World Architecture Festival has again joined forces with the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects (the City of London livery company) and the Temple Bar Trust, to stage the Architecture Book of the Year Awards 2024, following their successful launch last year.

THE 2024 CATEGORIES

History
Biography (including autobiography)
Building (monograph)
Practice (monograph)
Typology (monograph)
Technical
City/country architectural guide
Plus: a special prize (or prizes) for exemplary books which fall outside the above categories

ABYA 2024 Winners

Winners of the 2024 Architecture Book of the Year Awards were announced on 10 December at an awards ceremony held in Temple Bar, City of the London. This is the second edition of the annual awards, which are organized by World Architecture Festival, The Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects and the Temple Bar Trust.

The category winners and commended entries, and the category judges, were as follows:

Biography

Winner: The Ingenious Mr Flitcroft: Palladian Architect 1697-1769, by Gill Hedley (Lund Humphries)

Both the winning and commended entries were a delight in completely different ways. The jurors were very impressed by the winner. It is both learned and engaging – which can be difficult to pull off in a scholarly work of history. The author has left no stone unturned, opening up old letters and giving readers a real flavour of the period, from the vicissitudes of daily life to banter between architects. We learn huge amounts in every chapter, and the reader has the sense the author has visited every archive and building, but hasn’t got bogged down in detail. The writing retains an appealing pace and lightness of tone.

Hedley’s references and interest in the contemporary relevance of the 18th century work are great; she has a keen understanding of how people might want to interpret the buildings today. The book also has a clever structure, with impressions of Flitcroft’s personal attributes at the beginning and end framing a nicely organized presentation of his work in the middle. And it is a handsome object, beautifully laid out and illustrated, making it very accessible. To deliver something like this is a serious challenge, and she’s done it brilliantly.

Highly commended: First Quarter, by John Tuomey (Lilliput Press)

Many architects would enjoy this account of John Tuomey’s early life, and the events that shaped his career as co-founder of O’Donnell & Tuomey – albeit there is more attention given to personal experiences here than to practice. It is beautifully written, bravely honest in some places and howlingly funny in others. There are moving descriptions of what it meant to be in Dublin at a time when large parts of the city were being transformed, and notable figures such as James Stirling are rendered with wit and affection in brilliant vignettes. Hopefully there’s a second quarter yet to come.

Judges: Jo Bacon, Chris Foges

Building

Winner: Upper Lawn, Solar Pavilion, Alison and Peter Smithson, (MACK)

The Smithson’s weekend house at Fonthill in Wiltshire is already well known, but this republished and revised deep dive into the archive (first published in earlier form almost forty years ago in 1986) reveals the story of how the project came into being and how life within it evolved. Very much at its heart is the architects’ perspective on its construction and inhabitation and this is now framed in this reprint by the book opening with a contextual new essay by Paul Clarke (Professor of Architectural Design at the Belfast School of Architecture and The Built Environment).

It was the most thoughtful and emotionally entry in this category, elegantly bringing together material which still feels revelatory and relevant: family snapshots and close-ups revealing the materiality of the site, original drawings, perceptive reflections and diary entries. It is a calm, poetic evocation of both a specific time and a process of exploration and habitation, within a changing seasonal landscape. It stands up against more frenetic and exhaustive approaches, including those drawing on copious archive material, by displaying poise and restraint. It is the more powerful for its careful curation and incorporation of a more intimate narrative, with a clear exposition of the building itself.

So much has been published on the Smithsons, but this reworked book still conveys a surprising freshness, and presents a question-raising and inspirational kaleidoscope of material, deftly edited and with graphic clarity.

Judges: Catherine Croft, Robert Wilson

Guide

Winner: Blackheath and Greenwich - Modern Buildings 1950-2000, by Ana Francisco Sutherland (Park Books)

This deserving winner squarely hits the brief of architectural guide book. It is a thorough and ‘complete’ piece of work, brought to life by clear layout and provision of the context of all the architects and communities served. The inclusion of plans/drawings are really instructive, and provide a fantastic starting point for a conversation about the design of houses and housing – topical.

