sustainable, traditional and emerging low carbon building products in general and to promote and encourage innovation in construction in Scotland using indigenous resources. Supported by the Forestry Commission and the Scottish Government, it will give clients, architects, builders and students an opportunity to get hands on with a wide range of sustainable, traditional and emerging low carbon building materials - from slate through to sheep's wool - while learning more about each material's sustainability credentials.
The free library is now open to the public and is open Monday - Saturday 10:30-17:00 and no appointment is necessary. You can find it on Level 2, The Lighthouse, 11 Mitchell Lane, Glasgow, G1 3NU.

Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA)

2012-04-20T11:37:00.000+01:00

The TRADA trade association is a long-established centre of excellence on the specification and use of timber and wood products. I was reminded yesterday that even for non-members, a considerable quantity of useful design and detail information is freely available to download from the 'library' part of their website, following a simple registration process.

Melvyn Bragg on ‘De Architectura’

2012-04-17T09:08:00.000+01:00

BBC Radio 4’s ‘In our time’ recently featured a 45-minute discussion on Vitruvius’ ‘De Architectura’, the only surviving work on architecture from the ancient world. Melvyn Bragg and guests, including architectural historian Robert Tavernor, offer some fascinating context for the original manuscript, and look at its ‘rediscovery’ during the Renaissance and continuing appeal to architects today.

Award-Winning InfosmART Portfolio Released by Glasgow School of Art Library

2012-04-16T16:05:00.002+01:00

The Glasgow School of Art Library’s award-winning InfosmART portfolio is now freely available to the UK’s art and design communities, following Innovation and Development funding from the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC.
InfosmART is the Glasgow School of Art Library’s portfolio of online interactive modules in information and research skills, specifically designed for creative practitioners. It has been produced for the learning, teaching and research communities in art, design and architecture, and helps artists and designers to develop and improve their research capabilities and information handling, at either undergraduate, postgraduate or research levels. It does this through an easy-to-follow 5-step programme: Define, Find, Evaluate, Cite and Use.
In 2010, InfosmART was recognised at the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards, where its development team was named Outstanding Library Team of the Year. In 2011, its lead developer was named Information Literacy Practitioner of the Year for his work on the resource.
InfosmART was developed in-house by the Library of Glasgow School of Art. It has now been released for free non-commercial use and adaptation under Creative Commons licensing at http://www2.gsa.ac.uk/library/infosmart

Rehousing the American dream

2012-04-16T13:54:00.000+01:00

New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has invited five teams of architects, planners, ecologists, engineers and landscape designers to develop proposals for housing that would open new routes through the mortgage-foreclosure crisis that continues to afflict the suburbs of the US. The results of the teams' ideas for new models of housing, not only of its physical form but of the systems of infrastructure and finance that support it, can be viewed on the MoMA website.

Vernacular architecture bibliography

2012-03-28T09:38:00.000+01:00

The Vernacular Architecture Group has made its 'Bibliography of vernacular architecture' freely available online. The bibliography comprises 11,000 references from a wide variety of sources. It can either be browsed by subject area, or searched by keyword, author and geographic region, journal or any combination of these.

E-books from Springer

2012-03-26T14:36:00.000+01:00

We've added several dozen more architecture e-books from the well-respected German publisher Springer. Titles include:

Manhattan skyscrapers (Nash)
Exit-architecture: design between war and peace (Truby)
Resilience of cities to terrorist and other threats (Pasman)
Visions of heaven: the dome in European architecture (Stephenson)
Conceptions of the desirable: what cities ought to know about the future (Pearson)

Full details are on the SpringerLink website and the GSA Library catalogue.

Archizines

2012-03-20T19:02:00.000Z

The Archizines website is a digital showcase of new architecture fanzines, journals and magazines from around the world that provide an independent alternative to the established architectural press. Its expanding archive covers a wide variety of publications from the past 10 or so years, while the zines themselves have recently been transferred to the National Art Library at the V&A Museum.

Ferrari Museum by Future Systems

2012-03-19T12:44:00.001Z

The online magazine and blog Dezeen has a good description of the new Enzo Ferrari motor museum in Modena, Italy, designed by Future Systems. As well as text and photographs, there are a number of plans and sections of the curving, glass-fronted structure; these are particularly useful given that the printed architectural journals are yet to feature this building in any detail.

Wylie Shanks Architects 1912-2012

2012-03-14T09:22:00.000Z

Nice to see that this long-lived Glasgow architectural practice is celebrating its centenary with the publication of an illustrated online booklet which charts its history, and profiles some of the individuals behind its achievements. It includes some good photographs and a useful timeline of events.

