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Fred Smith reviews the Glasgow Atlas exhibition and catalogue in Architecture Today, May 2016

Adam Willis of London based collective Assemble will be guest critic on 12 and 13 April and will give a lecture titled Assemble: Collective Practice on Tuesday 12 April, 6:30pm, HIL F41

The catalogue for the Glasgow Atlas exhibition has been published.

Volume I contains the collective survey carried out the students and introductory texts by Galsgow Internation Director Sarah McCrory, Tom Emerson and a conversation with Arno Brandlhuber.

Volume II contains the speculative design projects developed from the Atlas survey.

Glasgow Atlas is available from Studio Tom Emerson, the ETH bookshop and the AA Bookshop.

Please contact: zimonjic@arch.ethz.ch

From word to image: Tom Emerson talks to French poet and novelist Michel Houellebecq in Art Review (Vol 68 no5, Summer 2016) about about space, landscape and transitioning from the page to the spaces of Palais de Tokyo, where his exhibition opens on 23 June and Manifesta 11 in Zurich.

In 2014, students from Studio Tom Emerson produced a collective survey of Glasgow followed by architectural proposals, collectively known as the Atlas. “Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary for an architect” wrote Venturi and Scott-Brown in Learning From Las Vegas in 1972. The sentiment is even more important today as Glasgow accommodates a new post-industrial landscape.

The survey is a radical act. From Piranesi’s Antichite Romane to Rem Koolhaas’ record of the Berlin Wall, the survey has been instrumental in not only recording, but also transforming a vision of the past into the future. The projects developed by the students range from rethinking great tracts of city and landscape, to tiny, almost unnoticeable adjustments to boundaries and thresholds, from the fantastical to the plausible. They have suggested new parks, walks, baths, playing fields and viaduct housing woven into Glasgow’s fabric. The Atlas makes no distinction between the used and the abandoned, between the well-known and the forgotten. All surveys are incomplete, subjective, and bear all the naiveté of the outsider’s gaze. They are an attempt to see and retain something, to look more carefully for a future in what is there.

The exhibition is shown as part of Glasgow International 2016, and supported by Stephanie Macdonald of 6a architects.

A catalogue will be published alongside the exhibition with contributions from Arno Brandlhuber.

Glasgow Atlas

Type: Exhibition

Address: Unit 22, 100 Borron Street, Glasgow, G4 9XG

Getting Here: The canal side venue is a short walk from the city centre, served by First Bus Service No75 – Castlemilk to Milton – every 10 minutes.

Opening Event: 2.30pm on Saturday 9 April.

Opening times: Monday-Sunday 11am – 5pm; Friday 8 April 2016 – Saturday 24 April 2016

For more information, please contact: studemer@ethz.ch