NATØ: Narrative Architecture in Postmodern London

Chronicling the last radical architectural group of the twentieth century ? NATØ (Narrative Architecture Today) ? who emerged from the Architectural Association at the start of the 1980s, this book explores the group?s work which echoed a wider artistic and literary culture that drew on the specific political, social and physical condition of 1980s London. It traces NATØ?s identification with a particular stream of post-punk, postmodern expression: a celebration of the abject, an aesthetic of entropy, and a do-it-yourself provisionality. NATØ has most often been documented in reference to Nigel Coates (the instigator of NATØ), which has led to a one-sided, one-dimensional record of NATØ?s place in architectural history. This book sets out a more detailed, contextual history of NATØ, told through photographs, drawings, and ephemera, restoring a truer polyvocal narrative of the group?s ethos and development.

Introduction 1. From Object to Action: Performing Architecture – 1973-81 2. A New Expressionism: Drawing Architecture – 1982-84 3. The Mise-en-Scène of the Magazine – 1983-84 4. Dreaming the City: Exhibiting Architecture – 1985-87 5. After NATØ Bibliography Index

Claire Jamieson completed her PhD in the department of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art in 2015. She is currently a lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical Studies at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, UK.