AA Sporadical: Alumnus Paul Shepheard’s ‘slogans_and_battlecries’ on Instagram

Paul Shepheard (AADipl 1972) on slogans and battlecries (December 2018) –

“slogans and battlecries is a series of fifty 300 word pieces about architecture situated on instagram as slogans_and_battlecries. (They are the same thing: a slogan is from the Gaelic for war cry, the cry the clan yelled as it hurtled into battle). The series started as a corner page weekly column in Building Design magazine and I grew it into this series upon understanding the possibilities of instagram, in both the words and the images that mark them. The slogans themselves will be familiar to architects (God Is In The Details, The International Style, Less Is A Bore) and the pleasure in writing about them was to hold them up and view them from all sides, like a cubist painter. The pleasure of a precise word limit (the pieces are all exactly 300 words long) is in the elisions and collisions it promotes and the pleasure of a tight word limit (300 words is about half a page) is the poetic brevities it forces upon you. The resulting contexts are very dense, which is an imitation of the actual world, and so I invented two characters, Billie and Ben, youngsters to my oldster, to help negotiate the narratives involved.”

slogans_and_battlecries32. (extracted from Instagram)

“THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE

 Ben looks up from his collection of modern architecture text books. He is hunting for slogans for me and tells me that modernism is full of them. “How about ‘social condenser’?” He says. “Is that the same thing as a concentration camp?” I think he’s trying to wind me up. He’s right about the plethora of modernist sloganizing, which dates from about the same time as the twentieth century’s heroic dictatorships and their propagandas. We can’t decide whether ‘Social Condenser’ is a slogan, though if not it’s pretty close to one. And does ‘Spirit of the Age’ count? “How about ‘A Brave New World’?” says Ben. But that’s not modern, that’s Shakespeare. ‘The International Style’ is also in the books and that certainly does count, because it apes the undisputable sloganity of ‘International Socialism’: only if we eliminate the archaic traditions of nationality can design function for the common good. The International Style promises a world built of reason, not of prejudice. But what is it? Billie shows us a picture of Lincoln cathedral. She asks what’s not international about twelfth century gothic? The cathedral sits imposingly on its hill with its spires reaching for heaven; and amusingly in the foreground is the white, modernist slab of the new Lincoln University. “Look,” says Billie. “There’s an international horizontal and an international vertical.” The problem word in International Style is ‘style’. Real modernism is so true to its purpose it has no ‘style’. So now Ben wikis the characteristics of the international style: “Emphasis of volume over mass,” he reads, “lightweight, industrial materials, plain surfaces, repetitive modular forms....” “They’re symptoms, not characteristics,” says Billie. “Style is a kind of disease and we’re like doctors reading the symptoms. That’s it! the title of my new dissertation!” She exclaims: “The Pathology Of Style.” #rickmather #lincolncathedral #lincolnuniversity #internationalstyle #verticality #horizontality #socialcondenser #pathology”

We have pasted the link below for you to explore Paul’s unique stance yourselves, Sporadical has liked everything! Though there are more to be uploaded at the time of writing, please do comment for Paul on your personal favourites and suggestions of additional architectural slogans are welcome.

https://www.instagram.com/slogans_and_battlecries/

Paul Shepheard (AADipl 1972 and Student Prize winner 1972), published a set of drawings that are now held in the AA Archive in ‘Projects’ Architectural Association 1946-1971’, edited by James Gowen. Paul is also a former AA Tutor with Mike Gold and Jean Sillett and has published widely since, which can be explored at www.paulshepheard.com

Slogans and Battlecries on Instagram is featured in AA Sporadical, the digital newsletter for alumni of the Architectural Association. To opt in, email events@aaschool.ac.uk.