All booked up for the death of an architect

Given architects’ fascination with death, the publication of a new book on the relationship between death and architects should go down a treat. The book’s publicity laments that: ‘death is a taboo subject in a society where people are patho-logically fearful of reminders of their own mortality, who see death not as a defining moment in the human condition, but as something to be sanitised and pushed to the edges of con-sciousness and subsequently, the fringes of the town and city.’ Monument Builders: Modern Architecture and Death is written by Edwin Heathcote and will be published by Academy Editions on 4 February.