Reflections: Walt Disney Concert Hall
John Pardey revisits Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, examining its conceptual origins, exuberant material language, and its legacy within a generation shaped by icon-making architecture.
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Reflections: Chapel of Reconciliation
John Pardey revisits de Blacam & Meagher’s Chapel of Reconciliation at Knock – a landmark of 20th century Irish Architecture – tracing its pilgrimage roots, profound materiality, and overarching influence on a new generation of Irish architects.
Reflections: Ronchamp Chapel
John Pardey on how Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel marked a revolutionary departure from his machine-age classicism — a sculptural, light-filled sanctuary where curved walls, hooded towers and a hovering roof reimagined the possibilities of modern sacred architecture.
Reflections: Maison de Verre
John Pardey on how Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoët's Maison de Verre (House of Glass) redefined domestic architecture in 1930s Paris — fusing craft and industry, transparency and privacy, transforming a bourgeois townhouse into a luminous, steel-framed gesamtkunstwerk.
Reflections: The Crystal Palace
John Pardey on how Joseph Paxton’s pioneering Crystal Palace for Great Exhibition of 1851 marked the end of millennia of masonry and timber construction, ushering in a new era of light, span and prefabrication that would redefine architecture in the age of industry.
Reflections: Bagsværd Church
John Pardey on Jørn Utzon’s Bagsværd Church, Copenhagen (1976) – a rectilinear, industrial-looking building that conceals a sequence of vaulted concrete ‘clouds’ inspired by nature.
Reflections: Red House
John Pardey on William Morris and Philip Webb’s Red House in Bexleyheath – a home that looked to embody ‘truth’ in craftsmanship and construction and which to some, is the very first modern house.
Reflections: Gemeentemuseum
John Pardey on Hendrik Petrus Berlage's Gemeentemuseum in The Hague (1934) – a building that can be read as a European evolution of Frank Lloyd Wright's work and reconsidered the decorative use of stone and brick.
Reflections: National Bank of Denmark
Architect John Pardey looks back on Arne Jacobsen’s National Bank of Denmark as the Danish master’s most complete gesamtkunstwerk – a building that distils the same unity, elegance and precision found in his iconic furniture.
Reflections: Grande Arche de la Défense
John Pardey on Johan Otto von Spreckelsen's La Grande Arche in Paris (1989) – a monumental, yet elegant building laced with symbolism that was part of President Mitterand's Grands Projets.