Building blocks: BLDGBLOG appears in print

Los Angeles – If ever there were a blog that made perfect sense as a book, it is Geoff Manaugh’s BLDGBLOG. Since 2004, Manaugh has been writing passionately, articulately and knowledgably about, he says, ‘only the things that interested me’ – namely, ‘architectural conjecture, urban speculation and landscape futures’.

The blog, like the best online writing, defies categorisation and doesn’t recognise academic or journalistic constraints. Manaugh simply writes about what he cares about and, in doing so, draws others into the conversation. This is how blogging is creating new forms of writing and why books based on blogs can and do work. The book both replicates and expands on BLDGBLOG’s content to date, allowing the reader to enjoy Manaugh’s insights and observations in print form.

Aptly, the book is being published the same month that the world lost that great urban theorist, J. G. Ballard. Manaugh has stated that he was reading a lot of Ballard around the time that he started the blog, and that the great man’s meditations on urbanisation are an influence. Manaugh and BLDGBLOG have happily picked up the mantel.