The Architect Reads

A series of three performances/readings by authors who have studied architecture, and who are either professional architects, writers or critics. The Architect Reads is inspired by the expanded field of architecture, and how its unconventional view of practice opens up fresh new possibilities and opportunities to connect.

Kester Rattenbury: The Wessex Project

This is an hour long reading and musical performance.

Architects assemble words, drawings, pictures and details to form imaginary projects, always in speculative comparison between past and future. This performance assembles components which novelist, poet and former architect Thomas Hardy used in constructing Wessex. Kester Rattenbury, Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster reads from her book The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect, staging an unknown conversation between Hardy’s experimental Wessex photos, drawings and stage sets, and Hardy’s traditional musical background. Tunes and songs from Hardy’s musical notebooks performed by architect and musician Steve Larkin with musicians Josephine Marsh, Cyril O’Donoghue and Mick Kinsella.

What role did Thomas Hardy’s experience as architect and musician have on the development of his famous part-real, part-dream world of Wessex? In this performance, Kester Rattenbury reads from her new book, The Wessex Project: Thomas Hardy Architect, and Josephine Marsh, Mick Kinsella, Cyril O’Donoghue and Steve Larkin play traditional music collected by Thomas Hardy, opening a conversation on how the music and architectural constructions of Wessex seem to collaborate in practice.

In association with the International Literature Festival Dublin