Network Rail's Virtual Archive

2012-03-08T10:04:00.000Z

Network Rail, which has responsibility for the UK's railway infrastructure, has just launched online access to some of its extensive archive of engineering and architectural drawings, many of which date back to the very earliest days of railway construction. The high-quality images include some of the UK's best-known bridges and stations, and the database is searchable and includes a timeline.

More ebooks in the Library

2012-03-07T13:35:00.000Z

Here are some further architecture titles that are now available electronically on and off-campus with a MyGSA password:

Architect's pocket book (Baden-Powell)
Public places, urban spaces (Carmona)
Construction technology (Chudley)
Constructing architecture (Deplazes)
Whose public space? (Madanipour)

Where we used to live

2012-03-06T09:41:00.000Z

A new website of historical maps, hosted by the University of Portsmouth, has been launched and is freely available online. It provides access to 60,000 maps from around the world, and enables a particular place to be selected and relevant maps viewed, in some cases back to medieval times. The site incorporates the collections of the British Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Czech Republic's Moravian Library, and the David Rumsey Collection in California. It is hoped that the size of the collection will double by the end of the year.

New e-books in the Library

2012-03-01T10:06:00.000Z

The following books are now available electronically to GSA all staff and students. They can be read both on- and off-campus using a MyGSA account; details are on the Library's online catalogue:

The architect's studio companion (Allen)
Rethinking the meaning of place (Castello)
Building construction illustrated (Ching)
Building construction handbook (Chudley)
Sustainable renovation (Gelfand)
Sustainable urban neighbourhood (Rudlin)

Skateboarders 'essential' for cities

2012-02-27T16:06:00.000Z

'The Independent' has a summary of a lecture by urban commentator Iain Borden in which he makes a plea for practices and spaces that are more creative in their engagement with cities, and which go beyond the shopping mall and the piazza. The Library here at GSA has a good selection of Borden's thought-provoking writings, including his 'Skateboarding, space and the city', which reflects his passion for the sport.

Whose plan is it anyway?

2012-02-23T09:34:00.000Z

On the evening of 5 March, Glasgow City Heritage Trust and the Scottish Civic Trust are holding an event which seeks to demystify the planning process and examine the do's and don'ts of community consultation and participation. For an example of the complexity of the issues and their potentially long-lasting impact on a community, have a look at this interesting online discussion about the new Scottish Epilepsy Centre in Govan, which replaces a controversially-demolished Victorian school sited just outside the Govan Conservation Area:
http://www.urbanrealm.com/news/3345/Scottish_Epilepsy_Centre_commences_construction.htmlabout

Peter Womersley

2012-02-17T09:25:00.000Z

Historic Scotland has produced a free online booklet looking at the career of Peter Womersley (1923-1993), known for his small but varied architectural output in central and southern Scotland. Key buildings are described and illustrated, and there is a short bibliography.

The case for space

2012-02-16T11:14:00.000Z

The RIBA has produced a report looking at the internal floor area of privately developed homes on a sample of sites currently being built by England’s eight largest volume housebuilders, and comparing the findings to the Greater London Authority’s space standards to benchmark good practice. The initiative is part of wider work by the RIBA in this field, including its HomeWise campaign to improve new build housing and its Home Season events which explore the past, present and future of the home.

Conversations on Glasgow

2012-02-13T09:47:00.000Z

The Glasgow Urban Lab at the Mackintosh School of Architecture has just published a report by Professor Ann Markusen on Glasgow's past, present and future, which looks at some key issues including health, the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, and the arts and culture. The online report, 'Conversations on Glasgow' is a result of Professor Markusen's tenure at the Lab as Fulbright Distinguished Chair during the 2010/11 academic year.

V!RUS e-journal

2012-02-09T10:17:00.000Z

V!RUS is a free e-journal published by the Architecture and Urbanism Department of the University of San Paolo, Brazil. Living up to its name, it's on a rather migraine-inducing website, but appears to cover a diverse range of theoretical topics in a variety of digital formats. Six issues of the journal are currently available.

Historic Scotland: Sharing the Vision

2012-02-06T09:39:00.000Z

Glasgow's Grand Central Hotel is hosting a free public exhibition on Wednesday 29 February in conjunction with the annual Historic Scotland conference. The exhibition, 'Sharing the Vision', will highlight Historic Scotland's contribution to economic growth, tourism, sustainable development and regeneration. The work of departments including Conservation, Commercial and Tourism, Policy and Outreach, Heritage Management and Finance will be highlighted, and staff will be on hand to answer questions.

RIBA Sustainability Hub

2012-02-02T15:40:00.000Z

The RIBA has created this Hub to to provide a free, central internet resource on all aspects of sustainable design in architecture. It includes Design Strategy pages which offer an introduction to techniques, materials and practices; Case Study pages which explain how these strategies were incorporated; and Sustainability Hub Shorts: short films designed to connect theory into practice.