Year Zeros

Working again in liaison with the team at Sir John Soane’s Museum, I edited in conjunction with the Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education, Owen Hopkins a series of essays on architectural history. “For the most part history is the story of gradual change and evolution, of long term trends that give meaning to events as they unfold, even moments of apparent crescendo and climax. From time to time, however, there comes a tipping point when old certainties are overturned,” wrote Owen.

We invited writers, critics, historians and architects to identify and reflect on their Year Zero. The initial list of contributors included Reinier de Graaf, Alan Powers, Otto Saumarez Smith and Olivia Horsfall-Turner. I published the essays with my colleagues at Machine Books and introduced a couple of events, introducing the speaker and facilitating the questions from the audience.