Truth and Lies in Architecture - by Richard Francis-Jones (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This is a collection of provocative essays that journey into the vexed circumstance of contemporary architectural practice.

The nature of the great cultural, social, political, environmental, and consumerist challenges facing the contemporary architect are explored, interpreted, and questioned, while drawing connections from architecture theory, philosophy, science, literature, and film sources in an attempt to negotiate the territory between the truth and lies in architecture.

These essays written by a leading Australian architect represent a level of comprehensive critical awareness rarely found within the architectural profession and one would be hard pressed to find another comparable figure in contemporary architectural practice. The entire argumentation is impressive, challenging, intellectually at the highest level and beautifully written.

Review Quotes

"Truth and Lies is both confronting and inspiring in its scope, capturing perfectly the enormity and terror of the architect's task - "perhaps paradoxically, the less chance of success the greater the poetic force and the more important it is to persist."" --ArchitectureAU

"The cover of Truth and Lies in Architecture, depicting a scene from Alex Garland's 2014 film Ex Machina, hints at the diverse references culled by architect Richard Francis-Jones of Sydney's fjmtstudio in this collection of essays on the "vexed circumstance of contemporary architectural practice." Stills from other films, paintings, photographs of buildings by Kahn and Mies -- even a campaign photo of Donald Trump -- sit alongside quotes from Umberto Eco, Albert Camus, Hannah Arendt, Adolf Loos, and many others. Any field is game for shaping and articulating Francis-Jones's thoughts on architecture's diminished role in the face of the 21st century's numerous environmental, social, cultural and political crises." --World-Architects

"This collection of short essays is a series of explorations and excavations into this complex and contradictory territory in an attempt to uncover the depth and nature of the diminishment of contemporary architecture and the tracks that lead us here." --Amazing Architecture

"These essays written by a leading Australian architect represent a level of comprehensive critical awareness rarely found within the architectural profession and one would be hard pressed to find another comparable figure in contemporary architectural practice. The entire argumentation is impressive, challenging, intellectually at the highest level and beautifully written." --Kenneth Frampton