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High Tech Architecture | High Tech Architecture First published in 1988 by Thames and Hudson, High Tech Architecture is the standard work on this fascinating episode in the story of twentieth century architecture. The book features the work of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Nicholas Grimshaw, Michael Hopkins and others. It includes many beautiful photographs as well as plans of most of the buildings. Colin Davies's long introductory essay, which starts below, analyses the history, theory and practice of a peculiarly British style that flourished from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. You can download the complete essay here.
1. A tentative definition The first is that in the early 1970s "High Tech" was often used as a term of abuse by architects who had taken up the fashionable cause of "alternative technology". As the term passed into more general use it lost its negative connotations, but High Tech architects themselves still prefer to use some such phrase as "appropriate technology". Second, it is an ambiguous term. High Tech in architecture means something different from High Tech in industry. In industry, it means electronics, computers, silicon chips, robots, and the like; in architecture it now means a particular style of building. But as soon as we use the word style we come up against the third objection. British High Tech architects hate the word style even more than they hate the words High Tech. In the USA the term High Tech does refer mainly to a style, but in Britain it means something much more rigorous. It is High Tech in the British sense that this book sets out to analyse and illustrate. It is too late now to invent a new name. Most people interested in contemporary architecture know what High Tech means, at least in general terms. And if High Tech has nothing to do with high technology, well neither has Gothic anything to do with Goths... |  | |||
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