Judges: Samantha Hardingham, Victoria Thornton, Roger Zogolovitch

History

Winner: Dublin – Creation, Occupation, Destruction, Niall McCullough, (Unthink Press)

More a love-poem rather than architectural text, this astonishingly original appreciation of Dublin owes much to the writings of W.G. Sebald or films of Wim Wenders. The author’s deep knowledge of his home city is also entwined in affinity with the rich literary tradition of Joyce and others. Copious undated monochrome photographs carry a haunting quality, like Dublin seen in reverie. As a posthumous publication, it is a fitting finale for a distinguished career as architect and writer on Ireland’s buildings, towns and cities.

Judges: Murray Fraser, Simon Henley, Cindy Walters

Practice

Winner: I. M. Pei, Life is Architecture, edited by Shirley Surya and Aric Chen (Thames & Hudson, London and New York, in collaboration with the M+ museum of Hong Kong)

A magisterial look at the life and works of Ieoh Ming Pei who died at a prodigious age in 2019. Born into the Hong Kong elite, Pei made his name in Modernist America, survived a stint as partner of developer Bill Zeckendorf, then left landmark iconic buildings across a wide range of typologies around the world that still resonate in national and global cultures.

At the core is I.M.Pei’s extraordinary trajectory, from innovator with his 1940 thesis project for a bamboo propaganda hut in rural China to become a world statesman of the profession. The clarity of the book’s themed chapters, its graphic presentation of material, including personal correspondence, historic photos, newspaper clippings, superb essays, without prolixity or adulation, ensure the man himself and his practice’s architecture are readily accessible.

A must for any architectural library. We didn’t have a moment’s doubt that this exemplary volume was our unanimous category winner.

Runner Up: Unfinished & Far Far Away, The Architecture of Irving Smith Architects, edited by Aaron Betsky (Altrim Publishers, Barcelona)

What an engaging monograph. Two Kiwi architects persuaded US academic Aaron Betsky to visit them in their small town, Aotearoa, in New Zealand’s South Island. Jeremy Smith and Andrew Irving, live ‘far, far away’ where an unusual landscape dominates. But they point out, in our collective global warming crisis, all our ‘far, far aways are not so far apart’. And, they ask, ‘Will you continue to mow a lawn around architecture and hope you don’t need to change your buildings or, will you look to participate with the landscapes and environments that we share?’

Ten fantastic projects set in their New Zealand contexts are presented, supplemented with essays on global themes. Editor Aaron Betsky brings an American, even Virginian, angle to his examination of the work and its setting which ensures that it doesn’t feel parochial. He also, delightfully, conveys his pleasure in the company of and characteristics of the partners, ’having some fun.’ We concur.

A modest publication providing global lessons on how to avoid the solipsism of the practice monograph.

Highly commended: Caruso St John, Collected Works, Volume 2, 200-2012 ( Mack)

Adam Caruso and Peter St John have worked hard to refurbish the foundations of Britain’s traumatised architectural culture alongside the built manifestations of their ideas. So much so, they’ve been welcomed in Europe, travelling in the opposite direction to the UK’s populist politics and something few other British practices have been able to achieve, exemplified by Caruso’s chair in architecture and construction at ETH Zurich, and the practice’s European work.

Their positioning as essentially ‘post-Modern’, a critique of Modernism and Neo-Modernism’s shortcomings, is extensively explained with substantial quotations from modern cultural history to amplify their position. These are summarised in Caruso’s closing essay – which alone is worth a couple of reads to remind us of where we’ve got to with architectural culture.

It can feel a bit overpowering, and possibly too referential, but no other practice would put this much effort into illuminating the wider roots of their architectural philosophy. Someone’s got to do it, and if there was any accusation of British architectural discourse being in some way anaemic, these substantial, carefully wrought volumes of Caruso St John’s work, can always be hurled at the source. 

