Fables for the Drone Age by Richard Goodwin
N Editions, 2017
Paperback, 50 pages

Even though I cover architecture for a living, every now and then I come across architects who have been practicing for a while but for some reason I'm unaware. One such architect/artist whom I should have known about much sooner is Richard Goodwin; according to his website he has been practicing for 42 years. Quick glances at the Australian's work, both on his website and in this new book coinciding with an exhibition at London's Betts Project earlier this year, brings to mind the work of Lebbeus Woods, Kaplan and Krueger, Wes Jones, and other architects whose practices veered into art and confronted technology head-on.

Fables for the Drone Age, produced by N Editions, was inspired by Grodon Matta-Clark's artist book, Splitting, from 1974. Although I wasn't familiar with that book, a quick Google search yields immediate similarities: a landscape format, simple text and images floating on white pages, and a gatefold. In Goodwin's book, that gatefold comes on the inside of the back cover, a treat after the comparatively small images throughout the rest of the book. Fables collects fourteen of Goodwin's monochrome sculptures interspersed with prose that opens up the meaning of his works to even more interpretation.
Two somewhat contradictory ideas came to mind when immersing myself in Fables: the violence of machinery/technology and the enthusiasm of youth. The first ...