Atrium

Join us for the book launch of Atrium

In the 1970s, a void opened at the heart of architecture. In hotels, offices, public buildings and commercial centres, the atrium emerged globally to challenge the modernist legacies of form and function, altering the pattern and experience of cities. While often appearing at vast scale and to striking effect, as a typology the atrium became omnipresent and mundane. During this period, architectural practice – especially in the US and UK – was changing rapidly, due in part to the manifold effects of deregulation. All aspects of the way buildings were designed, developed, regulated, built, managed and occupied were being reshaped. Atrium offers a lively critique of this process, where Charles Rice charts the atrium’s appearance in the 1970s and its development through the 1980s, as it accompanied profound shifts in the discipline and practice of architecture. A practice once guided by the progressive tenets of modernism turned into a professional service fully integrated within neoliberal social and economic imperatives. As Rice shows, the atrium gives this story a distinct spatial and material figure, one that offers an inside view of architecture in transformation. Charles Rice is Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney. As well as Atrium (2023), he is author of Interior Urbanism: Architecture, John Portman and Downtown America (2016) and The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity, Domesticity (2007).

We are delighted to welcome Charles to the AA Bookshop to celebrate the launch of his new publication over refreshments.

The book will be sold on the evening at a special price of £35 RRP £41