Judges: Gillian Darley, Lee Mallett, Eric Parry

Technical

Winner: The Art of Architectural Grafting, Jeanne Gang (Park Books)

This is a charming, well written book by a clever and accomplished architect. The narrative and delightful illustrations are both useful and helpful. they take the metaphor of tree-grafting to the adaptation of existing buildings and extensions of urban areas. It can also be read as , not only inventive use of timber, but also as a valuable treatise in the low-carbon re-use of building materials generally. A good read!

Commendation

Landscape Architecture for Sea Level Rise, Galen D Newman and Zixu Qiao (Routledge)

This is an important study of an urgent crisis currently facing many parts of the world, intended to protect communities, their land and buildings against global sea level rises. It contains ideas and practical solutions from expert contributors around the world. It can be seen as an important state-of-the-art manual for landscape architects, engineers, architects, developers and politicians. There are inevitable instances of repetition given the involvement of so many authors. But it fits the bill by being a full-on technical guide.

Judges: John Lyall, John Robertson, Lynne Sullivan

Typology

Winner: Housing Atlas: Europe 20th Century, Orsina Simona Pierini, Carmen Espegel, Dick van Gameren, Mark Swenarton (Lund Humphries)

An important book on architectural history, given its prescient selection of 87 projects from across Europe in the 20th century, and beautiful production (including specially drawn plans, sections and elevations to standard scales). It encourages proper understanding (not glossing over their faults) of some very sophisticated works of architecture (some less so), including their relationship to programme and place.

It brings home the importance of the urge in fascist, communist and democratic regimes to provide decent, affordable urban housing for a wide range of the population as the driving nexus of architecture in the 20th century, and raises still relevant questions that give insights into the relationship between architecture and policy formation.

High commendation: The Japanese House Since 1945, Naomi Pollock, Tadao Ando (Thames & Hudson)

A superbly produced book that benefits from deep research into and knowledge of a single building type in one country since World War II. Given that the country is Japan, source of so much technological inspiration behind modern lifestyles, it raises questions about how much of the developed world lives. It also works as an insight into Japanese culture, including the relationship of tradition to modernity, and locates the overall significance of Japanese architecture in a global context.

Judges: Paul Finch, Jeremy Melvin

Special prizes

Sérgio Ferro, Architecture From Below, edited by Silke Kapp and Mariana Moura, translated by Ellen Heyward and Ana Naomi de Sousa (Mack)

A translated collection of architectural theorist Sérgio Ferro’s ideas and essays offers English readers new access to a remarkable set of theories, driven by Ferro’s experiences in Brazil where he worked on Brasilia. Initially a member of the Communist Party, he resisted the junta that took over in 1964 and was imprisoned in 1970. He moved to France on his release.

It is the first of three volumes and should appeal to those seeking a different viewpoint on architecture – from ‘below’ – one that puts the building site and workers at the centre of architectural enquiry. Ferro’s starting point is that architectural culture’s dismissal and neglect of building labour denies labour as the source of value and has made architectural design the servant of capitalism.

Published in Brazil and in France, Serro is barely known in the English-speaking world. Its ten chapters from between 1967 and 2019, kick off with his influential lecture of 2014 to Newcastle University’s Industries of Architecture conference, which set out his theoretical approach. His ideas could be a useful catalyst for today’s generations, targeting broader aims before the onslaught of pragmatism that practice entails. His theories illuminate why we have the architecture we do, rather the architecture we might desire, or need.

Judges: Gillian Darley, Lee Mallett, Eric Parry

Humanise: A maker’s guide to building our world, by Thomas Heatherwick (Viking)

This best-selling polemic is a visual feast, intended to provoke and to stimulate public discussion about our contemporary architectural and urban condition. It has succeeded!

Judges: Chris Williamson, Paul Finch

Enquires: paul.finch@emap.com