Peter Reyner Banham Hon.
FRIBA
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
(2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
architectural
critic and writer best known for his theoretical
treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject and its conclusions." Tre ...
''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies''. In the latter he categorized the
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
experience into four ecological models (Surfurbia, Foothills, The Plains of Id, and Autopia) and explored the distinct architectural cultures of each. A frequent visitor to the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
from the early 1960s, he relocated there in 1976.
Early life and education
eterReyner Banham was born in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, England to Percy Banham, a gas engineer, and Violet Frances Maud Reyner. He was educated at
Norwich School
Norwich School (formally King Edward VI Grammar School, Norwich) is a selective English independent day school in the close of Norwich Cathedral, Norwich. Among the oldest schools in the United Kingdom, it has a traceable history to 1096 as a ...
and gained an engineering scholarship with the
Bristol Aeroplane Company, where he spent much of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. In Norwich he gave art lectures, wrote reviews for the local paper and was involved with the
Maddermarket Theatre.
In 1949 Banham entered the
Courtauld Institute of Art
The Courtauld Institute of Art (), commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist coll ...
in London where he studied under
Anthony Blunt,
Sigfried Giedion
Sigfried Giedion (sometimes misspelled Siegfried Giedion; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich) was a Bohemian-born Swiss historian and critic of architecture. His ideas and books, '' Space, Time and Architecture'', and ''Mech ...
and
Nikolaus Pevsner
Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...
. Pevsner, who was his doctoral supervisor, invited Banham to study the history of modern architecture, following his own work ''Pioneers of the Modern Movement'' (1936).
Career
Having previously written regular exhibition reviews for
ArtReview
''ArtReview'' is an international contemporary art magazine based in London, founded in 1948. Its sister publication, ''ArtReview Asia'', was established in 2013.
History
Launched as a fortnightly broadsheet in February 1949 by a retired country ...
, then titled Art News and Review, Banham began working for the ''
Architectural Review
''The Architectural Review'' is a monthly international architectural magazine. It has been published in London since 1896. Its articles cover the built environment – which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism ...
'' in 1952.
Notably in its December 1955 issue, Banham contributed an essay titled "The New Brutalism", in which he sought to stylistically define
New Brutalism. His hypotheses became widely discussed and debated topics among members of Team X and other groups involved in urban planning at the time. Banham also had connections with the
Independent Group, the 1956 ''
This Is Tomorrow'' art exhibition – considered by many to the birth of
pop art – and the exponents of
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ba ...
, which he documented in his 1966 book ''The New Brutalism: Ethic or Aesthetic?''. Before this, in ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'', he had cut across mentor Pevsner's main theories, linking
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
to built structures in which the '
functionalism' was actually subject to formal structures. Later, he wrote a ''Guide to Modern Architecture'' (1962, later titled ''Age of the Masters, a Personal View of Modern Architecture''). Banham predicted a "second age" of the machine and
mass consumption
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the sup ...
. ''The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment'' (1969) follows Giedion's ''Mechanization Takes Command'' (1948), putting the development of technologies such as electricity and
air conditioning
Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...
ahead of the classic account of structures. In the 1960s,
Cedric Price
Cedric Price FRIBA (11 September 1934 – 10 August 2003) was an English architect and influential teacher and writer on architecture.
The son of an architect (A.G. Price, who worked with Harry Weedon), Price was born in Stone, Staffordshire ...
,
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...
, and the
Archigram
Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s that was neofuturistic, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical ...
group also found this to be an absorbing arena of thought.
Green thinking (''Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies'') and then the
oil shock of 1973 affected him. The '
postmodern' was for him uneasy, and he evolved into becoming the conscience of postwar British architecture. He broke with
utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
and technical
formalism
Formalism may refer to:
* Form (disambiguation)
* Formal (disambiguation)
* Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary
* Formalism (linguistics)
* Scie ...
. ''Scenes in America Deserta'' (1982) talks of open spaces and his anticipation of a 'modern' future. In ''A Concrete Atlantis: U.S. Industrial Building and European Modern Architecture, 1900–1925'' (1986) Banham demonstrated the influence of American
grain elevators
A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits ...
and "Daylight" factories on the
Bauhaus
The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...
and other modernist projects in Europe.
Banham was a prolific journalist (of some 750 articles), both within and outside of the architectural press, including regular columns in ''New Statesman'' (1958-63) and ''New Society'' (1966-88). Selections of his journalism articles were collected in ''Design by Choice'', edited by
Penny Sparke and ''A Critic Writes'' (which includes a full bibliography), edited by his wife Mary Banham and others.
Teaching
Banham taught at the
Bartlett School of Architecture
Bartlett may refer to:
Places
* Bartlett Bay, Canada, Arctic waterway
* Wharerata, New Zealand, also known as Bartletts
United States
* Bartlett, Illinois
** Bartlett station, a commuter railroad station
* Bartlett, Iowa
* Bartlett, Kansas ...
,
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
(1964-76) and the
State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo (1976 to 1980), and through the 1980s at the
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...
. He had been appointed the Sheldon H. Solow Professor of the History of Architecture at the
Institute of Fine Arts, New York University shortly before his death, but he never taught there. In 2014 The Bartlett established a named Chair appointment of the Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory.
Awards and tributes
He was featured in the short documentary ''Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles''; in his book on Los Angeles, Banham said that he learned to drive so he could read the city in the original.
In 1988 he was awarded the
Sir Misha Black award and was added to the
College of Medallists.
Criticism
In 2003, Nigel Whiteley published a critical biography of Banham, ''Reyner Banham: Historian of the Immediate Future'',
in which he gives an in-depth overview of Banham's work and ideas.
Bibliography
*
*
*"The New Brutalism". The Architectural Review. 1955.
*
*
*
*
*
*
* “Hawks, Doves, and Flights of Fancy.” ''Wilson Quarterly'' vol. 3, no. 1, 1979, pp. 128–34
online* “The New Brutalism.” ''October,'' vol. 136, 2011, pp. 19–28
online
References
External links
* 52 minute episode from the BBC series ''One pair of eyes''. Banham narrates a video tour of Los Angeles; the program incorporates interviews with authors
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980) was an American novelist. He broke with existing literary forms and developed a new type of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical ref ...
and
Norman Mailer, among others.
*
*
*
Reyner Banham Papers at the Getty Research Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banham, Reyner
English architecture writers
Architectural theoreticians
University of California, Santa Cruz faculty
1922 births
1988 deaths
People educated at Norwich School
Alumni of the Courtauld Institute of Art
Academics of University College London
20th-century English architects
Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects