Reyner Banham, Historian of the Immediate Future. (Banham Enhanced).By Nigel Whiteley. London: MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. 2002. [pounds sterling]27.50 To write a 400 page book about Reyner Banham's writings -- not his life, but his writings -- seems like a terrible idea at first. Why waste time reading about his writings when you could be reading the writings themselves? A straight biography would have been a more obvious project to undertake. There are times reading this book when one longs for more information about, and interpretation of, Banham the man rather than Banham the historian and critic. What exactly, for example, was the nature of the work he did for the Bristol Aeroplane Company The Bristol Aeroplane Company (formerly British and Colonial Aeroplane Company) was a major British aviation company. In 1956 its major operations were split into Bristol Aircraft and Bristol Aero Engines. during the war, and why exactly was he 'invalided out', having failed his Higher National Certificate A Higher National Certificate (HNC) is a higher education qualification in the United Kingdom. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the HNC is a BTEC qualification awarded by Edexcel, and in Scotland, an HNC is a Higher National ? Banham's own explanation was stress and overwork overwork the condition produced by working a draft animal or working dog, an eventing or endurance horse too hard. See also exhaustion. : 'The weakest went to the wall and I was a very callow youth'-- this from a macho critic who admired 'toughness' above all and was contemptuous of any 'loss of nerve'. Was it perhaps more to do with aptitudes and ambitions, the desire to cut off his working class roots? Nigel Whiteley skims over such questions, excitin g our curiosity but leaving it unsatisfied. They may not be strictly relevant to the development of Banham's critical position, but they are interesting in themselves and answers to them might help to explain his instinctive enthusiasm for technology and popular culture, and his refusal to follow the elitist e·lit·ism or é·lit·ism n. 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. example of his teacher, Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner, CBE, (January 30, 1902 – August 18, 1983) was a German-born British historian of art and, especially, architecture. He is best known for his 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, The Buildings of England . But, despite its limited scope, this book turns out to be a surprisingly good read. It is not a dry textual analysis but more like a quirky history of postwar, mainly British, architectural and design theory. The Independent Group and the Smithsons, Archigram and Cedric Price, High-Tech, Post Modernism and the New Right--all are seen in a new, more revealing light when set against the background of Banham's loves and hates, his alliances and enmities, his occasional brilliant insights. Whiteley is no hagiographer hag·i·og·ra·phy n. pl. hag·i·og·ra·phies 1. Biography of saints. 2. A worshipful or idealizing biography. hag -- he can be coldly critical of his subject's blind spots and prejudices -- and yet Banham's stature is enhanced rather than diminished by this study, which was no doubt the intention. And it leaves room for someone else to write a proper biography. |
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