ABSTRACT
This chapter takes the reader on a journey through Reyner Banham's writings, from 1960 to 1985. It looks at landscapes and the technological ambitions of the early 1960s, the energy crisis of the 1970s and the shift in policies that occurred in the 1980s. Banham was fascinated with the possibilities of environmental control through the use of devices and gizmos. Banham's fascination with the technological element in architecture and the history of its cultural impacts, allowed him to write The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment. Banham's definition of environmentalist included the capacity to change the environment, to transform it so that it becomes well-tempered for human inhabitation. Banham made the case for the do-it-yourself culture that thrived in America. Banham's positioning as part of the anti-Picturesque faction would be contradicted by his later works Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies and Scenes in America Deserta.
