Thursday 3 July 2014

The horror... the horror


Horror in Architecture
Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing
Oro Editions, 2013 

An examination of horror and its architectural analogues, including historical perspectives and a dissection of the unease at the heart of the modern project.

Written by a pair of Harvard design graduates turned landscape architects, the text sometimes has the feel of a thesis or academic tract, though it is mostly accessible and the profuse illustrations make an interesting photo-essay in themselves. The juxtaposition of rotten architecture with biological freaks, mullet hairstyles and stills from John Carpenter's The Thing, Army of Darkness and other horror films is most enjoyable, so much so that this little paperback has been enlivening my bathroom reading for the past couple of months. I shall miss it but, you know, binge and purge.





 

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