Architectural Design, also known as AD, is a UK-based architectural journal first launched in 1930.

In its early days it was more concerned with the British scene, but gradually became more international. It also moved away from presenting mostly news towards theme-based issues. Its golden period was during the late 1970s and 1980s when it was the bastion of Postmodernism, with frequent articles and special editions guest-edited by Charles Jencks, the theoretical father of postmodern architecture. At that time the journal was the mouthpiece of the publishers Academy Editions (marketed in the USA under St.Martins Press), based in Leinster Gardens, London (they also had their own bookstore), and they published very many well-known titles concerned with postmodernism. The long-standing Editor-in-Chief, until the mid-1980s, was Andreas C. Papadakis. Andy Warhols iconic Marilyn Monroe // Postmodernism is an idea that has been extremely controversial and difficult to define among scholars, intellectuals, and historians, as it connotes to many the hotly debated idea that the modern historical period has passed. ... Jencks Landform at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Charles Jencks (b. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ...

Postmodernism and after

The contents of the journal is seen during the latter half of its history as running parallel with the cutting-edge of avant-gardism, promoting innovation as well as celebrity status. Thus, at the height of Postmodernism in the late 1970s - when it often featured the works of Michael Graves, Robert Stern, Leon Krier, James Stirling, Robert Krier and Aldo Rossi - it also published Rem Koolhaas's later influential book Delerious New York (1979). An undercurrent to Postmodernism featured in the journal was that of "architecture without a style", a vernacular classical architecture, epitomised by the work of Quinlan Terry, Demetri Porphyrios and John Simpson. The journal went partly into decline with the demise of postmodernism, though it then shifted its coverage towards Deconstructivism, folding in architecture, 'blob' architecture, biomorphism, and digital architecture. The shift in emphasis can be pin-pointed to a single edition of the journal, devoted to the two polar positions at that time: "Peter Eisenman versus Leon Krier: 'My ideology is better than yours.'" (Architectural Design, 9-10/1989). The current avant-gardist interest of the journal in biomorphism is a return to issues the journal was covering in the 1960s and 1970s, before postmodernism, with the architecture of Archigram, Cedric Price and the thinking of Reyner Banham. Portland Public Service Building Michael Graves (b. ... Leon Krier (born 1946) is an architect and urban planner from Luxembourg. ... Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University. ... Aldo Rossi, (May 3, 1931- September 4, 1997 Milan, Italy) was an Italian architect. ... Seattle Central Library, designed by OMA Rem Koolhaas (born November 17, 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands) is a Dutch architect, former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. ... Quinlan Terry (born 1937) is a notable British architect. ... Model of Whitman college, neo-Gothic building under construction at Princeton University Demetri Porphyrios (born 1949) is a Greek architect and author. ... Libeskinds Imperial War Museum North in Manchester comprises three apparently intersecting curved volumes. ... Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s and based at the Architectural Association, London that was futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from technology in order to create a new reality that was solely expressed through hypothetical projects. ... Cedric Price was an architect (1934_2003). ... Reyner Banham (1922-1988) was a prolific Anglo-American architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, and his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies in which he categorized the Angelean experience into four ecological models...

Nowadays the journal is produced by John Wiley publishers, Chichester, UK, and is edited by Helen Castle. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ...

External links

• AD Homepage