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Buy Tradition Today online here - all profits go to support the work of INTBAU. The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism is pleased to announce the publication of the first limited edition of 1,000 copies of Tradition Today: Continuity in Architecture and Society, a collection of essays on aspects of tradition. The value of this resource on traditional architecture and tradition is endorsed in a foreward by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Patron of INTBAU. The book will add to the library of resources on traditional architecture and tradition in general, linking the names of the subscribers with the book and the values it promotes. Essays by architects Robert Adam and Khaled Azzam, gastronomer Lynne Chatterton, brickmaker Andrew Clegg, theologist Clive Erricker, letter-cutter Richard Kindersley, philosopher Hans Kolstad, urbanist Léon Krier, jurist Michael Lobban, sociologist Cesare Poppi, sculptor Alexander Stoddart and philologist Viktor M. Zhivov, cover contemporary traditions and customs. The book is divided into four sections: The Nature of Tradition; Law, Legibility & Language; Tradition & Diversity; and Buildings & Places. In all it comprises 144 pages and 64 photographs. The publication of Tradition Today has been supported by generous subscriptions from INTBAU members. The nature of tradition 
Cesare Poppi, anthropologist from the University of East Anglia, articulates a densely argued piece leavened by amusing examples from his field work entitled, "Transcending Time: Rethinking the Invention of Tradition". His argument draws on an analysis of tradition as analytical tool and theoretical construct, and draws into focus the advent of globalisation. Clive Erricker, Reader in the Study of Religions at University College Chichester, addresses "Religion and Tradition: Patterns of Migration, Conversion and Enculturation Within Globalisation and Cultural Change" with the issue of tradition in the context of immigration and both cultural formation and assimilation. He references contemporarily relevant examples from British Muslim and Buddhist communities in his arguments. Andrew Clegg, retired co-owner of Errol Brick Company Ltd, in "Links in a Chain: Antiquity and the Present in Building Technology", describes brick making as "the oldest profession" (at 15,000 years BCE). He links the early brickmakers of ancient Mesopotamia (with a poetic analysis of the wondrous Tower of Babel) to the rediscovery of brick making traditions in Great Britain, noting that his brickworks used the same clay deposits as had the Romans before him. Law, legibility & language 
Richard Kindersley, of Kindersley Studio, London, examines carved inscriptions and draws contemporary connections in "Ancient Letter Carving and Computer Type Design". He uses illustrations to show how some of the most beautiful, traditional scripts from Roman Imperial inscriptions to Eric Gill's exquisite Gill Sans font (used in our page titles) had followed on each other. Kindersley's work as a type designer provided a basis for the examination of the role of tradition in modern fonts such as Hermann Zapf's Palatino of 1950, which closely follows Roman precedents. Linguist Professor Viktor M. Zhivov, linguist from the Russian Academy of Science, argues cogently that tradition is the basis of language in "Language as Tradition". His examples of English pronunciation drawn from across America and Europe, and of written Russian language, give emphasis to his point that written and spoken language have different traditions. Michael Lobban, Reader in Law at Queen Mary University of London, draws on a range of eminent jurists from the middle ages to the present in his piece, "Tradition and Innovation in the Common Law". His essay demonstrates the capacity for evolution through tradition demonstrated by British common law over many centuries. He opens wit Blackstone's memorable late eighteenth century image of the English law as a Georgianised gothic castle of redundant though picturesque battlements and bright warm daily living quarters. Tradition and diversity 
Lynne Chatterton, gastronomer from Italy and Australia, describes some of the frightening agricultural, manufacturing and retailing practices and trends undermining traditional high quality foods based on season and region in her piece, "Tradition and Culture in Food and Gastronomy". She underlines how Modernist "improvements" to traditional foods had often left them as almost unrecogniseable industrial products retaining little food value.
Dr Khaled Azzam, Director of The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, writes on "Tradition and the Architecture of Islam", providing some fascinating background to the sacred in Islamic architecture and its expression in the very material world of building and construction of urban space. Azzam gives a compelling look at a living culture in which the sacred was held to be present in all human activities.
Alexander Stoddart, sculptor (above right), provides a stimulating and provocative argument on the "Hidden Diversity in Traditional Art", arguing passionately for a better informed critique of the place of public sculpture in today's city against the incursions of Modernism.
Buildings & places
Robert Adam, architect and principal of Robert Adam Architects, argues in "Traditional Architecture: Why Communities Need It" the necessity of traditional architecture. His argument is based on survey findings on attitudes to housing, in order to illustrate the preferences for traditional over Modernist housing types among the broad range of consumers, as well as research material by the Popular Housing Group published Kerb Appeal, which demonstrates the British public's continued affection for traditional design.
Léon Krier (right, on the podium), the influential architect and urban theorist, reflects on "Traditional Urbanism", illustrating the beauty and utility of newly planned traditional urban spaces. Krier argues that tradition was modernity, whereas traditionalism was not, rueing the Modernist's "generalised counter-intuitive approach to construction," and emphasising the room for development in new traditional architecture.
Philosopher Professor Hans Kolstad philosopher at the University of Norway, closes the book with "The Dynamics of Nature in Buildings". Kolstad argues that much had been lost from human capacities for expression and feeling with the arrival of blocky, rigid Modernist domestic urban architecture in Scandinavia and elsewhere.
Subscription
The publication of Tradition Today has been supported by the generosity of INTBAU members, whose names are recorded in the front of the book.
The value of this resource on traditional architecture and tradition is endorsed in the foreword by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales, patron of INTBAU. The book will add value to the library of resources on traditional architecture and tradition in general, linking the names of the subscribers with the book and the values it promotes.
Special introductory website offer
This elegantly composed and printed book consisting of 160 pages is normally priced at GBP 29.50. However, we are pleased to offer a special new, keener pricing for website visitors:
UK
Europe
Rest of World:
To get your copy of the book, please pay online, or contact Dr Matthew Hardy in London for details of other ways to pay.
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