‘This is an extraordinary group of buildings’, wrote Philip Johnson (then a Mies van der Rohe follower) when The Architectural Review published Alison and Peter Smithson's School at Hunstanton in September 1954. ‘… Here we have an unknown team … being allowed to win and build. Most surprising they are allowed to build not a conventional school, not even a Hertfordshire plan, but something quite the opposite of the prevailing trend … The plan is not only radical but good Mies van der Rohe, yet the architects have never seen Mies's work …’ In this paper, based upon a talk given at the Architectural Association School and on conversations with the Editor, Peter Smithson recalls the background to the project, its design and construction, his later visits to Chicago and a 1973 revisit to the building.

This paper describes current research activities oriented towards the development of an innovative methodology for survey and documentation activities in buildings that owing to their general characteristics challenge the use of traditional survey and documentation methodologies. In particular, the specific project of the survey and documentation of the Abbey of Valmagne in southern France is presented as an example of the use of telematics for conducting geographically distributed activities within a methodology specially designed for projects in which the location and complexity of historical structures poses a dramatic challenge. The paper ends by addressing a number of conclusions that can be applied to a general framework and their relation with future research and development work in this field.

The publication, last December, of the ‘research ratings’ awarded to subject groups in each of the United Kingdom's higher education institutions provoked a shocked response in many Architecture schools. A fierce debate on the nature of architectural research and its implications for the future form of architectural education is now developing. With so many countries following the UK standard of a five-year period for full-time education in Architecture (and RIBA validation), this is a subject of more than local interest. Peter Carolin reports on the background to this debate.

The work of Amsterdam architects Felix Claus and Kees Kaan is moving away from formulae associated with modern architecture. This paper studies their attempt to find meaning which is at once more abstract and more direct, and notes that a guiding light in their search is a fundamental concern with the physical realities and compromises of the building process.

The idea of spanning a space with beams, none of which is long enough to reach clear across, is one which has long held a fascination for designers. Described by Villard de Honnecourt and by Serlio, variations on this form have appeared both in drawings and in actual use. This paper describes examples of both and considers the structural behaviour of this kind of arrangement.

Regardless of theoretical approach, architectural ideas are ultimately embodied in materials. While contemporary buildings are often brimming with architectural theories, they frequently flounder at the attempt to translate these ideas into materials. The uncertainty of this contemporary architectural climate is powerfully mirrored in the artistic language of mannerism. Rejecting the tenets of the Renaissance, and inspired by new discoveries, the italian architect of the late sixteenth century sought to reformulate architectural language. Founded on an increasingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the antique world, this language was to represent a new understanding of nature and involved an exploration of natural materials in a way unimaginable in the early Renaissance. This paper describes the garden of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, a masterpiece from this period where materials themselves resonated with significance. Based on the author's iconographic interpretation of the garden, it draws on original eyewitness descriptions of the effects of water, light and sounds.

The planned closure of Copenhagen's commercial docks and railway yards presented the opportunity to consider not only possible uses for the vacated land but also the impact of these changes on the rest of the city. This paper is based on extracts from Urban Make, a record of a study made of this subject by a team of architects drawn from the architecture schools at Copenhagen and Århus, led by Erik Christian Sørensen. Reproduced here is an abbreviated account of the team's approach together with its proposals for three of the study areas and for reinforcing the link between the existing centre and the expanding Ørestad area across the harbour. Limitations on space preclude the inclusion of the remaining proposals and the studies made of other European cities, a series of essays on ‘The Commendable City’ and suggestions for reordering the city's streets and obtaining better value from investment in the public realm.

Australian Architecture schools, like their UK equivalents, have also been grappling with the need to obtain recognition for design as equivalent to research. They have had to tackle the subject not because of pressures imposed by a national funding system, as in the United Kingdom, but because of the need to maintain credibility within their universities. Michael Keniger looks back over a 10 year period of experiment.

For the last 40 years, organic values have prevailed in Western architecture. The conflict in the 1950s between the organic and the typical with its ideology of mechanisation is currently being reenacted under the new categories of the generic and the specific. These two orders of value are assumed to be incompatible, even though both history and theory suggest otherwise. In this conflict, the organic has so far survived unscathed in spite of a growing interest in the typical, the status of which remains unclarified: should it be envisaged as a means to an aesthetic, as it is at present, or should it be a means to affluence?

Some long-term historical, economic and social circumstances leading to marginalisation of the British architectural profession are described. A mismatch between demand for architectural services and their supply is suggested to have contributed to marginalisation. Possible reasons are advanced for a restrained response to marginalisation by the profession. In particular, aspects of the professional culture connected with insularity and aversion to management are suggested to have been significant. However, while aspects of the professional culture hindered long-term adjustment to changing demand, they also may have helped to support design activity in the shorter term.

The gulf dividing the houses of ruling elites from those in use among the bulk of a population (here referred to as vernacular) is a phenomenon common to many cultures. It reflects the close correlation between the kind of house in which an individual lives and his social status. A grasp of the relationship, between elite and vernacular houses in societies where both exist enhances our understanding of the development of domestic architecture, and our appreciation of the wider historical significance of that development. This paper explores an aspect of the relationship between elite and vernacular houses in seventeenth-century Japan.