Charles Jencks

Mongrel Rapture: The Architecture of Ashton Raggat McDougall Charles Jencks

Publisher Marketing: In his essay within Mongrel Rapture, the first monograph on the polarising work of Australian architectural practice Ashton Raggatt McDougall (ARM), Charles Jencks identifies ARM as one of a handful of architectural practices internationally that operate in a mold he describes as Radical Post Modernism . Eschewing notions of good taste and formal purity, ARM opts instead for an architecture of ideas . Drawing from diverse sources that range across everything from Le Corbusier to Robert Venturi, computer programming to biblical verse, ARM s architecture has been alternately celebrated and execrated by critics and the public alike. Despite ARM s radicalism and the attention it garners, however, the practice has also produced some of the most important public buildings in Australia, including the National Museum of Australia, Canberra (2001), Melbourne Recital Centre and MTC Theatre (2008), and the Perth Arena (2013). Mongrel Rapture combines extensive photography and plans of all of ARM s major buildings with essays from a range of highly regarded critics, including Jencks, Mark C Taylor, Leon van Schaik, Harriet Edquist and others. Part scrapbook, part critical exegesis, like the architecture it documents Mongrel Rapture is both confronting and thought-provoking: a vital publication for anyone with an interest in this practice and Australian architecture s very particular strain of Radical Post Modernism ." Contributor Bio:  Jencks, Charles Charles Jencks is an architectural theorist, landscape architect, and designer living in Scotland. Contributor Bio:  Architecture, Arm Ashton Raggatt McDougall, or ARM Architecture, is an architectural firm based in Melbourne and Perth, Australia. The firm was founded in 1988 and has completed internationally renowned design work. ARM's directors are Stephen Ashton, Howard Raggatt, Ian McDougall and Tony Allen. ARM is known for "architectural outspokenness." Notable projects include the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, the Melbourne Recital Centre and Southbank Theatre in Melbourne and the Marion Cultural Centre in Adelaide. ARM is highly regarded for its heritage and renewal projects including the refurbishment of Hamer Hall at Arts Centre Melbourne, the courtyard extensions to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, RMIT University's Storey Hall and the redevelopment of Melbourne Central Shopping Centre. ARM was also commissioned to prepare the masterplan for Melbourne Docklands, the Adelaide Riverbank and Elizabeth Quay in Perth. Recent projects include the Perth Arena and Wanangkura Stadium in Port Hedland. A national survey of 600 architects conducted by the Architectural Review Australia found ARM to be considered the most influential architectural office in Australia in the period 1982-2007. ARM is the only Australian firm to win the Australian Institute of Architects' Premier State Award five times, most recently for the Perth Arena in Western Australia. Their design work has been featured on two Australian postage stamps. Contributor Bio:  Van Schaik, Leon Leon van Schaik is Innovation Profession of Architecture at RMIT, Melbourne, Australia. At RMIT, he has developed a practice-based research programme for architects and designers whose works already demonstrates mastery in their field. He has over the same seventeen-year period instituted a process of consultant appointment that is widely credited with shifting the climate of patronage within the city. Recent works by van Schaik include monographs on: Edmond and Corrigan, Ushida Findlay, Guilford Bell, Tom Kovac and Ken Yeang's Guthrie Pavilion as well as the "Poetics in Architecture" issue of "Architectural Design,"Contributor Bio:  Taylor, Mark C Mark C. Taylor is a professor in and chair of the Department of Religion at Columbia University. A leading philosopher and cultural critic, he is the author of thirty books and a regular contributor to the "New York Times", "Los Angeles Times", "Bloomberg News", and other publications. Mark lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and New York City. Contributor Bio:  Edquist, Harriet Harriet Edquist is a professor of architectural history and the head of the School of Architecture and Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, the former editor of Transition: Discourse on Architecture,  and the author of The Culture of Landscape Architecture, Frederick Romberg, Harold Desbrowe-Annear, and Pioneers of Modernism.Contributor Bio:  Hamann, Conrad From survival pods for a climate-stressed Australia of the near future, to buildings sculpted to respond to the environment that surrounds them, the work of Paul Morgan Architects is a highly unconventional blend of science fiction, sustainability and speculation. Despite operating in a mode far from the architectural norm, however, the practice has received a slew of awards in the decade since its inception, including the Robin Boyd Award for Residential Buildings and a citation for the Zumtobel Group Award for Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment. This book documents a selection of Paul Morgan Architects most significant public and private commissions, including its multi-award winning residential work and its more recent educational and institutional design. Critical contributions include writing by Kristin Feireiss, co-founder of the architectural forum Aedas in Berlin and a former director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Conrad Hamann, author and architectural historian, and Dr Vivian Mitsogianni, Associate Professor in Architecture at RMIT University. Richly illustrated with photography by Peter Bennetts as well as the practice s own drawings and visualisations, the book provides a deep insight into both the work and the processes behind this maverick Australian architecture practice. Contributor Bio:  MacArthur, John Widely known for his thorough, candid approach to teaching God's Word, John MacArthur is a popular author and conference speaker and has served as pastor-teacher of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, since 1969. John's teaching is available around the world through his media ministry, Grace to You. In addition to producing daily radio programs for nearly 2,000 English and Spanish radio outlets worldwide, Grace to You distributes books, software, audiotapes, and CDs by John MacArthur. John is president of The Master's College and Seminary and has written hundreds of books and study guides, including the bestselling "The Gospel According to Jesus" and "The MacArthur Study Bible", a 1998 ECPA Gold Medallion recipient. John and his wife, Patricia, have four grown children and fourteen grandchildren.