Barnabas Calder

Digital preservation of a famosa fortress in malaysia

In this paper, we described an attempt to preserve the A Famosa Fortress in Malaysia in 3D model. First, a brief background of the A Famosa fortress is presented to justify the importance of preserving this historical heritage. Then the stages involved in the digital preservation process are discussed and some images of the 3D model of this fortress are illustrated. To evaluate the importance of the digital preservation of A Famosa and to find out its potential application in the tourism and education industry in Malaysia, a human evaluation has been conducted and the results are presented and discussed in detail.

Book, exhibition and film reviews

Barnabas Calder reviews The architecture of James Stirling and his partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford: a study of architectural creativity in the twentieth century. By Geoffrey H. Baker. Published by Ashgate, 2011. ISBN: 9781409409267Barnabas Calder reviews James Stirling: early unpublished writings on architecture. Edited by Mark Crinson. Published by Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 9780415550581; 9780415550598Barnabas Calder reviews James Frazer Stirling: notes from the archive by Anthony Vidler Published by Canadian Center for Architecture and Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780300167238Barnabas Calder reviews Jim Stirling and the red trilogy: three radical buildings. Edited by Alan Berman. Pulbished by Frances Lincoln, 2010. ISBN: 9780711231443

‘Unlearning lessons’: Denys Lasdun in the 1950s, part 1

‘It is always stimulating to talk to you about architecture, but I have noticed over the past two years that you tend to identify me entirely with Tecton. Bear in mind the following. I have now built with Lindsey [Drake] more buildings than [I built with] Tecton and that my philosophy on architecture is, I hope, on the side of life – that is to say, it is not static but changing. I rather hoped that when you saw the model of [the flats at] 26 St Jamess Place, you would have realised the extent to which my ideas are changing.’

Remembering the forgotten and the excluded Historians debate architecture without architects

Report of architects and history. This was a big, serious conference in a big, serious city. Architectural historians from North America and around the globe gathered to discuss their work and to look at buildings together. Yet despite the generosity with which the American Institute of Architects handed out CPD points for every paper and tour attended, there were not many architects there; the conference remained substantially a forum for professional architectural historians and their research students to talk shop. Its a pity – this kind of conference represents an excellent opportunity for architects to take their place at the heart of the debate on history and conservation.