Most architects seem to like books with plenty of glossy pictures; this is definitely not one of those. Industries of Architecture is very much a book by academics, for academics, exploring the background histories of the whys and wherefores of architecture.

Within are such gems as Christine Wall’s chapter on the origin of the modular, Alicia Imperiale’s exploration of the Italian 1960s’ metaproject and, what to me was quite fascinating, Matthew Soules’ explanation of the financial drivers behind the shape of Manhattan’s residential tower blocks (a clue: “to achieve experiential isolation, the simple reduction of the number of discrete units per floor reduces the multi-sensory evidence of neighbour proximity in the dimension where it has the most potential: horizontally”).

Not so much ‘love thy neighbour’, but more like ‘love my bank balance’.

I’ll leave the chapter on Deleuze’s critique of the representational paradigm for another lifetime, as this life is just too short to deal with such tired old schlock. But I have to say that I lapped up Tilo Amhoff’s description of the electrification of the factory, from Behrens’ turbine hall for AEG right through to the comparison of British and German worker behaviour on the layout of factory design: an architectural explanation for the demise of British manufacturing, maybe.

Interesting reading for a rainy day.