ScottishArchitecture.com

Architects … the book-dealer shook his head wearily.  As I picked a large monograph off a crowded shelf, he sighed.  Business in architecture books is slow – that’s why I stock these – pointing to shelves of Folio Society and modern first editions.  Why?  Because, the book-dealer explained, architects don’t read books.  Because they don’t read, they don’t need to buy books, either.

That’s why there are no architectural book-dealers left in Scotland, not since Leslie Fraser’s shop in Perth closed down five years ago.  I frequented it, and spent hours discussing architecture of all colours with him.  But most of his trade was with non-architects, in non-architecture books.  For an architectural book enthusiast, that must have been a sort of intellectual nihilism, where no one sought the thing you most wished to sell.  Eventually you would lose faith, and cease to believe in it.  In terms of new books – as opposed to previously-read ones – the RIAS shut up shop in Glasgow, and now has a rented shelf in The Lighthouse.  Triangle Bookshop in London is about to pull down its shutters for the last time.  Architects, it seems, are very reluctant readers.

One exception to this was Sinclair Gauldie, who was an author as well as an architect.  After he died, I bought a few items from his library which his daughter (an antique- and book-dealer herself) put up for sale in her shop out the Carse of Gowrie.  Gauldie was a Renaissance man, who had a large architectural practice in Dundee’s leafy West End; he also taught at the local school of architecture, took a leading role in the professional institutes, wrote an useful primer, and a pithy guide to contractual letter-writing.  He was also an arbitrator, who incidentally acted in a dispute my parents had with their builder regarding their central heating.  But that’s a story for another day …  Anyhow, Sinclair Gauldie’s office, on Magdalen Green, was timber-panelled and lined with books.  You felt certain that he had actually read most of them, too.

I guess that reading, a key part of literacy, needs to be fostered from a young age.  After beginning as a mechanical task, it becomes an intellectual pleasure.  Architecture courses have a great chance to inject an enthusiasm for the subject in students, yet the reading lists of trendy architecture schools still resemble that of a philosophy course: Deleuze and Guattari are still en vogue at the AA and Bartlett, even though there are many more philosophers whose work might be relevant.  For example, I found Guy Debord’s ideas struck a chord, and they were more readable, too.  Nonetheless, these reading lists discourage students from reading about Architecture.  Later, once the student textbooks have been boxed up and stashed in the loft, these specialist interest books take on less significance.  Most offices have a small shelf of “reference” works – but their random subject, age and condition betray their origins – inherited, given away free by rep’s, and stolen from college libraries … and called upon only in direst need, especially now we have “teh internet”. 

So having discounted the reasons why you might read architecture/ philosphy books, and technical reference books, what about coffee table books?  Architectural journalists were quick to latch on to the cult of the “star”, with the result that many new titles consist of glossy photos with little more than a preface (or apologia) by a commentator to put them into context.  Martin Pawley’s article, and posthumous book of the same name – “The Strange Death of Architectural Criticism” was prescient.  When these shiny monographs are sponsored by practices, they come very close to vanity publishing, and certainly suffer from a lack of critical distance.  Whoever stood up to say “my buildings are crap”?  It’s like the adage of the fish cadger shouting their wares – “stinking herring” – it disnae happen, not in this universe.  These catalogues of architectural wares are almost entirely uncritical, and as a result, you’ll learn very little from them.

What about academic texts?  Yawn yawn, Death by Boredom.  In fact, these should be the ideal architectural books.  Written by an expert, thoroughly researched, they should be definitive: and since academics win bonus points for their universities through research, the experts should be good at what they do.  Most research in architecture schools is applied, and much of it is archive-based, interpreting the past for the benefit of people who could learn from it.  Like students, practitioners, or even the general reader, and interested lay person who wants to find out more – yet the results are mixed, and books from presses like Routledge or Berg can be hard going, even for a supposedly educated audience.

I’ve found that the best reads, which reveal a fresh aspect of the world to you, often come from small, independent publishers.  One pleasure of reading architecture books lies in finding new connections between subjects of which you’re already aware:  there is also satisfaction to be had in discovering something entirely new.   For example, Shaun Tyas, who works from a base in Lincolnshire, and published a couple of Scottish-interest titles recently – “James MacLaren:  Arts and Crafts Pioneer”, and “Towers of Crim Tartary: English and Scottish Architects in the Crimea, 1762-1853”.  Unlike many architectural histories, they cover new ground, and the images and words are in balance.   Physically, they are sparely-designed, clothbound and gilt-stamped, printed on fineblade paper;  they’re put together by Shaun Tyas, who typesets and designs and markets for himself, clearly a publisher who loves the craft of making books.

Both were published by a small press which, in Shaun Tyas’s own words, defies convention in its choice of subject matter and sometimes takes on titles of Wagnerian proportions which terrify the larger publishers–  but it also seeks out the original and unusual.   Rather like Peter Savage’s study of Robert Lorimer (published a quarter of a century ago by Paul Harris) the books will probably become sought-after if or when they go out of print.  That may be the real reason architects don’t read books.  Architecture books have always been rare beasts, produced in short print runs.  many are destined to become collectors’ items.  The classic example is the first and only monograph about William Burges, which is only 30 years old, but commands £300 per copy.  Then there’s a far newer book which Lars Muller published on the work of Peter Zumthor – it’s worth twice the original selling price.  There’s also Lebbeus Woods’ “Terra Nova”, which I have a copy of, and was startled to discover sells for over £100 on the internet.

All these books have passed from the realm of the Reader to the Collector: too precious to handle, they sit dustily on a shelf.  Yet another reason, possibly, why architects don’t read books …or just an excuse?