Justin McGuirk

This spring I attended a couple book talks at the Center for Architecture, one on Keller Easterling's Extrastatecraft and the other on Justin McGuirk's Radical Cities; both are published, perhaps coincidentally, by Verso. While widely divergent in topic and tone, both have the common approach of exploring the margins of architecture and urbanism. Easterling looks to free trade zones and other infrastructural constructions, McGuirk heads south and looks at what is being produced in South America. The book is equal parts travelogue, portraits of architects, history, and criticism, each aspect overlapping and intertwining in a remarkably enjoyable manner that was echoed in his talk at the Center. The subjects that McGuirk explores are a mix of the well known (Elemental's houses in Quinta Monroy and Urban-Think Tank's work in Caracas, for example) and the obscure (PREVI and Alto Comedero). His solid writing and firsthand experience binds everything, while his skeptical optimism pervades the book enough to encourage readers that architects are not completely helpless in the face of dramatic economic, social, and political problems.… (más)