Architectural design, 1954-1972.

This thesis examines the architectural magazine's contribution to the writing of modern
architectural history using the magazine Architectural Design (AD) as a case study.
There are four main narratives to this research, one "grand" and three "micro";
The overarching grand narrative (or meta-narrative) is the proposal to replace the existing art
historical formulation of architectural history with a more holistic understanding of history
based on power struggles in the field of architecture. This strategy is derived from an
application of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework to the field of architectural cultural
production.
The position of the architectural magazine as an institution in the construction of the
architectural profession, and the ever-changing definition of architecture is one underlying
micro-narrative. The introduction discusses the role that the architectural magazine played in
the emergence of the modern architectural profession, alongside other institutions, specifically
the academy and professional bodies.
The central, and largest, micro-narrative is a critical history of the magazine Architectural
Design from 1954 to 1972. Brief biographies of its editors and a background to the magazine
from its inception in 1930 up to 1953 precede this by way of contextualisation. This history of
AD discusses the content and context of the magazine and traces its shift from a professional
architectural magazine to an autonomous. "little" magazine, focussing on several key
structural themes that underpin the magazine. Throughout, the role that AD played in the
promotion of the post-war neo-avant-garde, in particular the New Brutalists and Archigram, is
documented and the relationships between the small circle of people privileged to produce
and contribute to the magazine, and AD's rivalry with the Architectural Review are highlighted.
The final micro-narrative is a reading of post-war modem architectural history from 1954 to
1972 through the pages of AD, tracing the rise and demise of modem architecture in terms of
three defining shifts from the period evident in the magazine: "high to low"; "building to
architecture"; and "hard to soft". This period also coincides exactly with the life of the Pruitt
Igoe housing blocks in SI. Louis whose demolition, according to Jencks, represented the
death of modern architecture. A growing post-modern sensibility in architecture is manifest in
the magazine through an increasing resistance to modernist thinking. This study consciously
employs post-modern methodologies to a period of modern architecture in an attempt to
disturb modernist mythologies that have ossified into history.