Barnabas Calder

If it's a print on the lino, I would be inclined to say that most of the handful of architects who ever let themselves be called Brutalist would not have wanted to use it. Their lino would have looked like lino. But it's nice.

We're back home now. Sorry I missed the Gill reliefs - I know Glaramara.

That's cheering to hear - thank you. They didn't look old enough to die of that, certainly.

Thank you - this seems right. Awful news.

Thank you. Certainly a good number of the trees that are currently dying or in very poor health were oaks. I hope there isn't a new fungal threat to them as a species.

An oak woodland with three dead trees in the foreground.

A wood by Seatoller in the Lake District this past week. It had an awful lot of dead and partially dead oak trees On the east-facing slope, whilst those on the north-facing side were looking pretty healthy. Does anyone know what is killing them? I was quite upset to see them.

Climate change an ‘existential threat’, UN court says in landmark opinion ICJ Judge Yuji Iwasawa says greenhouse emissions are ‘unequivocally caused by human activities’ as he delivers opinion.

Some actual good news: the ICJ have set out the ecological situation clearly and authoritatively, and confirmed that each country has a legal obligation to take effective climate action. Could we get on and do it, please?
www-aljazeera-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.alja...

'...SHBT have united with the National Trust for Scotland and Bernat Klein Foundation as the Bernat Klein Studio Coalition aiming to buy and restore the building...' > this is very good news. www.shbt.org.uk/2025/07/savi... @c20society.bsky.social @barnabascalder.bsky.social

Thank you so much! I am indeed deeply honoured to be part of that extremely illustrious spread!

The Architecture Books that, step by step, changed my life.

Thank you very much!

Thank you! I know two of them, and they cover super-interesting architects. I'm looking for something more social-sciency and less architecty, ideally.

Copenhagen has taken bicycle commuting to a whole new level Cycling has been a part of that good life in Copenhagen for decades. In recent years, it has enjoyed yet another unfathomable surge in popularity — taken to the next level thanks to constantly improvi...

“Copenhagen reported that 62% of its residents are now commuting to work or school by bike — an increase from 52% in 2015 & 36% in 2012, when the City Council launched a 14-year-plan to improve the quality, safety & comfort of cycling.”

#Copenhagen chose. They keep choosing to go further each year.

Absolutely. It's a clumsy term, and a super-vague request. Essentially I can find a lot on aspects of the story for London, major US cities and some western European cities, but what I'm wondering is how urban dev and mobility have shaped some case study cities in C20 S America, Africa, and Asia.

Thank you - I haven't in fact, but I've thought of some people to ask advice from via email. Thank you for your thoughts, meanwhile.

Thank you. What I'm in fact particularly interested in is effects of increasing transport within cities, as opposed to region/subcontinent-wide mobility increases. This is therefore a somewhat later and v complex story, but I haven't yet found it well explored for one city.

Can anyone point me to a really good history of the urban effects of changing transportation in a case study non-"Western" city through the C19 and C20? I'm interested in things like employment and urban growth, but also in sociological effects (changing role of neighbourhood, etc.). Thank you!

No! It's a massive work of conviction and public good, hiding behind one of those "buy a chain of shops for a pound" illusions.

Absolutely! Thanks for quoting the restoration estimate - that's important data! Hoping for a really good purchaser with the right aims.

To be clear, don't buy it unless you've quite a few hundreds of thousands of pounds for expert advice and restoration craft, and can cope if it doesn't get residential use permission...

Bernat Klein Studio - a stunning modernist building in rural Scotland.

Bernat Klein Studio - a stunning modernist building in rural Scotland.

If you have the funds and the vision, please buy and restore the stunning Bernat Klein Studio, Galashiels - guide price £18,000.

auctions.savills.co.uk/auctions/30-...

Excerpt from forthcoming book Form Follows Fuel in which the Methodology section begins by offering readers the option to skip reading it and go straight to the analysis.

Not to blow our own trumpets, but I reckon more academic books could do with disclaimers like that with which @florianurban.bsky.social and I begin our methodology section.
#FormFollowsFuel
#ArchitectureAndEnergy

Screen shot of an article headline under an image of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, a 1960s modernist building. The headline reads "Grade I listed? Liverpool's ghastly cathedral should never have been built at all."

Bless them - do you think they still pay humans to churn this stuff out, or do they have an Artificial Kneejerk LLM to produce it? Keep ranting at long-dead architects, right-wing journos - it's so much less uncomfortable than facing the ecological realities of contemporary architecture.

If you have spare copies this might be the time to sell one at a time, slowly...

Then do a reprint.

Thanks Stacey! I hope you find it interesting.

Couldn’t decide which one to buy so bought both 😂💜 #booksky (Whitechapel Gallery) @barnabascalder.bsky.social @davidhockney.bsky.social @whitechapelgallery.bsky.social

Definitely worth it. Interesting and attractive place, and a splendidly odd church. As a student I wanted consistency and orthodoxy from churches. I've grown into mannerism, regionalism, improvisation and quirk. I still feel contempt for the asymmetrical second towers on Chartres etc, though.

Cor! Never heard of it. What a belter! Looks like a good font cover inside, too. I wouldn't want it hanging over a baby of mine, though.

Monarchs and their wheels. QEII drove up a pedestrian approach to Cumbernauld for her visit.