In this novel, noted contemporary science fiction writer Mark von Schlegell imagines architecture in the year 2090 through the character Henries Ickles, Los Angeles’s most misunderstood info-architect. Technological, environmental and social catastrophes have changed the meanings of culture, nature, and landscape forever. But in what remains of the international urban scene, architecture still refuses to admit it hasn’t been modern since the early 20th century. In the fifth book from the Critical Practice series, von Schlegell puts the scifi back in notions of “speculative aesthetics.” A collection of interconnected comical stories set in New Los Angeles, Danish Expansion, Nieuw Nieuw Amsterdam and 1970s St. Louis, Ickles, Etc. explores the future of architectural practice in light of developments in climatology, quasicrystalography, hyper-contemporary art, time travel, and the EGONET. With artwork by Louise Lawler. Following New Distopia, this is von Shlegell’s second novel to be published by Sternberg.
Edited by Nikolaus Hirsch & Markus Miessen.
Softcover, 172 pages, 9 color pages, 4 1/4 x 6 inches, Sternberg Press, January 2015.