Thanks for that Stephanie. Since Turner's death I've been thinking about the profound influence he has had on my life, both professional and personal. While I was in architecture school back in the 70s there were two books I kept close at hand – Freedom to Build and Architecture for the Poor. I’ve been trying to recall how I gravitated towards these two books rather than, say, Complexity and Contradiction. It might have been the articles in AD (probably first the 1968 article: Squatter Settlements: An Architecture that Works) but it led me eventually to Housing by People and the Colin Ward introduction. That, in turn, opened the door to a whole world of anarchist literature beginning with Kropotkin and Mutual Aid.
It sounds, from your piece here, that we have followed a somewhat similar path and Turner pointed the way.
Well, Graeme, Turner certainly pointed the way for you and the Centre for Architecture and Human Rights: https://architecture-humanrights.org/. Me, the way was one of many, but I find now, re-reading all the reviews and material that has come out since he died, how fundamental he was to how I think about building as a human process, rather than an architectural discipline.
I just had an ordinary Canadian education until I got to the AA and found I knew nothing at all about anything. Kropotkin? all I knew about anarchism was through Joseph Conrad, rather a poisoned chalice. What was effective about John Turner's lectures was that he didn't go on about anarchism, he simply lived according to its best precepts.
Thanks for that Stephanie. Since Turner's death I've been thinking about the profound influence he has had on my life, both professional and personal. While I was in architecture school back in the 70s there were two books I kept close at hand – Freedom to Build and Architecture for the Poor. I’ve been trying to recall how I gravitated towards these two books rather than, say, Complexity and Contradiction. It might have been the articles in AD (probably first the 1968 article: Squatter Settlements: An Architecture that Works) but it led me eventually to Housing by People and the Colin Ward introduction. That, in turn, opened the door to a whole world of anarchist literature beginning with Kropotkin and Mutual Aid.
It sounds, from your piece here, that we have followed a somewhat similar path and Turner pointed the way.
Thanks for your article.
Graeme
Well, Graeme, Turner certainly pointed the way for you and the Centre for Architecture and Human Rights: https://architecture-humanrights.org/. Me, the way was one of many, but I find now, re-reading all the reviews and material that has come out since he died, how fundamental he was to how I think about building as a human process, rather than an architectural discipline.
I just had an ordinary Canadian education until I got to the AA and found I knew nothing at all about anything. Kropotkin? all I knew about anarchism was through Joseph Conrad, rather a poisoned chalice. What was effective about John Turner's lectures was that he didn't go on about anarchism, he simply lived according to its best precepts.